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Loading...Obama to Scrap Terror Threat Scale
It is one of the most visible and often mocked legacies of the Bush administration: the color coded terror alert scale that was intended to communicate the terror threat level at any given time. Now the Department of Homeland Security is recommending scrapping the scale for a more descriptive system.
The Obama administration, along with other Democrats, have criticized the system as easily politicized and manipulated into political scare tactics.
While the administration has indicated its readiness to get rid of the system, it has not elaborated on what it is suggesting as a replacement other to say they are looking for something “more relevant to the American people.”
But the fact that the administration can’t articulate just what should replace the current system indicates just how useless the idea of terror alerts are in general. Any system created has the possibility of being politicized and used to drum up fear, regardless of the wording or coloring for that matter. The information communicated is all but meaningless to our every day lives and really does little more than to keep a reminder in the minds of voters that their lives are under constant threat.
That ongoing reminder serves as the basis for the extended police powers first developed under Bush and then continued under President Obama. That’s all. The administration is taking the right step in scrapping the system created under Tom Ridge and President Bush, but it should go one step further and scrap the idea of a terror alert system all together.
Read more: bush, homeland security, obama, politics, terrorism, threat levelif t, threat scale
photo courtesy of Fingers SFV via Flickr
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This is a nice touch but it is like locking the barn door after the horse has run away. He needs to scrap the Patriot Act first before anything else. That is so unconstitutional it isn't even funny. The government can read your e-mails, your snail mail, listen to your phone conversations, and all WITHOUT the approval of a judge. Think about it folks. Your freedom took a huge hit when that piece of legislation was enacted and this president has done nothing to stop it..!!!!
getting rid of a system that no one pays any attention to unless they are making fun of it...right...need to get a committee to make thata recommendation...
We really don't need our governments telling us when to be terrified. If they can tell us where to go to be safe, then that's great. However, telling us to be terrified is counter-productive and dangerous.
Obama should check the documentation on this system and figure out its purpose. I cannot imagine what it might have been. That is the only way to figure out how to replace it. Just a guess, but I expect it could be replaced quite effectively by a grilled soy cheese sandwich.
Why not keep the old alert on television and radio (and computers, phones, blackberries etc) and scrap the red, yellow, etc.
It was used only when needed by the other presidents to change the headlines when the president or his cohorts had done a bad or stupid thing.
Yup, lets just walk around with bags over our heads ....
Julie c,
You are one very sick broad!
Scrap it!
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