Do Terror Alerts Keep Us Safe? 

Apparently not, according to an online survey that accompanied this story I did for PARADE Magazine: http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/do-terror-alerts-keep-us-safe.html.

Seventy-nine percent of respondents said no.

President Obama once referred to the Homeland Security Advisory System as “the color-coded politics of fear,” and now his administration is taking a close look at the five-tiered public-alert system.The threat-advisory chart was unveiled six months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and critics have charged ever since that threat-assessment decisions have as much to do with political expediency as with national security. After changing hues 10 times in its first two years, the chart fell into limited use following the departure of Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and the system’s other champion, former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ridge later said that use of the system was driven by others in the Bush Administration, sometimes over his objections.

Read the rest and vote in the poll at the above link.