Were airplanes really in imminent danger last week?

[Hack&Lube]

They were in the preliminary stages of setting up for a dry-run. It was not an imminent attack whatsoever and I don't see any news reports indicating otherwise.

Liquid explosives can be anything from the classic TNT and nitroglycerin you see in Westerns (where they tiptoe around with a bottle of clear liquid to stop it from exploding from agitation) to stuff you can make in your kitchen sink from common household chemicals. Officials suspected explosives made out of stuff like acetone and peroxide like stuff you can get in cleaners, disinfectants, nail polish remover, etc.

The real threat is from the one individual guy that doesn't participate in cells, internet, meetings, etc. and so can't be infiltrated or detected. These guys were caught because it was a big group and operation and they always want to go out with a big bang and hit a dozen planes simultaneously.

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

They were in the preliminary stages of setting up for a dry-run. It was not an imminent attack whatsoever and I don't see any news reports indicating otherwise.

Just because the news agencies haven't reported it doesn't mean it wasn't. And why take the chance. If they recieved word from the upper terrorist planners, I am sure it could have been implemented in mere days.

Most justice systems work on the basis that once a crime has been comitted, especially serious ones, they are arrested for it.
Law enforcement doesn't wait until a more serious crime is about to be commited if they have information that it will likely happen. If someone is planning a murder, all evidence they need to collect is proof that the person was taking the attempts to carry out the deed. They don't wait until 5 minutes before the action to arrest the person. Come on people.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

Just because the news agencies haven't reported it doesn't mean it wasn't. And why take the chance. If they recieved word from the upper terrorist planners, I am sure it could have been implemented in mere days.

Most justice systems work on the basis that once a crime has been comitted, especially serious ones, they are arrested for it.
Law enforcement doesn't wait until a more serious crime is about to be commited if they have information that it will likely happen. If someone is planning a murder, all evidence they need to collect is proof that the person was taking the attempts to carry out the deed. They don't wait until 5 minutes before the action to arrest the person. Come on people.

That's the thing, the UK authorities had already waited for months as they kept tabs and spied on the group. They contrasted this with U.S. methods in which the slightest whiff of trouble, they will go out and arrest the guys immediately.

The UK operation was already many many months in planning and waiting, much more than American authorities would have done since they wanted to catch as many as possible.

They were, according to American standards "waiting until 5 minutes before the action to arrest the person".

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

That's the thing, the UK authorities had already waited for months as they kept tabs and spied on the group. They contrasted this with U.S. methods in which the slightest whiff of trouble, they will go out and arrest the guys immediately.

The UK operation was already many many months in planning and waiting, much more than American authorities would have done since they wanted to catch as many as possible.

They were, according to American standards "waiting until 5 minutes before the action to arrest the person".

So it could have been an immenet threat then.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

So it could have been an immenet threat then.

Yes it was an imminent threat. We're not debating the semantics between imminent threat and imminent attack here

[Barnes]

My parents were at Heathrow the day this went down and they told me that night when they called after their flight out, that some of them were airport employees. All access pass >>>> airplane ticket.

Despite some news reports there was NO panicing or mayhem and it was not bad at all in the airport. Longer lineups, clear plastic bags and full garbage cans were the only differences between that day and a normal day.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by calculoso

You're assuming DHS knew about it. Whatever I read (or maybe heard on QR77) stated that DHS wasn't informed about it until after the arrests were made, so not to give any clues that the British were onto them.

Still looking for what I read...

Found it...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...225453,00.html

"So as not to derail the British round-up, Chertoff had to wait until the early hours of Thursday morning after all the London arrests were made before notifying U.S. airports of the threat, say senior DHS officals."

(Chertoff is the US Homeland Security Secretary)

(Edit: Linked already by Transplant in the "Plot to blow up planes foiled" thread)

[octothorp]

Obviously this was a serious threat, but in terms of how imminent it was, everything seems to go back to information gathered by Pakistan. Pakistan is receiving a lot of heat from the West lately in regards to the fact that it was aiding nucleur programs in both Iran and North Korea, and needs to do everything it can to be seen as an ally of the US. And clearly after the alert was raised, Pakistan was very vocal about their own role in thwarting the attacks. Given the fact that Musharraf isn't afraid to lie to the west (as he did in denying his knowledge of nucleur proliferation to Iran and North Korea), I don't particularly trust him or his military dictatorship government. He's playing both sides right now. Some pundits have spoken of the timing of this planned attack as being significant to Al Qaeda, trying to steal some of the spotlight back from Hezbollah. But it's also important for Pakistan to maintain some of the spotlight as a major US ally, which they can do by reminding the west about the continued threat of Al Qaeda; and the more drastic, more immenent this threat looks, the better it is for Pakistan. I don't really have any complaints about the reaction of British authorities: better to over-react than under-react. But at the same time, there's nothing wrong with, in hindsight, questioning how credible and immenent the threat really was.

[Staypuft]

Frankly I'm happy that things like this are happening even if there was no "imminent threat". Good lord I'd rather the governments be too careful than not careful enough.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by calculoso

Found it...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...225453,00.html

"So as not to derail the British round-up, Chertoff had to wait until the early hours of Thursday morning after all the London arrests were made before notifying U.S. airports of the threat, say senior DHS officals."

(Chertoff is the US Homeland Security Secretary)

(Edit: Linked already by Transplant in the "Plot to blow up planes foiled" thread)

Isn't that saying DHS knew, but didn't inform airports until after the arrests?

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Isn't that saying DHS knew, but didn't inform airports until after the arrests?

You are correct. My memory's recollection of the quote and the actual quote was a little different.

That said, it was also the reason of why the threat level didn't elevate until late too - would have been too much warning to those who were arrested.

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by calculoso

Found it...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...225453,00.html

"So as not to derail the British round-up, Chertoff had to wait until the early hours of Thursday morning after all the London arrests were made before notifying U.S. airports of the threat, say senior DHS officals."

(Chertoff is the US Homeland Security Secretary)

(Edit: Linked already by Transplant in the "Plot to blow up planes foiled" thread)

Uh huh, so why wasn't military and law enforcement notified prior to that? They didn't have to release details, they could have elevated and said theat possible air traffic.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald

Uh huh, so why wasn't military and law enforcement notified prior to that? They didn't have to release details, they could have elevated and said theat possible air traffic.

And you know for a fact that they weren't?

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Staypuft

Frankly I'm happy that things like this are happening even if there was no "imminent threat". Good lord I'd rather the governments be too careful than not careful enough.

I don't think you'll get much argument there, but if they had held off a bit longer perhaps would they now be holding the remaining (missing) suspects?

We'll never know.

You have to trust that all parties did what they thought was right, but this article raises the spectre that perhaps there were other alternatives in the timing.

Originally Posted by calculoso

That said, it was also the reason of why the threat level didn't elevate until late too - would have been too much warning to those who were arrested.

I agree with that. From what little I know, it sounds like the actual arrests were performed very well.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Bingo

They made the arrests because that's there job.
They told the public because that was a request out of 911.

Governments have done a great job in foiling the above plan, a Jersey issue, the Canadian arrests, and a few others in the past few years, and now people blame them for scaring us?

Tough crowd.

And this one is a conspiracy to scare so broad that it involves not only the US, but Britain and Pakistan?

I think the anti-government bent on this site is seriously spiralling out of control.

The way I see it is that the problem is in how this terrorism is allowed to affect our daily lives and how the reporting of this information is delivered with the intent to scare people. It works too, whenever I flip to CNN going to The Score they have something on that shows people being scared.

As far as I'm concerned, I have as much chance of being affected by terrorism on an airplane as I do being affected by a crash not caused by terrorism. I don't want to have to change my life because some people are trying to scare me.

[habernac]

As far as I'm concerned, I have as much chance of being affected by terrorism on an airplane as I do being affected by a crash not caused by terrorism. I don't want to have to change my life because some people are trying to scare me.

At the same time, is it going to kill you to sit through an extra security check or two? I'd rather be safe than sorry.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by kermitology

I don't want to have to change my life because some people are trying to scare me.

Isn't theire a quote from bin Laden saying one of his goals is to shake up the US people (or "The West") so they feel the same daily fears as people in the middle east?

I can't find th quote, but if that is one of his goals I think he is successful.

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by calculoso

And you know for a fact that they weren't?

Too much information.

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by calculoso

That said, it was also the reason of why the threat level didn't elevate until late too - would have been too much warning to those who were arrested.

Too much information.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by habernac

As far as I'm concerned, I have as much chance of being affected by terrorism on an airplane as I do being affected by a crash not caused by terrorism. I don't want to have to change my life because some people are trying to scare me.

At the same time, is it going to kill you to sit through an extra security check or two? I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I think the problem is that we spend way too much time, money and resources worrying about terrorism.

Even in 2001, Terrorism deaths only matched about 1 month of car crash deaths. Terrorism is not even in the top 10 of un-natural death causes. Essentially every month is a september 11th on the highways, and no one seems very scared or worried.

Wouldn't all the money and time put into terrorism fighting and prevention be better applied to increases in auto safety where a substantial amount of lives could be saved.

If the government and media didn't focus so much attention on terrorisms, perhaps we could have elected a government that actually cared about real issues that actually effect people's every day lives.