seanbonner: "Imminent" Terrorist Attack?

October 12, 2004

"Imminent" Terrorist Attack?

I have a friend with a job that makes certain Police Department memos things he needs to take note of. This is the one he got this morning. I've known this person for a very long time and I'm vouching for it's authenticity:

Subject: FW: Terrorist Attack on US Soil is Imminent Importance: High
LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE

At the meeting of the Southern District of the Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council (ATAC) that was held yesterday in Houston, US Attorney Michael Shelby informed the group that a terrorist attack of 09/11/01 proportions was going to be carried out on US soil within the next 6 weeks.

Mr. Shelby stated that on 09/13/04, US Attorney General John Ashcroft had a conference call with all 93 US Attorneys, an event which is extremely rare. The US Attorneys were informed that without a doubt an attack was going to be perpetrated in the US within the next 6 weeks, prior to the elections. Mr. Shelby urgently requested that all law enforcement be aware of any situation that may be out of the ordinary and report the activity immediately. Mr. Shelby also requested that we get the word out to patrol officers and detectives to talk to their informants and report anything odd or remotely suspicious. Mr. Shelby ended this warning by saying that unless we get a bit of "luck" and the attack can be detected and prevented, that another attack of 9/11 scale will be carried out.

Please disseminate to all of your law enforcement contacts ASAP.

New Mexico Investigative Support Center

Direct Line: 505-541-7000
Fax: 505-541-7006

John E. Vinson, Director

Does anyone else want to know why he's so positive an attack is going to take place, and if they know enough to say it's "imminent" how come they don't know enough to warn people of specifics, or better yet stop it?

~~Anyone have any further info on this?~~ Looks like CNN has some further info:

Sen. Dayton closes Capitol Hill office over terror worries
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Democratic senator said he will close his Capitol Hill office until after the November 2 election, fearing a possible terrorist attack that could harm his staff or visitors.

Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota issued a statement Tuesday, citing a "top-secret intelligence report on our national security" provided to congressional members by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee.

"Based upon that information," Dayton wrote, "I have decided to close my office in the Russell Senate Office Building until after the upcoming election.

Posted by sean on October 12, 2004 03:26 PM | View blog reactions
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Comments

Why is he so certain an attack is imminent? Because clearly, Michael Shelby is an agent of Al-Qaeda! (Rumor is that they're going to attack the Lego World Trade Center.)

Posted by: Andy Baio on October 12, 2004 03:47 PM

Andy was trying to link to this:

http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/2

Posted by: Sean Bonner on October 12, 2004 03:54 PM

call me jaded, but sounds like more bush-led fear mongering to me.

the terrorists have won on every front. theres no need to attack us now and vindicate everything that gw stands for.

Posted by: tony on October 12, 2004 04:03 PM

but if it actually did happen, wouldn't that go against bush? since one of the only things that people can attribute to him as being a positive in his term is that we haven't gotten attacked a second time (wow, only one devistating attack due to incompetance!), so another attack on "his watch" should, theoretically, go in favor of kerry, since bush keeps saying it won't happen (again) when he's in office. it sounds like they're saying it's imminent and they can't do anything about it (but hope to get "lucky").

Posted by: steve on October 12, 2004 04:10 PM

Steve- no actually the Bush administration has made references to how the "terrorists won" in Spain after an attack there changed the popular opinion and the hardline, hard on terrorism govt was voted out.

Posted by: Sean Bonner on October 12, 2004 04:18 PM

Cryptome covered this memo back in late September and has a page with associated stories and comments, including mention of a denial by a Justice Department spokeman: http://cryptome.org/oct-surprise.htm

It's dismissed as a "pep talk"....

Posted by: Ken on October 12, 2004 04:22 PM

Remember, the best way to control you is to make you afraid.

Every time national politics turns to domestic affairs, guess what happens? They dig up a new reason to raise the alert level to distract people as much as they can.

So guess what the topic of the next debate is tomorrow? I guess it's time for alert level ELMO!

http://www.geekandproud.net/terror/

Posted by: -lc- on October 12, 2004 04:32 PM

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
You got carried away with too many sources we're supposed to trust but that you cant name. Who is Sean Bonner? Where does he live? What work does he do? Who is his "friend"? Where does he live? What sort of vague work description leaves him access to the memo? And finally, who is "Another known blogger"? Come on.. I'm even another known blogger you clowns. If the first person reading this had a brain, it would never have been posted again.

Posted by: Jon on October 12, 2004 05:06 PM

I should clarify my previous comment, which was intended as a reply to the following.
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/12/law_enforcement_memo.html
You'll see that forwarding will help a rumour look more and more like.. a rumour.

Posted by: Jon on October 12, 2004 05:27 PM

why would this memo be a pretty much verbatim copy of this http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040923-050109-9138r.htm sep 23 article?

Posted by: Rik on October 12, 2004 06:15 PM

"but if it actually did happen, wouldn't that go against bush?"

I would argue that no, quite the opposite. A terrorist attack before the election would most likely swing undecideds into a vote FOR bush rather than against. Remember, it is the republicans who are using Terror as a policy to get re-elected. A terrorist attack would be the perfect platform to instigate a swift revenge attack in Afghanistan or elsewhere, and then Bush would claim that he is the man for the job. The voting public will eat it up because they'll be terrified, and that little box next to his name will get a big fat tick.

Posted by: Sean M on October 12, 2004 06:38 PM

I'd have to agree that this is a bunch of fearmongering. Look around, the Order of The Chimp is wanting you to believe that if you don't vote for him, you will surely die. There's so much panic and fear that it's about all you can do to remember that there are only two candidates and this is a "close race", right? Wake up, get real.

Posted by: Brian on October 12, 2004 07:15 PM

VERY likely fear mongering via Bush admin. At this point, I wouldn't be suprised if it was just the Bush admin trying to bolster the election.

By saying they want to attack us so bad before the election, it's the Bush admin's little way of saying the terrorists want to attack us because they want us to vote for Kerry. Nevermind that the terrorists know if they attack us right now it would likely do NOTHING... everyone will be as polarized as ever in this country.

I think they'll attack us AFTER the election if Bush is elected like they did before. If Kerry is elected, they'll do a wait and see approach and maybe not attack again if our policies/diplomacy/intelligence in the Middle East and our homeland improve.

Germany is already saying it may rethink its position on troop deployment in Iraq if Kerry wins. That radically changes the dynamic there too.

Once you factor Germany, our need for healthy oil supplies, Israel, etc... this get too complicated for many and I can't get into the specific dynamics right now...but one thing is certain, we will be radically safer with Kerry in office than we are with Bush.

That said, maybe we'll get a terror attack anyway...

Posted by: Cowicide on October 12, 2004 07:24 PM

Oh, criminy, here we go. The October Non-Surprise. They wouldn't even need to pull a false-flag op (as 9/11 is turning out so clearly to have been.) They'd just have to rig up some half-way convincing evidence of SOME ATTACK that THEIR "PATRIOT" Act "PREVENTED"...and BOOM! Suddenly everyone just forgets our pResident's nine-mile-long list of criminal offences and votes him and his sickening totalitarian crew in, and without the election fraud BS of '00 they would be able to claim full mandate. No-one can know how much I dearly hope this DOES NOT HAPPEN. Whether for oil, or jumpstarting Armageddon or JUST FOR THEIR SICK THRILLS they'll do whatever they want then, and it will involve lots of death and invite severe catastrophe, best-case scenario is that they don't get around to it but everyone stays nervous wrecks ANYWAY just because they keep THREATENING imminent attacks, whether our own on foreign soil or keep up the "orange-ish red alerts" about threatened attacks on ours.

That said, if they have to BULLSHIT us, I hope it's not with an actual phony attack which the Spookatorium already has shown it is willing to pull - and no, I am not just talking about 9/11 here, but Operation Northwoods in '62. Obviously a phony "prevented" one is preferable to a phony "REAL" one. I'd like to have a government that didn't fuck around playing chess with human beings and cities, but I guess I never will.

Of what possible purpose to "Islamic terrorists" would it be to attack us before the election? Wouldn't they WANT us to get our chance to oust Bush? I mean, come on. REALITY check. There's no conceivable advantage in it for them, assuming "al-Qaeda" isn't either complete fiction or a real group of Saudi mercenaries as opposed to representatives of some extreme form of Islam that twists a chapter or two of the Koran to suit their desires like the "Christian Soldiers" do with the Bible.

The only thing that would make sense about all this other than Bush black-ops is if any actual terrorists - which are surely around now, even if not many were before - really ARE afraid of Kerry becoming our leader...being he's not a drooling, coked-out chickenhawk with a transponder in his ear directing his speeches because he can't even read much less talk.

Posted by: Monde on October 13, 2004 01:52 AM

What if it's actually true, though? Remember the recent attack in Egypt on Israelis was preceded by an Israeli government warning that terrorists would likely attack the resort. And it happened. Of course, I work in NYC, so maybe I'm just oversensitive.

Posted by: Andy on October 13, 2004 06:03 AM

Remember the recent election in Afghanistan? Actual women were voting, and there were no attacks that I heard of. Women doing anything other than serving men and remaining totally covered up in a big black tent is a HUGE deal to those guys.

I think we are safe from them until after the election here, then they will wait and see what we do. See, they didn't attack us because they "hate our freedom" that's just idiotic, and if it were true, in the words of David Cross; "Holland would be toast".
They hate what we have done and are doing in the world. They got really angry when we put a military base in Saudi Arabia, now Bush wants to put 14 more in Iraq. Just think how that will rile them up.

If it's a super paranoid Bush/neocon fearmonger/hatemonger situation, then we may be in trouble in more ways than one. They could call off the election here. That is the worst case scenario to me. Staging an attack, and taking away the one chance we had to save our country before it went over a cliff.

Posted by: Lorika on October 13, 2004 09:35 AM

Gentlemen,
All the above scrap is nothing but government's distruction of public opinion from the real crimes of Bushites fascist regime: illegal occupation of Iraq, perpetration/provoking of 9/11 attacks, establishing Bolshevik dictatorship in America, threats against sovereign Iran, collaboration with national-zionist terrorist state of Israel, etc. etc. etc.
Beware of the real Axis of Evil behind the scene...

Posted by: Sam on October 14, 2004 03:05 PM

The terrorists are going to attack the US regardless of the elections. They are just plain anti-American and they hate what we stand for.

9-11 was not a significant day...

All they can understand is death and destruction--dying while serving Allah is significant to them--not November 2nd and whether or not Kerry or Bush gets elected.

Posted by: Lori on November 1, 2004 10:59 AM

TTN MIKE Y

Ok, I know it really does seem like Chicago is it's own state (and it wouldn't break my heart if we seceeded) but I think you

mean "Illinois State Senate."

Posted by: Timy on November 18, 2004 06:20 PM