Posted on USAToday.com this morning:"The Department of Homeland Security is unveiling its new two-level terror alert system today, replacing the often confusing color-coded version...in effect since 9/11."I can't, for the life of me, figure out what was so confusing about the five-level system we'd been living with for ten years. In reality it was only a three-tier system anyway -- we'll never again see a blue day or even a green moment. The two lowest levels were invented for people who still believe there's such a thing as safety.
So next week we'll have two levels -- Elevated and Imminent -- because too many Americans couldn't count to three, even with pretty colors.
DHS reportedly is forming a "counter-terrorism advisory board" that'll meet within 30 minutes of uncovering a threat. In this alert-by-committee scheme, a public warning must be issued within two hours. Ambitious, sure, but there's more:
"An individual threat alert is issued for a specific time period and then automatically expires. It may be extended if new information becomes available or the threat evolves."That gem, set forth in the bureaucratic dialect, is the so-called "Sunset Provision" -- yet another artifice for a simple-minded populace that prefers its warnings, like cottage cheese, to have expiration dates. (See also "exit strategy.")
Those of us who cultivate a preparedness mindset won't be leaning too hard on any DHS system -- living color or monochrome, two levels or two hundred. It's but one of many voices informing our choices.
Independence isn't easily confused. Liberty trusts experience over decree. We operate from a continuum of vigilance that the masses never will understand.
