"Might" does not make right

[unixronin]

"The FBI has warned police that al-Qaida cells might use fuel trucks as weapons to attack Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, but officials stressed Thursday the warning was based on uncorroborated intelligence."

Yeah.  "Might."  A completely uncorroborated, unsubstantiated assertion.  And the Earth "might" be about to be eaten by a giant mutant space goat.  What security threat level is this -- lilac?  Teal?  Burnt sepia?

If you don't have anything to back it up except some analyst's unsubstantiated speculation, if you have nothing you can even give a reliability level on, this isn't security; this is scaremongering and crying wolf.  But then, a lot of it is about scaremongering, isn't it?  Scared people do what authority figures tell them to do.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought about a lot of things on 9/11. We kept our daughter home from school that day just because we didn't know what else might be in the works, and upon hearing from the friend in SF who woke up to F18s with live missiles on the wing pylons overflying his apartment, we made contingency plans for him to evac to Berkeley, rendezvous there with another friend, and then both of them evac over the Altamont to us in Tracy. Between the lot of us, we'd have been equipped to fight a small war if need be.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

hehe, i know what ya mean there. i have a decent arsenal myself.