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Dennis Montgomery

Maddow On 'The Incredible Magic Al Jazeera Scam' (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | December 22, 2009, 10:50AM

Rachel Maddow last night interviewed journalist Aram Roston about the finer points of the revelation, published in Playboy, that a December 2003 Orange terror alert was prompted by supposed decoding technology that revealed terrorist communications in Al Jazeera broadcasts.

Maddow plays some remarkable media reports from 2003, complete with scare quotes from Tom Ridge about catastrophic attacks "against the homeland."

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Topics: Al Jazeera, Aram Roston, Bush Administration, CIA, Dennis Montgomery, Department of Homeland Security, Rachel Maddow, Terror Alerts, Tom Ridge

Bush Administration

Report: Bush Admin Raised Terror Alert Based On Con Man's Al Jazeera 'Decoding' Scam

Justin Elliott | December 21, 2009, 9:32AM

Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge making an announcement about the Code Orange terror alert in December 2003.

A self-styled Nevada codebreaker convinced the CIA he could decode secret terrorist targeting information sent through Al Jazeera broadcasts, prompting the Bush White House to raise the terror alert level to Orange (high) in December 2003, with Tom Ridge warning of "near-term attacks that could either rival or exceed what we experience on September 11," according to a new report in Playboy.

The report deals another blow to the credibility of the Department of Homeland Security's color-coded terror alert system, and comes after Ridge's claim that the system was used as a political tool when he was DHS secretary.