Two weeks ago I briefly pointed out [1] that Janet Napolitano, Secretary for Homeland Security, said that she wanted to reduce the level of fear in this country through improving preparedness for a terrorist attack. Now Homeland Security is seeking to do away with any pretense that we will ever be safe. Their latest proposal is to improve the “public credibility” of the system by”simplifying” the color scheme. If the recommendations are adopted, the new color scheme would consist only of yellow, orange, and red. Or, as Wendy McElroy put it [2], “the new levels are 1. Be Afraid, 2. Be Very Afraid, 3. Panic!”
[3]While I’m heartened that they at least admit that it’s “institutionally difficult” to lower the threat level, I still don’t believe that the color scheme is an ideal solution. Keeping one’s citizens in a constant state of fear that they will be attacked is, I believe, one way for the government to keep the public’s attention diverted from the causes of terrorist attacks– namely, our governments policies. If we were to stop killing innocent civilians [4] around the world, we may just find that people around the world no longer wish to kill us in retaliation.
The new color scale is also an attempt to limit the politicization potential of the threat level. Wired explains [5]:
…Tom Ridge, the former Homeland Security secretary, wrote in a new book, the Test of Our Times, that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft unsuccessfully lobbied him to raise the threat level days before the 2004 elections, in a bid to seal President George W. Bush’s re-election.
“Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level, and was supported by Rumsfeld,” Ridge writes [6]. “There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. I wondered, ‘Is this about security or politics?’”
You can view the whole report here. [7]
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