Damage From the Alert System Is Alarming

Homeland Security's color-coded alert system is utterly inappropriate, even for small embattled countries, let alone for the United States. The department is happy with the alert system, but perhaps our new bureaucrats should pay more attention to the practices of those far more experienced in countering terrorism. The Israelis have never seen a need to broadcast alert levels to the general public, not even when at war. Nor did the British see any advantage in acting as if the United Kingdom was "Battlestar Galactica" when under attack by the bombs of Irish terrorists.

Nothing prevents the implementation of the security measures associated with each threat level, without any need to broadcast frightening yet meaningless warnings to the public. In the past, the British contacted police forces by telex and telephone, as did the Israelis, who also used messengers to mobilize each neighborhood's reservists. Nowadays with the Internet, one keystroke can alert our thousands of different police forces and other security professionals.

Nor should anyone worry about a relaxation in the useful vigilance of the public if the alert system is dropped. On the contrary, simply by becoming routine, the alerts now issued are eroding the potential value of a nationwide call to the public, in the event that threat information could truly justify mobilizing all of us.

Some would claim that it is not just the self-protection and self-aggrandizement of the security bureaucrats that are needlessly tormenting us, rather that there is a conscious political design at work to enhance the appeal of the experienced incumbents in this election year. If so, that is all the more reason for both sides in Congress to act now to shut down the alert system, thus proving that neither Democrats nor Republicans are playing politics with terrorism.