Red Alert: Terror Plot Uncovered

Posted August 10, 2006, 1:45 p.m.

The United States Department of Homeland Security has raised the terror alert level to Red (Severe) for the first time. The red alert applies only to international commercial flights from the United Kingdom to the United States, while the alert has been raised to Orange (High) for all U.S. commercial air travel. This after U.K. authorities uncovered a highly-developed terrorist plot to blow up U.S. airliners.

The overall U.S. terror alert level remains at Yellow (Elevated), and the United Kingdom government has raised its alert level to Critical—its equivalent of the U.S. government’s red alert.

As a result of this threat, air travelers should expect increased security screening and allow extra time. Passengers on flights out of the U.K. are currently required to check all luggage, and other restrictions may apply depending on your departure/arrival locations.

The plot, which involved smuggling liquid explosives onto flights in terrorists’ carry-on luggage, was uncovered by British authorities who arrested 24 suspected participants. According to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, the plot was in its final stages and was ‘suggestive’ of being connected to al Qaeda.

Resources

U.S. Transportation Security Administration: Travel Advisory
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
CNN.com Coverage

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

Our characters are the result of our conduct.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify.

But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

We hear only half of what is said to us, understand only half of that, believe only half of that, and remember only half of that.

How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always burning? Do you not seek a light, ye who are surrounded by darkness?

Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son.

You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.

It is through strife, or the readiness for strife, that a nation must win greatness.

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.’

By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith. . . .

Do not foolishly confuse ‘nice’ with ‘good.’

You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.

Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye. Forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.

Whoever hates reproof walks in the steps of the sinner, but he that fears the Lord will repent in his heart.

Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.

Hell is other people.

Make no mistake about it, however: you age as you drift, just as rapidly as you age as you strive.

A liberal is fundamentally fearful of concentrated power. His objective is to preserve the maximum degree of freedom for each individual separately that is compatible with one man’s freedom not interfering with other men’s freedom.

As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.