IN THE NEWS
Counterterrorism depends on managing the perception of risk. Make people too complacent, and they'll miss the warning signs of terrorist threats from foreign and domestic sources. Make people too frightened, and they'll eventually get sick and tired of vague warnings and portentious announcements that turn out to be nothing significant.
The Bush Administration has made the second error over and over again since 9/11. As a result, it's hard to trust what it says about the FBI's claim that it broke up a terrorist plot being planned through Internet chat rooms. Was this a real threat, like the 9/11 attacks? Or was it another group of nobodies, with no actual ties to Al Qaeda, like the recently-arrested group in Florida?
Every society has its malcontents, who often spin completely fantastical plots out of nothing. Government officials, therefore, bear an important responsibility to keep serious and ridiculous threats separate. Despite what he says, the mumbling crazy on the subway is probably not going to assassinate the President, or blow up the New York Stock Exchange.
We're therefore left with more confusion than we should have about this recent FBI announcement. Should we listen to the unnamed counterterrorism official who said that the plot was unrealistic, given the amount of explosives needed to collapse the Holland Tunnel? Or have Americans missed a real point of vulnerability to terrorist attack, the clogged tunnels and overpasses of the American highways? The answer should not be skewed by distrust of the government officials making these announcements.
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