Summer 2001: Threat Alerts Increase to Record High

Congressman Porter Goss (R-FL), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, later says on the intelligence monitoring of US-designated terrorist groups, “The chatter level [goes] way off the charts” around this time and stays high until 9/11. Given Goss’s history as a CIA operative, presumably he is kept “in the know” to some extent. [Los Angeles Times, 5/18/2002] A later Congressional report will state: “Some individuals within the intelligence community have suggested that the increase in threat reporting was unprecedented, at least in terms of their own experience.” [US Congress, 9/18/2002] Two counterterrorism officials later describe the alerts of this summer as “the most urgent in decades.” [US Congress, 9/18/2002]