Transcript: Ridge Raises Threat Level

QUESTION: Were the recent arrests in Pakistan a key contributing factor to the information flow that you're getting now?

RIDGE: Well, we will not comment on the specific sources, but let me just go back again and say the coalition that we have built, and the alliances we have built, have been instrumental and very much a part of our intelligence-gathering operation.

Yes?

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, what are you advising the people who work at these businesses to do? Tomorrow is a workday. Should they go to work? Should they stay away?

RIDGE: We have talked to the security professionals at those buildings and the leadership, and I think the employees most appropriately would get guidance from their employer.

I would like to think, as sobering and as difficult as this news is, and the king of anxiety that it would generate, that the folks that work at those particular sites or stroll through the neighborhood, through those streets, would have the resolve and maybe a little bit of defiance to say, "Well, we know what you know. And we're going to go about leading our lives. We're not going to let threats or this kind of information turning into fortress America. We're going to keep on being America."

Yes?

QUESTION: Secretary Ridge, related to the targets in New York City, do you have any information that would connect this plot to the pre-election threats you talked about, or more specifically, the upcoming Republican Convention in New York City?

RIDGE: The consistent reporting stream -- and I think it was back on July 8th when we had a press conference here where we talked about several sources that generally had discussed the possibility of attacking us to try to undermine our democratic process. And I think one could reasonably infer that this could be part of that effort.

But I don't think you necessarily should put a time frame around when these targets, if they were ultimately the subject of an attack, would be attacked. I mean, given the specificity of the information, you've got to appreciate that and consider that in light of the broader general threat to try to disrupt the democratic process.

But I don't think you can conclude that it's framed in that fashion. And I think I'll let on background some of the intelligence folks explain it in greater detail.

QUESTION: Do you have any reason to think that other financial centers like Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles are at higher risk now than they were?

RIDGE: At this juncture, the answer is no. But I also have to reiterate the fact that there are multiple sources. And we're doing everything we can to analyze the information. And if we would have the same kind and quality of information as I've told over 200 people in a conference call that I had just before we came here -- a lot of the homeland security advisers and those from around the country -- we would share it with them in the same fashion.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I thought that New York was already on an orange alert level. So are they now, the financial institutions, going to red, the highest?

RIDGE: I think you're right in saying that historically New York maintains, sustains a general higher level of alert and vigilance than most cities. I think if you asked Commissioner Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg, they would say we have the highest level of vigilance, and the highest level of awareness and the highest level of security.

On top of that, they'll be working particularly with the companies that own these specific locations, reviewing the vulnerabilities, taking a look at what additional protective measures they should put or could put in place, given the reporting.