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Long heightened terror alerts too expensive { August 4 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/nyregion/04security.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/nyregion/04security.html
August 4, 2004
PREPARATIONS
In Age of Terror, How Long Should Security Stay Tight?
By MICHAEL WILSON
In New Jersey, which has suddenly found itself on a list of potential terrorism targets, police chiefs bemoaned the costs of its heightened security procedures.
In Washington, the municipal police bristled at what they called the walling-in of the nation's Capitol, and the traffic jams it caused.
And in New York City, there were questions as to whether new security measures should be kept in place even for the rest of the month - including during the Republic National Convention.
Just two days after the new terror alerts, questions - and even resentment - arose from inside the cross hairs, and police officials coordinating stepped-up security measures were looking ahead to when it would be possible to step back down.
Sunday's announcement that Al Qaeda operatives had staked out several financial centers in New York, New Jersey and Washington was somewhat tempered on Monday with the disclosure that the operatives' legwork had been conducted three or four years ago. The material is believed to have been updated as recently as last January.
Yesterday, officials were grappling with the delicate question of when a threat - especially one as detailed as the one described Sunday - expires. Law enforcement officials in all three areas said they were negotiating the balance between protecting the public in the face of intelligence, some of it four years old, and allowing life to go on as usual.
Some said that a threat, no matter its age, had to be acted upon, others said they detected an overreaction, and still others said that in this era of terror threats, there really is no concrete playbook for those responsible for protecting against an attack.
"We're still looking at it every day," said Paul J. Browne, a New York City Police spokesman. "There is still material being analyzed from what was captured."
Senior White House officials said yesterday that while some intelligence concerning the New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup buildings was dated, the city was included in a "second stream" of intelligence concerning a possible attack. The information reached the White House on Friday, the same day it learned of the other, more dated intelligence. The Police Department declined to comment directly on the second stream.
"In and of itself, that some of the material is dated does not permit us to let our guard down," Mr. Browne said.
He said that the Department of Homeland Security had notified police officials of the time frame that the intelligence was gathered almost as soon as the agency contacted the city on Friday night. But the threat is being treated as immediate.
The police are diverting trucks from several entrances into Manhattan and are searching vehicles and people. No decision has been made yet on how long the searches will continue; they may not even last through the month and the Republican National Convention, Mr. Browne said.
"Our convention security was robust to begin with," he noted. "We don't expect any significant changes as a result of this new information."
In New Jersey, officials lashed out at Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, saying that he did not immediately tell them the age of the intelligence. Mayor Sharpe James of Newark said he discovered that the information was dated from the news Monday night, and that the city's homeland security official was not allowed to view the F.B.I. document outlining the threat until Monday, after decisions about how to react had already been made.
"The tragedy of this whole issue is that with homeland security, you can't separate the politics from the security," he said. "If we don't set up precautions and a tragedy happens, we're irresponsible."
But Mr. Ridge defended Sunday's announcement during an appearance in New York yesterday, saying that releasing the information was "not about politics."
If nothing new is learned to bolster the threat in the coming weeks, officials will be left with the questions of whether to diminish their security, and how to do so without seeming to take the matter less seriously.
"If it stays this way then what do you do?" said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat of New York. "Do it until the election? After the election? These are very difficult decisions to make."
Officials stressed that the age of some of the information did not dampen its relevance.
"Al Qaeda took years to plan the 9/11 attacks," said Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., of New York. "The fact that it's three-and-a-half years old shouldn't lessen our vigilance."
Indeed, the beefed up security around the New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup buildings could become part of New York's so-called "shades of orange" alert, an evolving and shifting police presence throughout the city, he said.
Officials in New Jersey, expressed concern about mounting costs. "However long term, it's going to be costly to keep that type of presence around Prudential," said Director Anthony F. Ambrose of the Newark Police Department. "It's tough to not know how long this is going to last."
Jersey City, which the Holland Tunnel links to Manhattan, is spending an additional $16,000 a day in overtime, said Chief Ron Buonocore.
Elected officials used the alerts to renew a call for more federal financing to combat terror. Senators Jon S. Corzine and Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York sent letters to the White House complaining of insufficient financing.
In Washington, the mayor accused the Capitol Police of effectively closing streets around the Capitol for vehicle screening.
The police did this with "no consultation or courtesy of any kind," said Tony Bullock, director of communications for Mayor Anthony A. Williams. These measures are "walling off the Capitol - turning it into a gated community for the governmental elite," he said. "We can't absorb this - these cars have no-where to go," he said, citing "massive gridlock" with the closings of one block of E Street, and Independence and Constitution Avenues. Mr. Bullock also said that the mayor's office had not been advised of any threat to these areas, and they were responding to the heightened terror alert by activating closed-circuit TV surveillance cameras around the city and "staying on top of things that look suspicious."
Reporting for this article was contributed by Jason George, Colin Moynihan and Damien Cave, in New Jersey, and Jason Pesick, in Washington.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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