Do you think the current "TERROR TERROR TERROR" talk is based on a real threat or do you think . . .

[Stinky The Clown]

. . . . . it is overblown?

I think the entire reaction post 9/11 has been overblown. It has been more about telling us how dangerous the world is and how the security apparatus (which has grown at a frightening rate, to be sure) is working just fine. The TSA is, in my view, an overblown effort to keep us safe that has succeeded only in keeping us in lines where we get our crotches sniffed.

In any case, this current flap is just too close to Benghazi's anniversary, and too close to the whole NSA leak to be taken seriously.

"Life is not without risks. Deal with it." <----Stinky the Clown, shortly after Bushco went nuts in the aftermath of 9/11. I hold the same position today and see the Obama administration as doing much the same as Bush did in the "security" department.

Anyway, back to the original question: Do you think the current alerts are based on a real threat or are they overblown for some self-serving purpose?

[JoePhilly]

1. If the President ignored a PDB

Similar to the one that was ignored almost 13 years ago to the day, how would we react?

[Stinky The Clown]

3. You didn't answer the question

The question was to how he's reacting. I see way too much hair on fire grandstanding. What happened to No Drama Obama?

[leftynyc]

5. Really?

Hair on fire? No speech from the White House or the floor of Congress...just doing what he thinks needs to be done and you're accusing him of running around with his hair on fire? This place has gone around the bend with the criticism of the President and has lost all credibility.

[geek tragedy]

13. Did you read the intelligence reports?

P.S. 5 drone strikes in the past two weeks. Yemen's military is at the highest possible level of alert. Something is going down.

[JoePhilly]

15. That's all part of the cover up.

[JoePhilly]

14. If the Obama administration keep raising the color alert

month after month ... maybe you'd have a point there.

Since that has not happened, you don't.

And if the "hair-on-fire" bar is set anywhere close to where it gets set here on DU every day, the Obama administration has not come anywhere close to reaching it.

[unblock]

4. i think it's more a question of why was this pdb (or its equivalent) generated in the first place

i think the nsa had self-preservation in mind.

the don't want limits.

[hobbit709]

2. Kabuki

[onehandle]

6. Probably based on real 'chatter,' but a CYA action due to Benghazi. nt

[bemildred]

7. Utter horseshit. nt

[OnyxCollie]

8. In January of '07,

with Democrats in control of Congress, I predicted "terror threats" to occur six months later when hearings would begin on Bush's domestic surveillance program.

Lo and behold, come July we get warnings about "chatter" and Michael Chertoff's troubled gut.

Chertoff’s Gut Says Summer Terrorist Attack
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/chertoffs_gut_says_summer_terrorist_attack/

Fearing complacency among the American people over possible terror threats, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in Chicago Tuesday that the nation faces a heightened chance of an attack this summer. “I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk,” Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune‘s editorial board in an unusually blunt and frank assessment of America’s terror threat level.

“Summertime seems to be appealing to them,” he said of al-Qaeda. “We do worry that they are rebuilding their activities.”

Still, Chertoff said there are not enough indications of an imminent plot to raise the current threat levels nationwide. And he indicated that his remarks were based on “a gut feeling” formed by past seasonal patterns of terrorist attacks, recent al-Qaeda statements, and intelligence he did not disclose. There is an assessment “not of a specific threat, but of increased vulnerability,” he added.

...

Since the domestic surveillance is bipartisan-approved, it doesn't surprise me that the same defense is being used again.

[cloudbase]

9. It may be real,

but much like the boy who cried wolf. . .

You know the rest.

[quinnox]

10. The timing seems convenient, doesn't it

[Douglas Carpenter]

11. there probably are some threats going around - There frequently are - but it is being politicized

[geek tragedy]

12. Oy, you're citing BENGHAZI now. Watch less Fox News. nt

[Stinky The Clown]

16. I dont watch FOX, but nice try there, sport.

[LWolf]

17. It's always been overblown.

To be honest, I was furious with the reaction to 9/11 that legitimized the growth of fascism and authoritarianism, that legitimized the erosion of civil liberties.

I've never thought it was about "keeping us safe." I've always thought it was about feeding our fear, and ruling through it.

The current alerts? I find the timing suspicious, to say the least, in the face of the growing NSA/privacy scandal. A real threat? Maybe. Maybe not. It's interesting, though, that there is a sudden announcement of intercepted electronic communications by Al Qaeda. Am I supposed to think that it's never happened before? Or that it has, and we just don't usually hear about it? Is it usual to make a public announcement that INFORMS AL QAEDA, as well as the rest of the public, that we caught their conversation? Do we really want them to know that?

Whether the threats are real or not, they've obviously been overblown for NSA-serving purposes.