There’s another thread addressing whether or not the CIA is talking out of their ass about putting the nation on high alert due to the perceived possibility of another attack.
But my question is this: assume they really do have intelligence about another attack, and it is narrowed down to where it will probably be. Should this information be made public, or should they have done what they did and put out a general announcement, thereby putting everyone on guard?
My own theory is that there is indeed information about a real threat at specified locations, but this cannot be announced to the public because it would become clear to the perpetrators just where the sources came from (eg, a phone tap or something), and then that avenue of information would immediately be closed. But does the risk of this outweigh not telling the target or the public at large?
(As an aside, I would guess that as a practical matter the CIA would in fact give a confidential alert of some sort to the target, but do their best to make sure that it was not made available to the media or the general public.)
So the debate is: assuming there is a real known threat and where, should the public be told or not?
It reminds me of the old saying, “Ignorance is bliss.” I think that the government has known about the possibility of other events happening, but kept it a secret so to prevent a widespread panic. I’ve seen what happens when people are told something that could cause harm, and its not pretty. Also, consider what would happen if the government DOES tell people. Some yahoo will be calling in threats daily, just to disrupt the daily lives of other people. There are people trained to deal with terrorism, so I say let them do their jobs and let us live.
so basically, no, the government should not tell the US citizens of these “threats.”
Well, looking at the past record of the “evil-doers,” it seems that they try to complete what they did not finish. For example, the WTC. There was a past attempt to bomb it which was not completely done. So they finished it off last month. I suspect LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) is still unfinished biz because of a failed attempt to bomb it at the end of 1999. See http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/07/05/millennium.plot.trial/