Even as security is tightened, however, numerous counterterrorism and law enforcement officials concede that the activity is not based on any new or specific intelligence. Some officials also say they are concerned that people may become inured to the drumbeat of warnings about the terrorist threat, especially given the lack of incidents during the political conventions and Olympics.
James M. Loy, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security, said in an interview Friday that even if there is no attack between now and the inauguration, officials will be just as worried about other events well into 2005 and beyond.
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"I call it the new normalcy," Loy said. "We're immersed [in a war] with the first 'ism' in the 21st century. . . . We must find a way to hold onto the sense of urgency, and hold it potentially for decades."
Homeland Security has taken dozens of steps that now will be more or less permanent, Loy said, including stepping up inspections of train tracks, increasing Coast Guard boardings of incoming cargo ships and expanding the use of explosive-sniffing canine units.
U.S. intelligence officials said they continue to sift through al Qaeda computer documents retrieved during a series of raids in Pakistan over the summer.
The computer files, which included photographs and other information gleaned from the surveillance of U.S. targets before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, prompted Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to raise the terror threat level for the financial sectors.
But several sources who have been briefed on the results, and who declined to be identified because the material is classified, said little fresh information has been gleaned.
The files included information about radiological devices, but there was no data linking that information with plans to attack the United States. Nor were there indications that members of al Qaeda had acquired the components for such a device, according to an official who has read recent intelligence reports.
One senior European intelligence official said his country has seen no direct evidence that al Qaeda has the ability or specific intent to launch an attack in the United States before the November elections. Regardless, the official added, al Qaeda is benefiting from widespread fears that they are plotting something.
Although U.S. law enforcement officials are short on specifics, they said their agencies have been stepping up their counterterrorism efforts. Vacations have been canceled. Off-site locations have been set up in case agency personnel have to be moved out of Washington. At the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, all staffers must notify their supervisors if they are out of town.
"We have to know where everybody is," said ATF Assistant Director Michael R. Bouchard. "We are making sure we're ready and our best assets and equipment are available when we need them."
Members of the Washington area's Joint Terrorism Task Force plan to meet with other local and federal officials this week in Arlington to discuss potential election threats. Paul J. McNulty, the U.S. attorney in Alexandria, said the steps will include urging police to run the names of anyone they stop in coming weeks -- even for a traffic violation -- through the watch list at the FBI's Terrorism Screening Center in Crystal City.
"We want law enforcement to pay attention to small things and to suspicious things," McNulty said. "We want to get down to the foot patrol, the cop on the beat level, so when a police officer responds to something or sees something curious, that officer realizes it's especially important now to take the extra step to check it out."
New airport security procedures outlined earlier this month called for more discretion among screeners to pull passengers aside for additional scrutiny and new procedures that allow pat-downs with the front of the screener's hand to be able to detect hidden items. Those procedures were enacted in response to terrorist attacks on two Russian airliners last month, in which two Chechen women allegedly smuggled explosives on board, killing 90.
D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said District police remain on increased vigilance and indicated that orders have not changed for officers since the warnings were received. These warning were separate from the August threat to financial centers in New York, Newark and Washington.
Staff writers Sara Kehaulani Goo, Sari Horwitz, John Mintz and Dana Priest in Washington; Jerry Markon in Alexandria; and correspondent Craig Whitlock in Berlin contributed to this report.
