How do you say goodbye to someone you never liked in the first place?
It appears that the great Homeland Security color-coded fear-o-meter is dead. I guess this means it's time to retire our Sesame Street-themed parody of same in the sidebar. Check this quote:
"The color-coded system does not work well and has undermined the department's credibility,'' said Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat. "What we have now is a system that tells us to be scared. That's it.''
Yup. Though I would sharpen that a bit to: we have a system that tells us to be scared that nobody pays a damn bit of attention to anyway.
The US Government: What... what? We're doin' somethin! See? Somethin! With charts and everything! Why do you hate our freedom?!?
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Johno
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They must hate our freedom.
They must hate our freedom.
B,
B,
See? THAT'S the kind of thing I was looking for and never got.
Tell me what I need to do and I'll do it- quit screwing around and being afraid I'll panic and riot, or take offense and sue.
David Brin has written
David Brin has written several articles on how a more open policy in regard to security - including the benighted masses, letting them in on at least some of the information - would greatly increase our security and reduce public worrying.
The best example of this was the DC sniper. All the Law enforcement people were ever so secretive, not letting out any details whatsoever. People freaked out. And then, some useful information was accidently leaked (freaking out the Law enforcement types) and within hours an informed citizen put the finger on the snipers and they were arrested.
That should be the model. Paternalistic government agencies should wise up and realize that collectively, the "people" are incredibly efficient and intelligent consumers of intelligence, and can act responsibly and effectively on it.
Well, it never scared me,
Well, it never scared me, because I always saw sesame street characters on my alert.
The color-coded alert scheme
The color-coded alert scheme was perhaps the single creation of gubmint that made me rethink that "we're all in good hands, because people smarter than me are in charge."
Nowhere that I was able to determine did there exist a clear set of instructions correlated to the scheme. No "If code is orange, then fill up the car with gas", or "If red, then hoard".
Leadership sometimes means telling people what to do, particularly in times of dire emergency. No one told me dick, except "Yellow: Elevated". Wtf does that mean?
It was my understanding that
It was my understanding that any instructions that went along with the alert level applied to law enforcement and security agencies rather than the general public. For example, when I worked at another government building, 'orange' meant that one of the exit doors was locked. How that increased our security, I'm not exactly sure, but it was a visible sign that the security level had gone up.
Another problem was that it applied to the whole country, which doesn't exactly narrow down the threat at all. A system of regional alerts might actually have been more helpful. "Today in DC, sunny and warm. The pollen count is up, but the terror alert has dropped back down to yellow. Leave your umbrellas and guns at home, but bring your inhaler."