Officians: Scrap color-coded terror alert system

[Elmore Furth]

Source: Associated Press

The Homeland Security Department is proposing to discontinue the color-coded terror alert system that became a symbol of the country's post-9/11 jitters and the butt of late-night talk show jokes.

The 8-year-old system, with its rainbow of five colors — from green, signifying a low threat, to red, meaning severe — became a fixture in airports, in government buildings and on newscasts. Over the past four years, millions of travelers have begun and ended their trips to the sound of airport recordings warning that the threat level is orange.

The system's demise would not be the end of terror alerts; instead, the alerts would become more descriptive and not as colorful. In the past two years, Obama administration officials have changed security protocols without changing the color of the threat, such as introducing new airport security measures after a terrorist tried to bring down a Detroit-bound jetliner last Christmas.

By scrapping the colors, President Barack Obama would abandon a system that critics long have said was too vague to be useful and that Democrats criticized as a political scare tactic. And it would represent a formal undoing of one of the George W. Bush administration's most visible legacies.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40351278/ns/us_news-security/

[ixion]

1. "one of the George W. Bush administration's most visible legacies" the "threat level"

Thanks, ass clown. Because of these so-called 'patriots', we now plan our lives based on a 'threat level'. How very lame and very sad.

[Blandocyte]

2. Can we keep the Teletubby-coded system?

I liked that one a lot. Anybody got a pic?

[titaniumsalute]

3. Cry wolf syndrome

I fly all the time for work. I haven't even noticed a color-coded sign in probably a few years. I'm sure they are there but when you see something all the time it doesn't matter as much. I think that's how my wife feels about me.

[CatholicEdHead]

17. I only see it one place all the time

if I fly or just drive by the airport. On the way to MSP, there is a bright LED sign which always tells the current level. It has been at Orange nonstop since 2001 with no change of course. :crazy:

[dipsydoodle]

4. Can't they increase the colours instead

That way there could be puce as well.

[notesdev]

5. What timing

I deconstructed the absurdity of the color coded system just yesterday:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9619321&mesg_id=9619351

[MadMaddie]

19. Nicely done!

[Bragi]

6. They need only one color

I suspect the problem is that color coding unhelpfully suggests that Americans are not always in immediate danger of an attack by "those people".

[AnneD]

7. Let think on this....

they stop terrorizing us with the Colour Coding in exchange for being groped and xrayed at the airport. Hmm. Tough decision :dilemma:

Alex, I think I'll take my civil rights for $1000 please.

[Xenotime]

8. Only 2 things needed for an alert system: 1.) Find a helmet. 2.) Put on the damn helmet

[bemildred]

9. Someone noticed it makes us look like Kindergarteners? nt

[demigoddess]

10. what is an 'offician'?

[derby378]

11. Color-coded terror warnings on track to disappear

Source: Associated Press / Yahoo! News

Goodbye danger defined as yellow, orange and red. The Homeland Security Department is looking to scrap the five-tiered color-coded terror warning system in favor of a streamlined one with as few as two alerts. The post-9/11, Bush-era system has been criticized as too vague to be useful in communicating the terror threat to the public, either ignored or the butt of jokes.

One option under consideration is to go to two threat levels instead of five: elevated and imminent. When the threat level would change to imminent under the new model, government officials would be expected to be as specific as possible in describing the threat without jeopardizing national security. And an imminent threat would not last longer than a week, meaning the public wouldn't see a consistently high and ambiguous threat level.

The 8-year-old alert system, with its rainbow of colors — from green, signifying a low threat, to red, meaning severe — has become a fixture in airports, government buildings and on newscasts.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_color_coded_threats

[lob1]

12. My feelings about this? Green alert.

[Jkid]

13. The system was useless.

We were never on Green,Blue, or Red. We were either on Yellow or Orange. The ironic thing we were on a Green state of emergency, but we are still vulnerable (Red) because we are no safer than we are since 9/11.

[Grassy Knoll]

14. Just a dumb scare tactic.....

[Brother Buzz]

15. I thought Tom Ridge took the flags when he packed it in.

I just assumed he set them up in the basement with his train set.

[derby378]

16. Look at the choo-choo...

:rofl:

You made my day!

[TheWatcher]

18. The War On Terror itself, like The War On Drugs, should disappear.

No more of this scripted, produced, Fake Soap Opera at the expense of Blood, Treasure, and Liberty.

NO MORE.