Ridge not pressured by politics to raise security threat level

Former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge denied reports that politics played a part in determining when to raise the terrorism security threat level prior to the 2004 election. In his memoir, The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege, to be published this week, Ridge had said that he worried that politics was a consideration, and there were members of the administration who expressed opinions about raising the level that differed from his. But, he expressed recently, at no time did he feel pressured to change the alert level and it was not done. The internal debate that occurred at that time was on account of a newly released videotape by Osama Bin Laden.