Halloween/Mall email

From: Zot O'Connor (zot@private)
Date: Thu Oct 11 2001 - 11:04:03 PDT

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    I have not gotten a "reality" check on this from any source, but to head
    off issues (it is spamming USENET) I'll post the link from the Urban
    Legends page:
    
    http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/halloween.html
    
    Is it true?  I don't know.
     
    Why?
     
    It's difficult to rule out the possibility that some terrorist
    organization somewhere in the US is planning some sort of attack on some
    mall. Could it happen? Of course, but the Urban Legend Zeitgeist does
    not consider it likely.
     
    First, consider the nature of the email warning. The warning is
    secondhand, from a friend of the girlfriend who received the warning.
    Urban folklorists have a name for this: a 'Friend of a Friend' (FOAF)
    tale and it's one of the classic hallmarks of an urban legends. That
    doesn't necessarily mean the mall attack warning is bogus, but it leaves
    the Urban Legend Zeitgeist no way to assess the credibility of the
    girlfriend that supposedly received the warning.
     
    Still, what little detail is present in the warning doesn't seem to
    quite add up.
     
    None of the hijackers of 9/11 were from Afghanistan. While the links
    between the 'prime suspect,' Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban government
    of Afghanistan have been amply reported, no evidence of direct Afghani
    participation in the attack of 9/11 has yet been reported.
     
    



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