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The Mayor is speaking! The Police Commissioner there! The FBI just shared some "specific" threat information about a threat to the NYC subways. The Mayor is trying to reassure commuters that the NYPD has done a lot (shout out to the Hercules team and subway bag checkers). He also says that a media outlet got the tip two days ago and held it. Also, shout out to "See Something, Say Something." A cynical theory: The Mayor is using this to draw attention away from tonight's debate! A paranoid idea: We're walking home, even though the Mayor is taking the subway tonight and tomorrow morning.
WNBC has the most details so far. Baby carriages to carry explosives, eh? And here's the NY Times on it. We'll be asking you about your commutes home and to work tomorrow!
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From Newsday: "MTA officials said they were unaware of the threat until alerted by a reporter."
Unacceptable.
Well, I sure Hope it's a Hoax.
The timing is suspect (GW Speech, Rove, etc.) I.E. the Election Year Antics by GW Bush And Co.
Remember Tom Ridge's remarks back in May?
It's just your average day reelection strategy for Mayor Bloomberg.
we had full on police (more so than usual) at W4th this morning. tables with bag checkers and police looking at everybody. the police I saw were referrgin to printouts with maps and text. now it makes sense. seems odd that they wait until now to do the press conference.
this may be cynical but the "terror" strategy was a winner for bush/cheney 04. why not use it again as bloomberg is a bush supporter and up for reelection? also, bush gave another "terror" speech this morning in a desperate attempt to boost his public image in the wake of various scandals (plame, katrina, delay, iraq). far too coincidental as far as i'm concerned. i hope it's just a hoax but i find it revolting that politicians use fear mongering to get elected...and the populace falls for it.
I dunno, I take it seriously. I actually think Gothamist's tone is a bit too silly for this.
If the tip were genuine (remember the last subway bomb plot that was foiled on a tip, under Guiliani?) it seems like announcing that the NYPD was going into apeshit mode could actually be a decent deterrent.
ann - I love how you say it "may be" cynical.
(George: I just want something for myself. Is that so selfish?
Jerry: Actually that's the very definition of selfish.)
stop beating a dead horse.
Oh, believe me, I want these alerts. I want anything that will deter people even remotely thinking about bombing the subways from even thinking aout thinking about it. And I thought my tone was more hysterical than anything else.
Oh please. More bellyaching from people who really should know better. Is anyone really afraid anymore?
If you are afraid, you're a moron.
Yes our, "leaders" are dishonest, manipulative demagogues, and at this point I would not be surprised if this was just a stunt designed to help our poor idiot of a president and his plummeting approval ratings, but at the same time, the threat of Islamic Jihad is very very real, and it is only a matter of time until that battle is brought back to our soil.
New York is a prime target as well know: we represent everything the ennemy hates and seeks to destroy. Political liberalism, religious tolerance, equal rights for women, and sexual freedom.
Its been four years, we have been amazingly lucky if nothing else, that we have gone so long without an attack of some kind. So we are caught between a rock (the neo con agenda) and hard place (islamic jihad)...
Jeebus. I'm kind of glad I missed this until after I got home from work tonight.
L stop at Union sqaure was closed tonight and there were cops everywhere with flashlights.
Though I think that Bush will use terror as a diversion/election strategy, I don't believe in this case Bloomberg is.
This morning on the C line I saw a guy acting very strangely - looking around the station then on the subway, looking at people's bags, looking between the cars, getting out at each stop and looking up and down the platform then getting back on. He was totally casing the subway and it freaked me out. I reported it to the police, and needless to say am doubly freaked out by this announcement this evening.
I hate being a paranoid and a tattletale - but keep your eyes open.
K, that was in all likelyhood an undercover cop.
Speaking of threats and paranoia, I work over at chelsea piers and last friday night, as we were about to close, 3 middle eastern guys got off of the elevator and walked over to the square model of chelsea piers.
They proceeded to talk, point, and gesture at the model and various pts of the building in another language. After a few minutes, they went right back on the elevator and disappeared. They inquired zero about joining the club and fitness ctr and it kind of weirded me out. As I told a fellow worker the next day about what I saw, she relayed some interesting info about Chelsea Piers:
1-One of the owners, Roland Betts, is one of Dubya's best friend and co-owned the Texas Rangers with him back in the day.
2-During the RNC last summer, Chelsea Piers was used to host numerous functions for all the visiting people involved with the convention.
3-During 9/11, the Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers was where they were bringing the dead from ground zero.
Further points:
4-Its a gym, nobody checks the bags of members when they arrive.
5-Chelsea Piers has some of New York's most affluent people as its members. Very powerful members of the business and political world work out there regularly.
Is this me being paranoid, or might I be on to something? Btw, I told a supervisor about what I saw and was told non-chalantly to not worry about it, C.P. has undercovers and uniformed police alwawys around. The supervisor's easily dismissive attitude was somewhat troubling. Or am I "letting the terrorists win," with my subdued fear?
Mayor knew about this all week but chose to wait until an hour before debate to announce this. It also has been severly downplayed by the federall government as unsubstainitated.
I was wondering why they were doing bag searches at Main St. on the 7 tonight...hadn't seen them do that in a long time.
"Is this me being paranoid ...?"
Yes.
"Or am I "letting the terrorists win," with my subdued fear?"
Yes.
You're completely missing any argument that touches on any of the many well-documented reasons why terrorists pick their targets.
1. W. has about a thouand cronies. No terrorist attack has ever been directed at anyone's cronies. If they wanted to kill this guy, there are many easier ways than what you're worried about.
2. If terrorists are going after Republicans, why would they be in NYC? And they don't target Republicans. All Americans are targets.
3. ????
4. 99.9% of the locations in NYC don't check bags.
5. Why would terrorists pick the _gym_ of the rich and powerful as opposed to where they work?
Chelsea Piers is about as likely to be a target as a Post Office in Kansas.
--------------------
In any case, given that DHS and the FBI think this is all highly suspect, I'm on the side of believing Bloomberg coordinated this alert with the debate he skipped out on.
oh, let the left-wing conspiracy theories start. this is all because of evil idiot president, karl rove and bloomberg. If we only had Gore/Kerry as president and Sandy Berger as national security adviser (ups he is jailed for stealing classified 9/11 documents..to cover up what?)..
unofortunately, these jihadists have been trying to kill us for years, even before 9/11. Good luck and effective intelligence/security and probably some ugly methods including semi-torture (forcing jihadist to listen rock-music is considered torture by our friends at HRW and Amnesty) have kept us safe.
the nypd has it's own intelligence division that operates independently from the federal agencies (i.e. dhs, fbi, cia). they actually have people in major cities around the world actively looking for information and are often some of the first people at the site of an incident (e.g. london tube bombings). in fact, the nypd's counterterrorism bureau has become so sophisticated since 9/11 that the federal agencies often come to them for information. anyway, i guess my point is that the info may be legit regardless of whether dhs and fbi think it's bogus because the nypd has its own sources (which are often better than the federal government when it comes to nyc).
in this case, the source was apparently detained in Iraq so it wasn't NYPD. Probably some "pressure" was applied on detainee.
We should also rememeber that several terror plots have been prevented by this evil administration.
What a coincidence...another Republican running for re-election, another terror threat emerges. The NYPD played down the fed's terror warnings in Sept of '04, intimating that the feds were over-reacting; now the feds are playing down the NYPD's warnings, stating directly that the NYPD is over-reacting. Maybe if Bloomie hadn't come out against Roberts and otherwise tried to distance himself from Bush, the feds would have played along.
Micheal Moore told the truth: "There is no terror threat. There is no terror threat."
Yes, deng, there's nothing like a little "semi-torture." Rock music, beating people to death, raping children* … guess it's all considered a good time to the dittoheads.
*Yup, child rape happened under our watch, literallly while we were watching, and recording. Sleep well.
aw, geez louise, here we go again. it's likely that at some point in time somebody will do something here, no? besides that, here goes the mayor yap yap yapping in a election year. it is tiresome.
So how do you know, for sure, that this 'administration' has prevented anything? They didn't prevent 9/11. They didn't prevent the london bombings. What makes you think they'll prevent an attack on NYC?
They just say this shit so they can cover their asses.
You left out bungling Aid after Katrina...
The Mayor is in a Bind: He announced this right before a Debate that he bailed on. Even if it is Legitimate (DHS thinks Not) it will always be questionable. Allegedly they knew about it for a Few Days.
Why wait til Thursday Night a few hours prior to the debate?
Hey Tim, what makes you think Michael Moore is correct? Care to substantiate? He's a film maker. We saw and lived through the experience of thousands of New Yorkers dying in the twin towers. So that along with the promise of more terrorism doesn't constitute a threat? I guess the it magically vanished on September 12! Of course, the only time Michael Moore will agree there is a terror threat is if he claims it is because of what we're doing in Iraq.
Look, I understand the cynicism of people with respect to the Bush administration. But to say that this warning is manufactured to counteract the latest backlash against him is insane! Admit it - the govt is in a "damned if we do, damned if we don't" position.
Even the cops who searched my bag tonight (two of them Black) believed this warning was timed purely to take heat off Mike after he refused to address Black voters at the Apollo...