Despite the palpable level of angst that a source described over an al Qaeda threat against the United States, the national terror threat level remains at “Elevated” or “Yellow” where it has been stuck since 2005.
Information gathered since an attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day has U.S. officials concerned that al Qaeda in Yemen has “trained and equipped … viable operatives” to strike U.S. targets, including targets unrelated to aviation, a reliable source familiar with the investigation told CNN.
“I have not seen people this ramped up on the terror front like this for probably two years,” the source said. “The palpable level of angst is incredible.”Read more on the new threat
The threat level for the aviation sector didn’t change after the Christmas Day incident it has been at “High” or “Orange” since 2006 when British officials uncovered a plot to use liquid explosives to bring down Transatlantic flights. A security expert calls the current color-coded system “useless.”
“It’s ineffective as communicating to the American public. And it’s obsolete in terms of kind of managing national preparedness levels,” said James Carafano, a homeland security expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “It really is useless.”
The system officially known as the Homeland Security Advisory System was implemented in March 2002 just months after the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
The terror alert system is most recognizable by a color coded graphic, which includes: Severe (red), High (orange), Elevvated.
NationalTerrorAlert.com will continue to maintain a live web alert, adapting to any new alert, once DHS has made a final decision. For those of you fetauring the alert on your website, we don’t anticipate you having to make any changes.
via National Terror Alert System.
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They’re probably trying to figure out how to add the level “complacent” and what the appropriate color should be.
Once again we need to understand that this indication of threat levels is 100% not effective and really was created to apize the US public after 9/11.
If you ask yourself a few simple questions. For example. Whats the difference between yellow and orange? Or should I feel more threatened if it’s one color or the other? You most likely will not be able to come up with an answer. Why? Because it’s nonesence. The fact is that either a threat exists or it does not. We need to get away from this mass confusion of bands and levels of threat and all these high tech dectection devices. We must rely on the human factor. I can’t recall a terrorist ever being caught by metal detector or any type of high tech equipment. The only real way we can determine if a threat exists is to be able to see the difference between odd and suspicious. Once we have refuted all suspicion indicators and found what we a looking at is suspicious then we can agree that an actual threat exists. We must be able to use predictive profiling and security questioning as the first line of preventing an attack. No matter where it is. Airport, Bus station, School or shoping mall we must be able to first find the BOMBER not the BOMB.
I have thought for sometime that the alert level system should be raised.
Many of use check the status of this alert level on a regular bases.
With all the terror attempts that has been made it should have already been raised long ago. The alert level for US Aircraft has maintained high alert but the level for US has not changed from Elevated which I think should be raised to a higher level, if not just as high as the US Aircraft alert level.
I have thought for sometime that the US ALERT LEVEL status should have been raised to match the US AIRCRAFT alert level long ago.
I hope that it will be raised!