"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

[ttocs.livejournal.com]

Yet we walk a very fine line between overseeing what all the government is sticking its fingers into, and things being publicized uneccessarily.

I'm not sure where the lines need to be drawn, though I am sure that ratings based news is NOT the way to provide any of it.