I Spy for the FBI

I'm not all worked up over the revelation that unnamed persons with ties to Homeland Security warned their friends via e-mail not to ride the NYC subways last week (if I had that info I'd be passing it along to all my friends and relations, too -- to hell with secrecy). And though it's disturbing that they were sent out before Mayor Bloomberg and Ray Kelly were briefed by the Feds, the wheels of bureaucracy at the Federal level can turn slowly, especially when it pertains to rumors of terrorism ("bin Laden determined to strike inside the US" anyone?).

What gets my boxers in a bunch was how "sources" at Homeland Security were publicly dismissing the warnings issued by the NYPD. As I've previously mentioned, the NYPD has its own counter-terrorism intelligence gathering apparatus which, from all that I've read, does a better job at evaluating threats to/protecting NYC that does Homeland Security. The whole thing smacks of inter-agency rivalry on HS's part...the whole stupid turf wars that break out between the Feds and local law enforcement:

A former anti-terrorism official told Newsday: "There is a standing joke that when Friday prayers at the Al Farooq mosque in Brooklyn ends, the NYPD's informants and the FBI's informants are bumping into each other as they leave."