Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Germany: Terror Alert is Hype

Huh, the German's aren't even playing along with the latest 'duck and cover' alert. WSJ reports:

A senior German official played down warnings of a potential terrorist attack in Europe...German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said that despite a U.S. travel alert issued this weekend, German police and intelligence services have no "concrete evidence" that a terror attack is imminent...

 Mr. de Maizière, speaking to reporters in Berlin, said there is "no reason for alarm at this time" because the threat remains too vague and diffuse to act on. Germany hasn't raised its terrorism alert level, which has been at "high abstract threat" for some time.


Several intelligence officials have privately challenged the quality of the U.S. information, describing the U.S. alert as an overreaction. One intelligence official said the decisions to issue the alerts were based in part on the bureaucratic need to "be on record with an alert to the threat" rather than a belief that a threat is imminent.

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