ABC News' Pierre Thomas says DHS officials are "quietly declaring" that the US is entering a "Period of Heightened Alert" because of the upcoming Olympics, the Democratic and Republican conventions, the November elections and the fact that a new president will be taking office in January. Officials tell Thomas the next 11 months will be "a time frame when terrorists may have more incentive to attack."
Accusations of politicization haunted DHS's decision to move the nation's color-coded advisory system from yellow, or elevated risk, to orange, or high risk, just three months before the 2004 election. (A week after President Bush was re-elected, the agency returned the advisory back to yellow.)
This time around, DHS isn't changing colors, Thomas reports, because the "do not want to be accused of trying to inject themselves into the presidential campaign."
Instead, apparently, anonymous officials are simply passing unspecific warnings to a correspondent for a national television network.
