The Department of Homeland Security has come under increasing fire for its vague and unspecific raising and lowering of the threat level. This time the Department avoided that criticism by making the warning target specific. Buttressing the specificity of the warning was the news that Al Qaeda had collected target specific data including security arrangements, construction details and floor plans for buildings housing key financial institutions. The implication was that the data Al Qaeda collected was current. Now it is emerging that the data on the Al Qaeda computers was as stale as Sandy Berger’s socks.

When the Bush Administration decided to sell its latest appeal to fear to the public by releasing sensitive material about the content of the intelligence it was also deciding to tell Al Qaeda how much or how little the Administration actually knew. That decision was contrary to the long accepted doctrine that you don’t give that information out to the other side. Before the Sunday afternoon press briefing Bin Laden could not have known whether or not the captured operatives had been diligent in preventing that information to fall into American hands. Now he knows.
Yesterday I asked whether the announcements were motivated by a political imperative that trumped long accepted intelligence doctrine. Today the same senior counterintelligence official who revealed that the information was stale told the Washington Post, “You've got the Republican convention coming up, the Olympics, the elections. . . . I think there was a feeling that we should err on the side of caution even if it's not clear that anything is new." He also said, “It's not known whether the plot was active and ongoing. It could have been planned for tomorrow, or it could have been scrapped.” The answer to yesterday’s question is being answered byte by byte. Asked about the alert the President answered with a campaign sound-bite, “There’s an enemy which hates what we stand for. It's serious business. I mean, we wouldn't be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real."
The local officials have a different take. One law enforcement official who was briefed on the attack told the Washington Post. “"There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new. Why did we go to this level? . . . I still don't know that." Briefing local law enforcement is one thing. Bringing them into the loop is important to protecting us and our institutions. Broad public appeals to fear is quite another. It only plays to the crowd.
Remember the boy who cried “wolf” and got the attention of the community repeatedly but every time the warning turned out to be unfounded? When the wolf finally appeared no one paid attention to his call. That is a bigger danger to our security than revealing sources and methods.