I would like to explain the concept of an "Intelligence Memo" as it was referred too.

Who would like to take a guess at what the "mi" in my nickname stands for?

I will give you a hint: Military Intelligence.

When an Analyst sits down at his terminal and proceeds to check message traffic for the past 24 hours, and sees a report that says "Bin Laden to attack America" it should click in his head that this is possibly grounds for a "critic" (a report that is written that takes precedence above all others and is sent to the Presidents desk within a matter of 10 minutes)

However, if the original report does not specify a date/time or a specific event what are we to do about that? Would you have liked the President to implement the "terror alerts" then? That is what would have happened none the less. The only difference that would have happened on September 11th 2001 is that the terrorists would have proven more successful by getting past a "prepared" enemy (that is how they would have percieved it)

I will associate it like this:

If somebody told you that you were going to get beat up, would you call the police? Chances are no, you wouldn't, why? because you would not have the answers to the questions they ask (who made the threat? when did they say it would take place?) But, then one day you are walking to work and you get "jumped" by the bloods or the crypts, then you would call the police because even though it is too late for you, you still want to see justice for what happened and you don't want to see people live their lives in fear. What you people don't understand about the Intelligence world is that we are only as good as the information we recieve. We CANNOT fill in the blanks and call the President every time.