NYT, pg1, lead story: New Qaeda Activity Said to Be Major Factor in Alert

[DeepModem Mom]

New Qaeda Activity Is Said to Be Major Factor in Alert
By DOUGLAS JEHL and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

Published: August 4, 2004


WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 - Senior government officials said Tuesday that new intelligence pointing to a current threat of a terrorist attack on financial targets in New York and possibly in Washington - not just information about surveillance on specific buildings over the years - was a major factor in the decision over the weekend to raise the terrorism alert level.

The officials said the separate stream of intelligence, which they had not previously disclosed, reached the White House only late last week and was part of a flow that the officials said had prompted them to act urgently in the last few days....


***

A senior White House official who mentioned the new stream of intelligence in an interview refused to say anything more about its source or content....But senior federal intelligence and law enforcement officials also described the intelligence as important. They said it had reached the White House last Friday and strongly reinforced the sense of alarm prompted by the separate flow of information that was arriving at the same time via the Central Intelligence Agency from Pakistan and that was based on information culled from seized computer disks that contained detailed case reports of reconnaissance conducted on buildings in Manhattan, Newark and Washington in 2000 and 2001.

In providing new details about those case reports, senior government officials described them for the first time as discrete documents, each at least 20 pages long and devoted to a particular target, and perhaps most intriguingly, they said, written in "perfect English."...

***

Though the case reports do appear to have been completed before the Sept. 11 attacks, as Bush administration officials first acknowledged on Monday, some of the computer files appear to have been updated or accessed more recently. One was a file modified in January and including a photograph of a building, a senior White House official said....The officials would not identify the building that appears in the recently modified file, except to say that it was not one of the five that have been named....The officials also acknowledged that they had not been able to assess the significance of the fact that the computer file had been modified. Such a modification could have meant that the file was updated with newly taken surveillance photographs but might simply have meant that the file had recently been opened and closed.

The White House officials spoke in a lengthy interview arranged at the request of The New York Times in which they offered a detailed accounting of the decision-making that led to the terrorist alert....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/politics/04terror.html

[althecat]

1. Sounds like they got rapped on the knuckles for yesterday's efforts

spin control

[ixion]

2. ah yes... the old info-not-previously-released tactic

that's a classic... probably in the top ten in the neocon playbook.

Nice try, pugs. :eyes:

[saigon68]

3. THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING

THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING

[LynneSin]

10. WOLFWOLFWOLFWOLFWOLFWOLFWOLFWOLFWOLFWOLFWOLF

WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF

Seriously!!

Don't you believe me??

[DoktorGreg]

14. In other news a plot was uncovered

It seems that Japan has secret plans to bomb Pearl Harbor.

[Ms. Clio]

21. written in perfect English n/t

[Generator]

26. Yeah well that exempts * must be Condi

Suspicious? Nah, everything this misadminstration does is above board.

[DoktorGreg]

34. So the terrorists are stealing Bush's plans for world domination??

I cant believe I just wrote that. EOM

[Tight_rope]

32. I'M SO AFRAID OF THE "BIG BAD WOLF"!

NOT!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Another lame excuse

Hmm....they didn't buy it....let's add some more lies to the first ones....

[0007]

5. Jose Padilla sez he was sent by al Qaeda to blow up apartment houses

with dirty suitcase bombs. When will these alerts be given to the American people?


Jose Padilla

[truthisfreedom]

6. yawn. wake me up when Kerry is in office!

i'm being bored to death by this manipulative administration.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. The new intelligence that they got at the WH on Friday

was that the Dems had a great convention and that Kerry was leading W in the polls.

[farmbo]

8. They even trotted out Judith Miller (on Hardball) to circle the wagons...

... around Bush.

She's gone from cheer leading for Chalabi last year to cheer leading for Tom Ridge (read: Bush) today.

Will the NYT have to do another front page mea culpa for her work on this issue as well??

When are they going to re-assign her to the obit page where she can't run the Times into another credibility iceberg?

[Justice]

9. Problem is Whether or Not That Is True, Credibility is Undermined

What bothers me most about these "the sky is falling" and then days and days of explanation and retraction is that it undermines the credibility of the government. These warnings should be explained by someone in a non-partisan way, with no plugs for the president or the the "party". They should be announced in context - making clear they are passing along information - perhpas they should be done in prime time so that more people hear the information directly, instead of filtered thru the press.

People will be so turned off that they won't listen when they need to.

[John_H]

11. Too Late: The leakers ( not the dems, natch) already raised questions

They had the warnings, then the leak, then even the worst whores did stories on the questionableness of the alert.

Now, will the Dems sieze this opportunity or say, "Should I grab my other ankle now, Mr Rove?"

[leesa]

12. Lies, lies, lies, lies...and more lies. The NYT, like so many individuals

and media during this nightmare have ruined their reputation for all time.

[Shadder]

13. heh

"In providing new details about those case reports, senior government officials described them for the first time as discrete documents, each at least 20 pages long and devoted to a particular target, and perhaps most intriguingly, they said, written in "perfect English."..."

Well, I guess that clearly eliminates * as the author..........

[goclark]

30. Perfect English?

That raises more questions than it answers for me.

Are they saying that it was terrorists from another country?

Or, an American/English person that happens to be a terrorist?

Why do those words stand out for me too?

One thing for sure, the Chimp didn't write those words --LOL.

[thecrow]

15. New is old, up is down, lies are truth, war is peace...

The officials also acknowledged that they had not been able to assess the significance of the fact that the computer file had been modified. Such a modification could have meant that the file was updated with newly taken surveillance photographs but might simply have meant that the file had recently been opened and closed.

Can they possibly do more to confuse the public?
Maybe the file was updated, maybe it was just opened and closed?
They are basing this on a MODIFICATION to a file??

Now, I believe this country is under a constant threat of being attacked by any number of terra-ists but I am wondering about this "new" one.
How long will this alert last?
What are the criteria for it to end? An attack?
What if they are securing the wrong buildings?
With the big security force focused on these five buildings what if the terra-ists move on a plan that they have NOT discovered at some other location?
Then what?
Will DHS say oooops?
And with all this shuffling around the new DNI (interesting that... DENY) what the heck is an innocent average citizen to think?

[fob]

19. Uh, if you just open and close it without changing the date won't change

it will temporarily, but upon closing reverts back to the last modified date not last opened date. At least on the most common programs in use, Word/Excel etc. If it was modified how would they know? Was this a copy of the original document and that was on there too?

You got it though, confusion reigns supreme. Remember you can't spell What the Fuck without W!

[Mithras61]

22. Not if you open it...

and then do a save & close. Even if you haven't changed anything, the modified date changes.

[fob]

24. But they didn't say Opened, Saved, and Closed, they said

opened and closed. If they lack that basic understanding of common programs, why are they commenting on this shit at all?

Theory tested: I opened, saved, and closed a word document and an excel spreadsheet. The Word doc retained the original date, the excel spreadsheet changed to today's date. So what if one of the investigators went back to look at this info and it was a spreadsheet and saved it before exiting the program, now he passes it back through the proper channels and someone notices the date is POST-9/11/01 and well you know the rest.

[Rose Siding]

16. Meanwhile

"unnamed officials" are telling USA Today that nothing indicated any sign of an attack-

WASHINGTON — The major U.S. financial institutions identified in a recently disclosed al-Qaeda surveillance operation are not believed to be at imminent risk of attack, two federal law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation said Tuesday.

Although U.S. authorities continue to analyze a raft of detailed information outlining terrorist reconnaissance work at five financial centers in New York, Newark, N.J., and Washington, D.C., the material does not point to an existing plan of attack, said the law enforcement officials, who asked not to be identified because the matter remains under investigation.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-08-03-ridge-usat_x.htm

[GoBlue]

17. Oh how convenient

The Bu__sh__ just keeps on coming. And the NYT is there to take a big bite. UMMM good.

[gulfcoastliberal]

18. NYT = the CNN of print media

Maybe they have army or CIA psyops writing their articles.

[Jacobin]

20. Her name is Judith Miller

[Media_Lies_Daily]

23. Thanks for another steaming, aromatic, pants-load, NYT.

[The Magistrate]

25. This Is Mere Barnyard By-Product, Ma'am

They have nothing but the hope of distorting the political processes of this election year, and of filling the populace with panic. That is all that is behind this "alert."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[Generator]

27. I've got to add that your average person or harried mom or worker

doesn't have the time/take the time to scan every detail. The headline makes it sound like its legit. Then you read the whole thing and it's still the 3-4yr old info, only one file was either updated-not sure-or open and closed in January. That's it.

Pathetic and misleading headline. Doing BushCo's work now NYT?

[DeepModem Mom]

29. In defense of NYT, they, and WP, broke story yesterday that intel was old

...but I agree that this story (and its headline), and similar stories in and out of the print media, could give the terror warning credence in the minds of many.

Here is yesterday's NYT story:

"Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/politics/03intel.html

[gristy]

35. The NY Times should not be defended over this,

regardless of what they reported yesterday. In fact, the about-face they took since yesterday must be condemned. It is so very, very clear the some folks at the Times got a phone call or two and were told in no uncertain terms that their reporting was "inaccurate" and that there "really is evidence of an active terror cell in the U.S... we just can't show you the evidence... trust us..."

Here we go again. Last time it was lies over reasons for war against Iraq. This time it is lies in order to instill fear in the American population and (they hope) pump up the evil one's polling numbers. Will the media and Americans ever wake up????

[DeepModem Mom]

36. You have a point --

I was impressed that the Times requested a meeting with officials ("The White House officials spoke in a lengthy interview arranged at the request of The New York Times in which they offered a detailed accounting of the decision-making that led to the terrorist alert"), but the article as presented falls short. And, no doubt, the Times received a phone call.

[lottie244]

28. key words: "or accessed recently"

I said this yesterday that the updates probably amounted to recent dates of access probably by the Pakistanis themselves.

[DeepModem Mom]

31. Further interesting from the article, about that "perfect English" --

"The author of the reports was 'obviously someone who has lived an extensive period of time in the West, exceptionally professional, exceptionally meticulous,' a senior intelligence official said in a telephone interview. 'Anyone who thinks that these terrorists are a bunch of ne'er-do-wells, if 9/11 didn't convince them, these case reports would convince them.'"

[Tight_rope]

33. "perfect English."...it was coded...Bush can't read "perfect english"!

What a smart move by the terrorist.