Sony Hack: No Credible Threat To Theaters Showing ‘The Interview’

The Department of Homeland Security says it has no credible intelligence suggesting a threat this morning against movie theaters showing The Interview: “DHS is aware of a threat made online targeting movie theaters in the United States. We are still analyzing the credibility of these statements, but at this time there is no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot against movie theaters within the United States,” the agency said.

This in response to the turn the Sony hacking scandal took today when 9/11 was invoked in a threatened attack on theaters showing the film starring Seth Rogen and James Franco:

We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.
Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.
The world will be full of fear.
Remember the 11th of September 2001.
We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.
(If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)
Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
All the world will denounce the SONY.

“I don’t believe we should ever be backing down to these type of threats,” chimed in Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who is a key member of both the House Homeland Security, and the Intelligence Committees.

“Unless we have credible evidence we can’t be giving in to these terror threats. Otherwise they’re going to be threatening us all the time, and it would stop every major event we have in the country.” King said this afternoon on CNN. He said he’s “not a big movie goer,” but added, “probably I would go now just as an act of defiance.”

Asked by Wolf Blitzer if it’s “appropriate to assassinate a world leader in a film comedy,” it was left to King to explain the fundamentals of free speech to the CNN veteran:

“Uh, there’s no reason not to do it. I’m not saying it’s always good form,” King said. “There is nothing immoral or inappropriate about it. But again, whether it is or isn’t, the fact is, today in the 21^st century you don’t threaten to kill people because you don’t like a movie. Back in the…40’s, Charlie Chaplin was making a fool out of Adolf Hitler. This is something that in a free society we tolerate. Terrible things have been said about our president and our leaders in movies, but we don’t threaten to blow people up because of it. So it really is a question of, are you civilized or not. And North Korea is not a civilized society.”