From today’s Newsday:
When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot to blow up Kennedy Airport as “one of the most chilling plots imaginable,” which might have caused “unthinkable” devastation, one law enforcement official said he cringed.
The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.
I understand that it’s a prosecutor’s job to get a conviction, and part of that is getting a conviction in the “court of public opinion.” What really irks me is that a statement like that probably causes more “terror” than this terrorist-wannabe and his cohorts were capable of alone. Hyping movie-plot threats as if they were real does more harm than good.
Hat tip to Oliver Willis.