What if the sky really was falling?

Chicken Little meet the Bush Administration
FBI: Al Qaeda May Strike U.S. Shopping Malls in LA, Chicago

The FBI is warning that al Qaeda may be preparing a series of holiday attacks on U.S. shopping malls in Los Angeles and Chicago, according to an intelligence report distributed to law enforcement authorities across the country this morning.

The alert said al Qaeda "hoped to disrupt the U.S. economy and has been planning the attack for the past two years."

Law enforcement officials tell ABCNews.com that the FBI received the information in late September and declassified it yesterday for wide distribution.

The alert, like similar FBI and Department of Homeland Security terror alerts issued over the past five years at holiday times, raised questions about the credibility of the information.

Retailers are probably relieved that no one pays any attention to these alerts after so many years where the Bush administration has used such alerts for political purpose. As Joe Gandelman says:

There’s yet another warning about a planned Al Qaeda attack in the United States — and the danger is that the political contamination of the terrorism issue, the perceived use of it by the Bush administration in past elections, and a jaded public could mean a serious warning could be shrugged off when and if it comes.

As I have said here before that really is a problem - someday the sky really will be falling. I believe the FBI did the right thing in this case, law enforcement should be notified of a threat.