It's difficult to judge. Of course, the security authorities cannot take chances. Nor, for obvious reasons, can they tell us what they know.
But not everyone who is arrested is charged; and not everyone who is charged is prosecuted, particularly when it comes to alleged terrorist activities. Remember Forest Gate? the ricin case? De Menezes?
And senior policemen and politicians (not to mention the media) do so love a crisis: the chance to deliver portentous statements to the cameras, the opportunity to show that they matter, that what they do is important. If it causes some minor inconvenience at airports, well it just reflects the sacrifices we have to make in the Global War On Terror.
But maybe this is unfair. Maybe this case is indeed serious. Maybe, it had better be - because otherwise their credibility is becoming stretched to breaking point.
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