DHS Terror Alert LevelsPeople don’t seem to pay much attention to the Department of Homeland Security’s terror alert level these days (notwithstanding Fox News Channel’s ticker). Maybe they’ve grown complacent to the threat of attacks on U.S. soil. Maybe they trust the government’s efforts at combating terrorism. Or maybe false alarms and vague warnings have eroded what little value the system had in the first place.

Since its inception there had been concerns that the Bush Administration might use the Homeland Security Advisory System (as it’s formally known) for political purposes. These accusations certainly reached a high point when the alert level was raised to orange for key financial centers just a few days after the end of the Democratic Convention last summer. Later we all learned that the intelligence that justified the warning was 3 to 4 years old. Very suspicious, but the “liberal media” didn’t spend much time on it.

It now seems clear that we were right to be skeptical. Speaking to fellow former Homeland Security officials, Tom Ridge described disagreements with other presidential advisors regarding when it was appropriate to raise the threat level:

In those debates, in those discussions, more often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. … Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on [alert]. … There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, “For that?”

Without even addressing what Tom Ridge’s statements say about the possibility of impropriety (an essay in itself), there’s an obvious danger in crying wolf so many times that you get the opposite of what you want: a vigilant citizenry. Even a legitimate alert has little usefulness. What does being “vigilant” entail? Does the government want stock brokers to racially profile fellow pedestrians as they walk down Wall Street? Should every passenger on an airplane monitor anyone wearing a turban during the whole flight? How are we to balance carrying on our normal lives (as terror warnings always encourage us to do) while simultaneously exercising caution?

There’s talk of reforming or scrapping the alert system altogether, and I certainly wouldn’t miss the rainbow of warnings. The government should be open with the public regarding credible intelligence of terrorist threats, but they should be specific to regions of the country. Rather than dictating a level of fear in the form of a color, information should be released in reports or presented at press conferences where the data can be dissected and questions asked. If there are specific actions that citizens should take to better protect themselves, the government should suggest those actions with clear and honest evaluations of their necessity to avoid panic. Constant communication between government and citizenry is key to properly preparing for the worst.

I have no doubt that for those in Washington legitimately concerned with the safety of this country, the decisions to release or withhold information are difficult ones. America suffered an unimagineable loss in 2001 and it can be tempting to err on the side of warning. Such warnings can be costly, though. They breed complacency, they use up much-needed police and fire department funds in local government, and they can be used unethically to cultivate fear and submissiveness to unjustifiable government acts. Public awareness is important, but the means to that awareness needs to change.