Scaring America for Political Gain. Three-year-old data Led To Latest Tom Ridge Alerts. The Goal Was to Grab Headlines from Kerry's triumph

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Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued, numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday. "There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. "Why did we go to this level? . . . I still don't know that."

One piece of information on one building, which intelligence officials would not name, appears to have been updated in a computer file as late as January 2004, according to a senior intelligence official. But officials could not say yesterday whether that piece of data was the result of active surveillance by al Qaeda or came instead from information about the buildings that is publicly available.

Several officials also said that much of the information compiled by terrorist operatives about the buildings in Washington, New York and Newark was obtained through the Internet or other "open sources" available to the general public, including some floor plans.

The characterization of the age of the intelligence yesterday cast a new light on Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's announcement Sunday that the terrorism threat alert for the financial services sectors in the three cities had been raised. Ridge and other officials stressed Sunday the urgency of acting on the newly obtained information, but yesterday a range of officials made clear how dated much of the intelligence was.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney said in separate appearances yesterday that the new alert underscores the continuing threat posed by al Qaeda. At a news conference announcing his proposed intelligence reforms, Bush said the alert shows "there's an enemy which hates what we stand for." "It's serious business," Bush said. "I mean, we wouldn't be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real."

The day Kerry makes his "John Kerry reporting for duty speech" (just hours before it in fact) Pakistan follows White House orders and announces the caption of the most wanted al-Qaida member (no, not Osama--someone we've never heard of). Now when polls show that Kerry is beating Bush 50% to 43% they announce a CODE ORANGE ALERT on financial institutions based on data from before September 11, 2001. Three years old this data is, and they happen to announce the warning now just when Bush needs a little boost in ratings. Haven't we seen this kind of manipulation of the news for three and a half years now? When will the Corporate Owned Media tell the truth to the American People? When will the American People realize that the Corporate Owned Media has been aiding and abetting the misleading of the US citizens? When they do, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and of course Faux News' asses will be grass! We need to bring the curtain down on these misleaders starting with Bush, and continuing with the Corporate Owned Media Moguls who are their accomplices!