Former Department of Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge admitted that the administration put the country on higher alert status occasionally despite "only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level" during those times. Ridge stated to reporters at a Washington forum,
"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?' "
The color coded alert system, which has been widely criticized as confusing, sensationalist, or vague, is under review by Michael Chertoff, the current homeland Security secretary. Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that "improvements and adjustments" may be available soon. Whether it will be revised to include a "Blackwatch Plaid" setting remains to be seen.
The level itself is only raised if a majority of members on the President's Homeland Security Council favor raising it, and the president concurs. Ridge often opposed raising the threat level, mostly due to the fact that local governments and businesses would be forced to spend money to enact temporary security measures. Ridge was also often in conflict with former Attorney General John Ashcroft, one of the members of the council, over how to relate information to the public. Ridge did not want to overuse the terror alert system, but was often overruled by Ashcroft and others supporting Ashcroft's view.
This doesn't surprise anyone, really. To say that the terror alert system has been used as anything other than a way of keeping the American people afraid is nothing short of lunacy. Hopefully, the system will be overhauled, as the folks in Washington are planning. Maybe we can get a system that's not based in telling us that something might happen, sometime, somewhere, so we had all better cower in fear.
