The Quadrangle

Issue date: 11/3/04 Section: Perspectives

As the initial shock of September 11th started to wane and people began coming to terms with what had happened, the whole country embarked on an ongoing journey of self-analysis. The question on everyone's mind: "what did we do wrong?" soon followed by "how can we never make the same mistakes again?" The government, headed by President Bush (and both Republican controlled houses) decided that the best way to deal with both questions is to create another department responsible for "Homeland Security" and named after. As the public dealt with the dilemma of actually figuring out where the departments' power began and ended in relation to the existing security institutions (namely the FBI and CIA) the newly created department issued one, in a long line of many questionable decisions: a color coded terror alert system.

From the beginning, seemingly few people could figure out the exact purpose of the aforementioned system, other than having a scapegoat. In case something did go wrong, the government could now say they had warned the public.

While Russia contemplates implementing an alert system similar to ours, several years of alert color changes made the public in the US immune to the updates, with many no longer caring about the purpose or the system itself, and with good reason. People stopped questioning the basis for the implemented color coded terror forecast, and no longer worry about what "alert level" is currently in effect, as is made evident by the Detroit News' July 24th editorial which listed reader opinions of the alert method, most of which can be summarized by K. Thomas' response: "Why should I? I don't have any control over what "could" happen."

Even news networks stopped showing the alert level next to their normally displayed time or temperature. In essence, the public does what can only be expected: live their lives as they did the day before, because regardless of how red the color of the alert is, we still can't do a thing about it.

Months after the initial announcement and ensuing presentation of each color's meaning was made, the public was made privy to the fact that our local security organizations have their own, albeit, similar system that the federal government updates to make suggestions related to police deployment. Having two separate systems gives rise to further questions regarding public responsibility and how it should change, depending on the most current color selected to represent apparent threat level. Not to mention how hard the effect of the current color is to see, as was noted on stateline.org, this past March:

Continued...

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