Return-Path: <sentto-279987-3701-1004534152-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 31 Oct 2001 05:17:08 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 26517 invoked by uid 510); 31 Oct 2001 13:15:07 -0000 Received: from n34.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.84) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 31 Oct 2001 13:15:07 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-3701-1004534152-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.4.54] by n34.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 31 Oct 2001 13:15:52 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 31 Oct 2001 13:15:51 -0000 Received: (qmail 12778 invoked from network); 31 Oct 2001 13:15:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 31 Oct 2001 13:15:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta1 with SMTP; 31 Oct 2001 13:15:50 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id f9VDFxP11500 for iwar@onelist.com; Wed, 31 Oct 2001 05:15:59 -0800 Message-Id: <200110311315.f9VDFxP11500@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 05:15:59 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:Alert.Said.To.Be.Tied.In.Part.To.Monitoring.Of.Al.Qaeda] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit New York Times October 31, 2001 Alert Said To Be Tied In Part To Monitoring Of Al Qaeda By Philip Shenon and Don Van Natta Jr. WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 - The Bush administration said today that its latest nationwide warning of possible terrorist attacks resulted from credible intelligence sources, some of them connected to Osama bin Laden's network, Al Qaeda. Two senior law enforcement officials said the key intelligence was an electronic intercept overseas of at least one of Mr. bin Laden's associates speaking in code about an imminent attack on Americans in the United States or abroad. But they could offer no more information about the specifics of that intercept, the nature of the attacks or the potential targets. Today, the Canadian government said it had provided some of the intelligence that resulted in the alert. Tom Ridge, the director of homeland security, publicly described the nature of the intelligence for the first time today, telling reporters at the White House that "analysts have concluded that the sources were credible because of their connections with the terrorists we're trying to fight." "I think you can fairly assume that this information is related to Al Qaeda or bin Laden, or else we wouldn't have ramped it up," Mr. Ridge, referring to the nationwide alert issued Monday for possible attacks over the next week. In what is becoming a daily news conference by his office, Mr. Ridge said of the latest intelligence information suggesting new terrorism against Americans, "The decibel level was louder, and there were more sources." His explanations did not satisfy some lawmakers who met later in the day with Mr. Ridge on Capitol Hill and who criticized the administration over the decision to issue a stark public warning despite the lack of intelligence detail. Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, complained that "the American people are already at a high state of anxiety." Mr. Graham compared the situation to that of a doctor making a diagnosis of a disease without offering a treatment. "At a minimum when an increased threat announcement is made, there should be some solution offered of what a family can do to protect themselves," he said. About 18,000 state and local law- enforcement agencies were notified of the threat on Monday through a decades-old alert network known as the National Law-Enforcement Telecommunication System. But the local agencies were given no more information than the general public about where or how the terrorists might strike. The lack of detail in Monday's warning - and a similar terrorism alert on Oct. 11 - has confused and frustrated state and local law enforcement officials, who say they are at a loss to respond to such an unspecific warning. Mr. Ridge said he understood the frustration, saying: "If we had specific information about the type of weapon or a specific locations, this would have certainly been shared with the local or state officials." "Clearly, if it is community-specific, region-specific, weapon-specific, we would communicate that immediately," he added. "Unfortunately, we view this information as credible, but not specific." Mr. Ridge said that the administration faced a difficult decision on Monday over whether to issue the alert, which was made public by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Look, you get that kind of convergence of information from credible sources and you have two options," Mr. Ridge said. "You have an option to remain silent, or you have an option to have General Ashcroft and Director Mueller put out the alert. "We decided on the second option - and that's just to tell the American people." Perhaps alluding to Canada, Mr. Ridge suggested that some of the intelligence had come from foreign governments that have stepped up their intelligence-sharing with the United States since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. "There's been unprecedented collaboration and coordination among intelligence-gathering agencies," he said. The Canadian government said that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had gathered some of the information that resulted in the alert. Canada's solicitor general, Lawrence MacAulay, would not describe the evidence but said it had been shared with the F.B.I. American officials have said the warning on Monday was the product of both human and other types of intelligence, including electronic intercepts, suggesting that Mr. bin Laden may have given a blanket directive to Al Qaeda terrorists authorizing them to launch terrorist attacks at will. Mr. Ridge said the intelligence that led to this week's alert was of "comparable credibility" to the evidence that led to the earlier warning, and he suggested there would be other, similar alerts in the future. "From time to time, we may issue the same general alert again," Mr. Ridge said. "We want America to be on the highest alert." Administration officials said that the intelligence leading to the alert arrived at the F.B.I. on Monday and that it was quickly relayed to counterterrorism analysts who believed the information to be credible and alarming. Late in the day, officials said, the agency transmitted the warning over the Law-Enforcement Telecommunication System, a computer network that connects virtually every state and local law enforcement office in the country, including police departments, sheriff's departments, state and municipal court systems, and probation offices. The network, which functions as a sort of private e-mail system, was established in the late 1960's and is run by the state and local agencies in partnership with the F.B.I. and other federal law-enforcement agencies. Steven Correll, the network's executive director, said in an interview that the F.B.I.'s warning on Monday was brief - about two paragraphs - and that it was relayed within minutes to nearly 330,000 computer terminals around the country that are connected to the system. Mr. Correll and a bureau spokesman said information-sharing on the network was voluntary. On Monday, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York called for legislation that would significantly increase the amount of counterterrorism information that the federal government would be forced to share with local law enforcement agencies. Some large police departments have said that they are taking no added security precautions as a result of Monday's warning, because they have been at the highest state of alert since Sept. 11. "We're just continuing with the protocol that's in place," said Sgt. Robert Cargie of the Chicago Police Department. "There's been a general threat since Sept. 11. We're remaining vigilant." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get your FREE VeriSign guide to security solutions for your web site: encrypting transactions, securing intranets, and more! http://us.click.yahoo.com/UnN2wB/m5_CAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-12-31 20:59:58 PST