In stark contrast to last year’s holiday season, when the nation was under heightened alert, counterterrorism officials say there is precious little intelligence “chatter” being picked up about any new plot this year. U.S. and foreign intelligence and law enforcement services report a continuing stream of vague, lower-level threats from al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups against American interests at home and abroad. But officials say nothing specific and credible has emerged in recent months that would require the government to raise the risk level above yellow, or “elevated,” the midpoint on the five-level threat scale. But the threat of another terrorist attack on the United States still exists. “It’s a little bit like a duck on a pond. You’ve got a lot going on under the surface but you don’t have any big waves,” FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence chief Gary Bald said in an interview Thursday. Full Story