Terror Threat Hyped to Strong-arm Congress?

Photo from source, RawStory.com

Now this is interesting. Do you remember, right before the Congressional recess in August, how the big news was capitulation by Democrats, to allow Bush extended spying powers? Do you also remember the constant buzz of an impending terror threat?

Surprise! It was bogus. So, I guess I have a good reason to be immediately skeptical of "the boys who cried wolf," next time they sound the alarm.

[Excerpt]

Republicans pushed 'bogus' terror threat to expand FISA, lawmaker says

. . .In the legislative session's final week, news emerged of an impending plot by foreign terrorists to attack the US Capitol, and Republicans pointed to the reports as justification to expand the administration's powers.

"That specific intelligence claim, it turned out, was bogus; the intelligence agencies knew that," Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said at a forum on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act organized by the Center for American Progress in Washington. However, lawmakers did not learn of the claim's unreliability until "the day" they approved the FISA expansion, she said.

Read the whole story at: RawStory.com

Chertoff: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Excuse me for feeling skeptical. This plot may very well have been as nasty and as ready-to-go as Michael Chertoff says, but how can we know? Time after time, we hear some huge terrorist plot has been--barely--thwarted; only to find out later (with much less fanfare) that it was pretty much a load of hooey. So, just like the boy who cried wolf, when the crisis is real, will anybody believe it?

[Excerpt]

'Plot Would Have Killed Thousands'

Terrorists who had planned to detonate gel-based explosives on U.S.-bound flights from London last August would have achieved mass devastation, according to new information from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in an exclusive interview with ABC News.

"I think that the plot, in terms of its intent, was looking at devastation on a scale that would have rivaled 9/11," Chertoff told ABC's Pierre Thomas. "If they had succeeded in bringing liquid explosives on seven or eight aircraft, there could have been thousands of lives lost and an enormous economic impact with devastating consequences for international air travel."

Read on at: ABCNews.GO.com