Homeland Security--what they never tell you
Homeland Insecurity
By The Sensei
As I write these words, it's a gloomy Friday in late February, and guess what folks? The United States government's national threat level is YELLOW—that means it's "Elevated", for those who wanted to know.
The current color-coded system was created as a knee-jerk reaction to the 9-11 attacks, and is currently administered by the US Department of Homeland Security. It was intended to be a flexible, multi-tier self-defense awareness system that could be easily understood and used by the general public.
The more tuned-in of you will have already spotted the major question mark. The threat system was developed as a result of the 9-11 attacks. Either the government knew those attacks were immanent, or they didn't. If they did, the system is clearly useless because they're keeping the big stuff from us anyway. If they didn't, the system is clearly useless because the government can't see the big stuff coming. Either way, the system is useless.
Another big problem relates to trust. I just don't trust anyone to tell me whether I should be alert, vigilant, suspicious or not. These are my own choices. The government can tell me their version of the facts as they see them, but how I interpret those facts—if I believe them, even—is my decision alone. I don't trust anybody to do it for me. And God knows, the world's governments have screwed up enough times in terms of sourcing and interpreting their own intelligence data.
This type of threat system also contains some serious technical inadequacies. For a start, the top tier of the system, RED ("Severe"), has only been used once, and bottom tiers of the system—GREEN ("Low") and BLUE ("Guarded") have never been used. They probably never will be—if something happened while the system was at these lower levels, the government would look pretty clueless and irresponsible and as a result they don't dare use them. So the seemingly sophisticated, flexible, five-stage threat level is in reality just a binary system, and a pretty static one at that. It can't tell us very much at all.
But as well as being flexible, the threat system is supposed to be practical, usable by guys like you and me. Unfortunately, it strikes out here, too. The Department of Homeland Security alter the threat level based on a complex—and seemingly constantly shifting—set of criteria such as current events, foreign relations and international or internal espionage. Trouble is, should the threat level change, the government won't tell us why it's changed, and they're exceedingly unlikely to let us in on what threats we might specifically expect. The government argue that this is to avoid panicking the civilian populace; but in the end it means that we are prevented from making the informed choices required to avoid whatever might be coming at us.
Ignore this kind of amorphous, politically inspired junk. Follow the guidance in The Urban Warrior's Bible and develop your own sources of intelligence—sources you trust—and depend upon them. And for God's sake, never be told by external authorities whether you should be alert and vigilant or not.
The Urban Warrior is always vigilant!