"Old data?"

The Breaking News Headline on the ExecPC homepage this morning read "U.S. relied on old data in raising terror alert," and the story is courtesy of (who else?) the New York Times. So ask yourself, what does the writer want you to think about this issue? It was just a couple days ago that Howard Dean made the charge that going to Orange alert was a political move. Bush is trying to scare the country into keeping him in the White House, y'see, so he has Tom Ridge dredge up some ancient threat data to justify jacking up the color bar. It's not stated outright, but this is another notion destined to become gospel among the Michael Moore disciples.

The only part of the story that's "old" though is this lame conspiratorial mindset gripping the political opposition. You might think that the extensive bipartisan commission reports that have been published in the last few weeks -- the ones flatly stating that no, absolutely no pressure was exerted on us by the executive branch to slant intelligence or reach a predetermined conclusion -- well, you'd think that might give the news writers and talking heads some pause. Might get them to think that their prejudices have caused them to produce some really, really silly copy in the last couple years and they oughta' cut it out before someone outside the blogosphere notices.

And what of the merits of this "old data" claim? Would it change the reader's outlook a bit if we point out that there has been a flood of new information since the recent capture of al Qaeda communications engineer Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan? Even the Times story notes:

His capture led the CIA to laptop computers, CD-ROMs, and other storage devices that contained copies of communications describing the extensive surveillance.

Well, if it's actually old data combined with new data, might that change your opinion a wee bit?

And just when does old data expire and lose all of it's usefulness, anyway? Take for example the two years of old data that piled up before al Qaeda went ahead and bombed the embassies in Africa. Maybe should've used some of that "old data," huh? And the CIA reached back to 1998 info to prepare the briefing memo cited in the Condi Rice testimony, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike inside US." Well, that old data got people running in circles, screaming "Bush knew, Bush knew!" Uh huh. So on the one hand some old data is proof of a nefarious Bush plot to plunge the country into war, but this other old data isn't even good enough to combine with new data to raise the threat level?

Granted, I am to some extent conflating Times writers with conspiratorial kooks, but you get my drift.