Memory Lane

A mistaken CIA analysis of an Arabic-language television broadcast triggered a major terror alert in United States in 2003 and the cancellation of nearly 30 international flights, NBC News said. The color-coded terror alert system went from yellow to orange, after CIA agents thought they saw secret numbers encoded in the moving text at the bottom of the screen of an Al-Jazeera broadcast, NBC said late Monday.

The "scrawl" was thought to contain attack dates, flight numbers and geographic coordinates for targets, which included the White House, Seattle's tallest structure, the Space Needle, and even the small town of Tappahanock in Virginia.

Not to toot one's own horn to loudly, but at the time of the announcement, this blog skewered the logic behind the announcement, and predicted that the alert level would be lowered again before another terrorist attack took place.

So, this latest revelation isn't too terribly earth-shattering...

Posted by Eddie Tews at June 28, 2005 05:40 PM