"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
I am wondering if it was the terrorist or the Seattle police who caused
the
blackout in the NE. Coincidence?

Talk about a power shortage.........

Your parody deviates from the original remark in an important aspect. The
original question was whether a terrorist could have caused the blackout,
with
an immediately stated conclusion that the arrest of two terrorists
atempting to
fly to NYC from Seattle the previous day was probably coincidental.


Chuck, it was either you or Noah who once told me that I was talking to a
dial tone, perhaps as I was trying to get Dave Hall to wake up. You may be
talking to a dial tone now. Some of the people here can't see past the
right/left wing labels and read the words you've written. It was plainly
obvious that your original comment was just an interesting question posed as
food for thought. If "the authorities" explored every idea this way, perhaps
they'd be a step ahead of terrorists more often.

Matter of fact, some of the authorities *do* think this way. (Get a load of
the lawyer's comment in the last paragraph. He's a candidate for a pie in
the face, at the very least). :

The New York Times
August 24, 2003
Canada Links Arrest of 19 to Possible Terrorism Ties
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

TORONTO, Aug. 23 — A document filed at a detention hearing this week for 19
students and other immigrants from Pakistan detained by Canadian security
officials for possible ties to terrorism cited a "pattern of fraudulent
document use to obtain or maintain immigrant status" by the men, ages 18 to
33.

The men were detained on Aug. 14 after an investigation found that one of
them was taking flying lessons at a school near an Ontario nuclear power
plant.

Officials would disclose little about the investigation, but the four-page
document sketched a picture of a mysterious group of men living in
apartments with only computers and mattresses. The men appeared interested
in explosives and in the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station outside
Toronto, according to the document.

There had been unexplained fires in at least two of the men's apartments,
and in police monitoring, two of the men had been seen walking outside the
gates of the Pickering plant at 4:15 a.m. on a day in April 2002. The men
said they wanted to take a walk on a beach.

One man was training to fly at a school whose flight paths cross over the
Pickering plant, the document said. It said the men were in contact with
unidentified sources who "have access to nuclear gauges" that contain small
amounts of the isotope cesium 137, which can be used for making crude
nuclear explosives.

"Based upon the structure of this group, their associations and connected
events, there is a reasonable suspicion that these persons pose a threat to
national security," the document said.

There seems little likelihood that the group was anywhere near to carrying
out an attack. Government spokesmen played down the threat to security.

But the court document said a man who had lived with one suspect had worked
for a charity group named Global Relief Foundation, which the United Nations
has linked to supporters of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Some men are being held on immigration violations and others without
charges. Under new antiterrorism laws, landed immigrants and foreign
citizens can be detained several days on suspicion of threatening national
security. A closed detention hearing is expected next week.

An investigation into at least some of the men by the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police and other security forces has apparently been going on for more than
a year. A police hot line received the first tips about the group shortly
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

A Canadian immigration officer in Mexico City became suspicious in February
of an application by one of the men for permanent residency to attend an
Ottawa business college. The man had no apparent source of income, but
showed a bank balance of $40,000.

The school turned out to be a fraudulent operation. Investigators found that
31 Pakistanis had used the school to enter Canada.

Mohammed Syed, a Toronto lawyer representing two suspects, said the police
action "smacks of racism because they happen to be from Pakistan and are
Muslim."

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