Friday, December 26, 2003

"Scared stupid" still works for me

Is this good news or bad news?
PARIS (AP, December 25) - French investigators questioned seven men pointed out by U.S. intelligence but found no evidence they planned to use a Los Angeles-bound jet to launch terror attacks against the United States, French authorities said Thursday. ...

The seven questioned men, who all had tickets for Air France Flight 68 to Los Angeles, were on a watch list provided by U.S. authorities, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. But all were released after questioning Wednesday night, the spokesman said.

"There are no longer any investigations," he said.

France's anti-terrorism judicial unit chose not to launch a formal investigation because of a lack of evidence of an attack, the judicial official said. None of the passengers on the canceled flights, including those questioned at the airport, were known to French intelligence authorities or found to have links with Islamic extremist groups, the official said.

French authorities also investigated a man from Tunisia whose name was supplied by American intelligence. But the judicial official said man was in Tunisia with no plans to leave for the United States. He has no criminal record and does not belong to any radical Islamic groups.
So is this good news because there apparently was no plot - or bad news because the intelligence apparently was so wrong? Put another way, I'm sure the response will be "better safe than sorry," but at what point does "better safe than sorry" become officialspeak for "better paranoid than rational?"

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