The Islamic State group has thwarted the Western system of security

Police from the District of Columbia and elsewhere have changed over security in and around federal government buildings, landmarks, and transportation centers after an offshoot of the Islamic State group apparently released a video saying it’ll conduct a Paris-style attack on the nation’s capital.

Metro Transit Police in the District have raised K9 sweeps of the subway system for explosives, and U.S. Capitol Police have issued an argument saying the department needed a “heightened security posture.” The NY Police Department also has bolstered security, adding 500 plus officers and eight K9 units, in accordance with a statement. Over 100 counter-terrorism officials are on unit at all times, the department says.

Former special agent Paul Fennewald, a bomb and explosives specialist with the FBI for 23 years, told us in February about unpleasant and widespread trail-offs between federal security agencies such as the FBI that can gather threat intelligence as well as the state and local police departments that can best apply that kind of real information.

The breakdown in communication nonetheless has not been addressed, says Fennewald, who currently advises public organizations in Missouri on safety after being a homeland security advisor there. The Paris attacks only further highlight U.S. weakness.

“We’re banking on the FBI being able to interdict themselves before a kid gets on a plane, then straps a bomb on. We need to get ahead of that,” Fennewald says.

American domestic security officials, however, are acting as though the attack in Paris — for which the Islamic State group taken responsibility — has had little if any impact on the U.S.

But for the most part, it hasn’t yet.

“It is business as usual,” says ex-FBI special agent Clint van Zandt, who previously worked in the bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit. Counter-terrorism agencies would only react differently if there were active intelligence of someone else impending attack, he says, which federal government officials say is not the case now. “Whether France got hit three days ago or not, we know America is high on the list of ISIS, and we know we have to be leaning forward in the saddle 24 hours a day.”

Indeed, Obama stymied repeated inquiries during a press conference in Turkey early Monday about how the devastating, coordinated attack that killed at least 129 people in Paris would change U.S. policy, either in its military efforts in Iraq and Syria or in the homeland.

“Every day we have threat streams coming through the intelligence transom,” the president said. “The concerns about potential ISIL attacks in the West have been there for over a year now, and they come through periodically.”

A Homeland Security official speaking on the condition of privacy repeated that no legitimate threats exist and confirmed that nothing changed at the department, created in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks to coordinate US governmental initiatives to avoid and manage terrorist threats. It will keep working with overseas partners and takes seriously threats by the Islamic State group to attack Western targets, the official says, and definitely will adjust safety measures as necessary.

“[ISIS leaders] are worried about their recruitment profile and their donation profile, and they’re trying to combat the perception that they’re stalemated,” Biddle says. “If anything like this sort of argument turns out to be what’s going on with them, then what they want is an occasional spectacular [attack]. They don’t want steady attrition that would motivate someone to send 200,000 troops.”

But that doesn’t indicate the Islamic State group won’t persist trying to attack the U.S.

“They’ve threatened that in the past, but I think it’s a logical escalation for them to do,” says van Zandt. “If one wants to expand their base of recruits, one of the ways you do it is showing success.”