TERRORISM: Terrorism Hoaxes are on the Rise

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The tips were frightening and very specific: Six people smuggled in from Mexico were seeking nuclear material for an attack on Boston; a Canadian Al Qaeda cell planned to bomb a Los Angeles shopping mall; a terrorist sought to blow up a New Jersey bridge. Each one set off intensive and costly investigations. Each one caused some measure of public alarm. But each one, according to authorities, turned out to being nothing more than a tipster inventing a terrorist threat to get revenge on an adversary.

''It's new in the terrorism context that people are using more extreme types of hoaxes to get revenge," said Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the US Department of Justice in Washington. ''They're exploiting the concerns of a terrorist attack." The people behind such false claims are a varied bunch: the jilted lover, the motorist angered by a car accident, the vindictive mother, and the boyfriend cheated out of money. Falsely accusing someone of a crime out of a vendetta is hardly new. But Sierra said it appears to be a new phenomenon since Sept. 11, 2001, that people are making up large-scale terrorist plots ''simply for getting somebody back."

''Every time one of these threats turn out to be a hoax and information is out in the public domain, that is potentially a count against us in the whole crying wolves category," said Ford. Concerns about the impact that such false reports have on law enforcement and the public prompted Congress to increase the penalties for hoaxes in the National Intelligence Reform Act, which was signed into law last month.




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