Word: plot
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...concerned should Americans be about homegrown terrorism in the U.S.? In the face of another plot by British Islamists, it's worth keeping in mind that America's Muslim community is strikingly different from those in Britain and the rest of Europe...
...many counterterrorism officials, the scale and depravity of the plot seem chilling enough to justify the drama. "Very seldom do things get to me," Chertoff told Congressman Peter King, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, in a phone call late Wednesday night. "This one has really gotten to me." A British official says investigators believe the bombers planned waves of attacks. By blowing up planes over the Atlantic, they would make it nearly impossible to gather forensic evidence. Then after people returned to flying, the terrorists would strike again. That benign items--iPods and soda bottles, the stuff...
...Qaeda foreshadowed the London plot almost exactly when Pakistani terrorist Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who went on to mastermind the 9/11 attacks, drew up a scheme to bomb 12 planes over the Pacific during a 48-hour period. They nicknamed the plan Bojinka. They intended to have five terrorists take liquid explosives in carry-on bags onto planes and then assemble the bombs onboard. All but one of the planes were to be U.S. bound. On Dec. 11, Yousef ran a dress rehearsal on a Philippine Airlines jet. He carried the explosives onboard in contact-lens-solution bottles...
...though, has less to do with the sheer number of searches than with trying to make sure we're conducting the right ones. Several security experts interviewed by TIME said they hope the London plot encourages Americans to do more sophisticated profiling of suspects. The U.S. already profiles all passengers, using computer software. But the methodology is outdated. The system searches for people who pay with cash or book their flight less than 24 hours in advance. The country has a legal, moral and political aversion to officially sanctioned discrimination. But there are ways to profile other than skin color...
...trick is to find that narrow space between vigilance and paranoia. After the Bojinka plot was uncovered in 1995, aviation officials banned carry-on aerosols and most liquids and gels heavier than an ounce on U.S. planes leaving Manila. Eventually, the ban faded away. And people kept flying...