Were the threats to Las Vegas casinos phony and fabricated? The great minds behind Outfoxed score another journalistic "scoop".

The gals who call themselves the newshounds (another fine product from the Outfoxed mob) made news on their own when they were the only source in the world to announce that the terror threat was not raised to orange back on August 1. Now they've done it again:

2002 Las Vegas Non-Threat in the News - Fox & Friends (Aug. 10, 7:00 a.m) spent a big chunk of the first hour on an Al Qaeda terror threat to Las Vegas in 2002.

The canines appear to have another "exclusive" here, since we were unable to find any news source that calls these surveillance tapes a "non-threat".

Even in the Fall of 2002 when the tape surfaced in Detroit, the local Las Vegas authorities refused to attend a meeting with the FBI because they didn't see it as a "credible threat" against the city.

The hits just keep coming. Is this another dispatch from the secret Outfoxed pipeline to the law enforcement personnel of Las Vegas? No news report we have found quotes any "authorities" in the city as saying this. In fact, they state just the opposite:

Though the FBI offered, most local law enforcement and casino security officers declined an invitation to view the footage after it was obtained in 2002, according to the memos and one of the prosecutors in the Detroit case.
One document obtained by The Associated Press quotes a federal prosecutor in Las Vegas as saying the city's mayor was concerned about the "deleterious effect on the Las Vegas tourism industry" if the evidence became public....
Another memo states the casinos didn't want to see the footage for fear it would make them more likely to be held liable in civil court if an attack occurred.

So where did the anti-Fox terriers get the notion that city officials didn't regard the threat as credible? They made it up.

Nevertheless, it's a story on Fox news in August of 2004, and I just heard it again at 9:00.

Perhaps they weren't paying close attention (nothing new there) but it was also a story on CNN and MSNBC. And in addition to the New York Times website quoted above, there are reports at USA Today, the Washington Post, and at least a half-dozen area newspapers (including the Nevada Sun, the Albuquerque Tribune, the Tucson Citizen, the Alameda Times-Star, the Las Vegas Review-Journal...need we go on?).

Of course, none of these articles claims that authorities didn't regard this as a "credible threat". The Outfoxed gang made that up, and then feigned surprise that Fox news would actually report on a "non-threat". Perhaps their next hot scoop will be that the moon landing never happened.