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Government may scrap color-coded terror alert
By: Julie Mason
Examiner White House Correspondent
07/29/09 12:52 PM EDT
Threat Level Horizontal Stripes: Often a bad idea. (ap)
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Wednesday told the Council on Foreign Relations that she is considering scrapping the widely ridiculed, color-coded terror alert system. The Tom Ridge-era relic is being reviewed by a task force -- generally the first step in the long, governmental process of killing something.
"I recently appointed a task force to review our existing color- coded threat system," Napolitano said. "That review is under way, and I mention it only to say that if a better, more effective system can be found, that will be used instead of the current color-coded one, just to see how -- the federal government and DHS rethinking what it needs to provide active information to individuals, to businesses, to employers."
Because really, when you are walking through the airport and hear that the current threat level is "yellow," what does that really mean? And can we unload the plastic sheeting and duct tape now, too? Apparently, we can -- those items are on the government's old list of preparedness items, but not on the newer one.
For our money, the now (sadly) outmoded terror alert system devised by DC blogger Princess Sparkle Pony was the best of the genre, and came at a time when our nation needed the guidance afforded by tracking former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's shifting hairdos.
That's more like it!
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