Details Emerge in British Terror Case - New York Times

The ominous language of seven recovered martyrdom videotapes is among new details that emerged from interviews with high-ranking British, European and American officials last week, demonstrating that the suspects had made considerable progress toward planning a terrorist attack. Those details include fresh evidence from Britain’s most wide-ranging terror investigation: receipts for cash transfers from abroad, a handwritten diary that appears to sketch out elements of a plot, and, on martyrdom tapes, several suspects’ statements of their motives.

But at the same time, five senior British officials said, the suspects were not prepared to strike immediately. Instead, the reactions of Britain and the United States in the wake of the arrests of 21 people on Aug. 10 were driven less by information about a specific, imminent attack than fear that other, unknown terrorists might strike.

Let's recap a few things: British police, acting on a tip from someone close to the dopes planning this thing, put the machinery of investigation and surveillance in motion (including, it would appear, the cooperational services of foreign police and intelligence agencies). Their surveillance afforded them a complete view of this increasingly far-fetched, overhyped plot as it developed from an embryonic stage. It was all wound up far before anything approaching an operational plan had emerged.

And how does the rest of the civilized world react? With panic. With security theater that really qualifies as "security theater of the absurd."

It amazes me that, rather than simply rounding up, prosecuting, and punishing these guys without fanfare, while continuing to disrupt terrorist organizations through solid intelligence analysis and tradecraft, and policework, our governments have burnt millions of dollars and inconvenienced just as many with empty gestures. Worse, things are getting ugly for some travellers as the fear slowly ratchets up. Flights are now being disrupted or delayed nearly daily because some passengers look suspicious, or are wearing t-shirts with Arabic script, or because an iPod fell into a toilets

We're acting like terrorized people.