Officials revealed yesterday that most of the information that led to Sunday’s increase in the terror threat level around specific financial institutions was largely based on surveillance al Qaeda carried out over three years ago — before the Sept. 11 attacks. One senior law enforcement official 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.”

On Sunday the Department of Homeland Security warned of attacks against five site: the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington; the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup Center in New York; and the Prudential Financial building in Newark. Yesterday security at all of the sites was markedly increased. A counter-terrorism official told the Washington Post, “Most of the information is very dated but you clearly have targets with enough specificity, and that pushed it over the edge. 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.”

While both the New York Times and Washington Post have major pieces today highlighting that the intelligence was three years old, Bush administration officials on Sunday gave reporters no hint that the threat was so old. In its Monday editions the New York Times reported that Al Qaeda may have carried out test run attacks in “recent days” but today the Times reveals that officials in New Jersey had misspoken and that no such test runs are believed to have occurred.