I realize that reporters may not get to choose the headlines for their articles, but whoever wrote the AP headline "Suspect in Tunnel Plot Said to Vist U.S." should be fired. Not because it's untrue, but because it's misleading. The headline panders to the fear-mongers who want us to believe that New Yorkers were in imminent danger from those arrested in the Holland Tunnel case. As I wrote yesterday, the New York Times and other media outlets have reported this was another aspirational plot in the gestation phase.

The headline to the AP article conveys fear by suggesting that the plot had advanced to a threatening stage because the main suspect had visited the U.S. But the article says:

In the U.S., a federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Hammoud had visited the United States at least once - a trip to California six years ago. Authorities are still trying to trace Hammoud's steps during that trip but say they have no record of him going to New York.

The official said Hammoud had a legitimate visa for a brief stay, and was believed to have been visiting either family or friends. The visit occurred long before authorities say the tunnel plot began to unfold.

Two weeks ago, the FBI was crowing about the bust of some Miami terror wannabes who aspired to blow up the Sears Tower but couldn't acquire boots, explosives or even transportation to Chicago on their own.

Now it's the New York Holland tunnel plot. The FBI, Mayor Bloomberg, Port Authority and the NYC Police Commissioner held a big news conference to announce the arrest of a man in Lebanon believed to be leading the plot. The facts, as the New York Times notes, are these:

Federal and local law enforcement authorities identified the main subject of the investigation as Assem Hammoud, 31, a Lebanese man who was arrested on April 27 in Beirut and was still being held there. The locations of the other two men in custody were not revealed. The eight "principal players" planning the attack, the authorities said, had secured no financing, had gathered no explosives and had not visited New York -- or even the United States -- to conduct surveillance. At least one of the planners has been in Canada, the authorities said.

For ten years, well before 9/11, the CIA has had a secret unit, Alec Station, dedicated to finding Osama bin Laden. Yesterday, it confirmed the unit was closed last year.

The CIA's rationale: Bin Laden isn't so dangerous anymore because terror groups no long work in a "hierarchal" fashion. They are more spread out, which according to the CIA, warrants a focus on "regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals."

Former CIA official Michael Scheurer, the first chief of Alec Station, disputes the CIA's assessment.

"This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

Let's try this again. As New York Times editor Bill Keller said on Face the Nation yesterday, and the Boston Globe reported last week, Operation Swift and the Administration's war on terror financing was no secret. From the Globe:

Victor D. Comras , a former US diplomat who oversaw efforts at the United Nations to improve international measures to combat terror financing, said it was common knowledge that worldwide financial transactions were being closely monitored for links to terrorists. ``A lot of people were aware that this was going on," said Comras, one of a half-dozen financial experts UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recruited for the task.....

Indeed, a report that Comras co-authored in 2002 for the UN Security Council specifically mentioned SWIFT as a source of financial information that the United States had tapped into. The system, which handles trillions of dollars in worldwide transactions each day, serves as a main hub for banks and other financial institutions that move money around the world. According to The New York Times, SWIFT executives agreed to give the Treasury Department and the CIA broad access to its database.

Here is the U.N. report. Check out Paragraph 31: [Add: Link may not be operational this morning, it was fine last night.]

Check out this news release from the Defense Department.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism.

The study will include, but not be limited to, researching blog patterns:

"It can be challenging for information analysts to tell what's important in blogs unless you analyze patterns." ...Patterns include the content of the blogs as well as what hyperlinks are contained within the blog.

They even have a unique moniker for the blogosphere: "Information Battlespace"

"The fact that the web is a vast source of information is sometimes overlooked by military analysts," Kokar said. "Our research goal is to provide the warfighter with a kind of information radar to better understand the information battlespace."

Jane Mayer's extensive profile of Cheney aide David Addington in the New Yorker is an excellent read.

Addington, who now holds Scooter Libby's job, has been a formidible force in the Administration's positions on everything from torture to Guantanamo to presidential signing statements.

He insisted, for instance, on maintaining the admissibility of statements obtained through coercion, or even torture. In meetings, he argued that officials in charge of the military commissions should be given maximum flexibility to decide whether to include such evidence. "Torture isn't important to Addington as a scientific matter, good or bad, or whether it works or not," the Administration lawyer, who is familiar with these debates, said. "It's more about his philosophy of Presidential power. He thinks that if the President wants torture he should get torture. He always argued for 'maximum flexibility.' "

Police chiefs of some of the country's largest cities are complaining that Homeland Security is not living up to its promise to share terror-related information with them. It's causing a "growing rift" and some departments are threatening to pull out of the HSA program.

In a report released this week, the homeland-security department's inspector general, Richard Skinner, said that the department's computer network designed to pool information on terrorist threats for police and other federal agencies has been ignored by many of its intended users.

The Homeland Security Information Network, or HSIN, was set up to share secret information with as many as 600 federal, state and local agencies at a cost of $337 million. The department described it as its "backbone" for dealing with national emergencies and terrorist threats. But the report found that officials across the country "are confused and frustrated, without clear guidance on [the network's] role or how to use the system to share information effectively."

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has denied Albany, NY defense lawyer (and TalkLeft commenter) Terry Kindlon's appeal of a secret court order refusing to make the Government admit or deny that it engaged in illegal warrantless electronic surveillance of his client, an Iman at a mosque charged with money laundering. You can read the opinion here.

As background, Terry was the first lawyer in the U.S. to challenge the NSA warrantless surveillance program. His motion alleged:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales outlined the case against the wannabe warriors busted yesterday in Liberty City, Florida. You can watch the video here. The only al-Qaeda member they met with was an undercover informant posing as one.

According to the court documents, a man identified as Narseal Batiste was the recruiter who wanted to organize "soldiers" to build an Islamic army to wage holy war. The others were identified as Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin, and Rotschild Augustine.

The New York Times reports on Operation Swift, through which the Bush Administration in the aftermath of 9/11 obtained bank records without court authorization:

Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

FBI agents today, armed with search and arrest warrants, busted 5 or 7 people in Miami's Liberty City for involvement in a domestic terrorism group.

Authorities are saying those arrested posed no immediate danger to Miami. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the FBI will explain tomorrow at a press conference.

No explosives or weapons were seized in the raid. Judging from the repeated references to a "domestic terror scheme" and the comments of neighbors who said they recognized photos of the 8 men shown to them by agents, it sounds like those arrested are homegrown, not middle-Eastern or al-Qaeda.

CNN tv report: One of those arrested had a Haitian background. It was a preventive bust, after a year's investigation. They were not at a stage to act. The Sears Tower in Chicago and FBI building in Miami were long range targets. There was an undercover informant who convinced the group that he was an Islamic radical.

Update: A local teenager interviewed in a Fox News report who recognized the arrested men said they were "black men" whom he thought were opening a karate studio. In other words, these are Americans not middle-easterners. The AP: Suspects mainly American with no apparent connection to al-Qaeda.

Some good news on the NSA warrantless surveillance issue. I just received this e-mail from Rep. John Conyer's office:

Today, the House Judiciary Committee passed H.Res. 819, calling on the President and the Justice Department to disclose its role in approving massive telephone call databases maintained by the NSA and others. This is the first time a Committee has approved a Resolution of Inquiry demanding information from the Administration this Congress.

The resolution, authored by Representative Robert Wexler (D-FL), requests "all documents in the possession of the President and the Attorney General, including all legal opinions, relating to requests made without a warrant by the National Security Agency or other Federal departments and agencies to telephone service providers, including wireless telephone service providers, for access to telephone communications records of persons in the United States."