Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Threat Level: Infinite Orange

Idle thought, since I flew today -- has the airline Threat Level ever NOT been orange since the inception of the color terror alert scale? Just wondering.

73 comments:

Doctor Memory said...

As I recall, it got moved in and out of the red several times in the 4 months prior to the 2004 elections.

Entirely coincidental, I am sure.

Joe Helfrich said...

A quick google shows a few news posts about it being raised to orange or lowered to yellow at various dates, which is as I recalled it. I can't find a tracker that shows how many days it's been at which level, which would be a very useful thing, but it was raised to red a few times. To my knowledge, it has never been set to green or blue.

Personally, I think the Bush administration fired the guy who had the password and no one wants to admit it.

Stefan Jones said...

I don't watch cable TV news . . . or much TV news at all.

A few years ago, visiting my parents, I was more or less forced to do so. My father watched business shows all morning.

One of these was Fox related. Or maybe it was a business show on Fox News. In any case, the "crawl" occasionally included something that drove me bugfuck:

Terrorist Alert Level: >>YELLOW<<

I mean, cripes! How are you supposed to act on that factoid? It's not like that level changes all that often, and even if does, how many people know what it implies?

I could only conclude that it was a media version of the Streamers that the Oceania military fired at London: Be scared!

Steven said...

Yeah, the threat level started at Yellow, was raised to Orange occasionally, (suspiciously around times when Bush needed a bump in the polls against Kerry, including right after the DNC), and I think hasn't been raised to Orange since 2006?

It's never been Red (because that would mean they had actionable intelligence of an imminent attack, which thank God never happened), nor been lowered to blue or green (and I'm not sure what would lower it that low, the Rapture?)

Unknown said...

I can't really think of a way to change it from orange which would *deter* a terrorist attack... if it goes to red, a terrorist would wait to see what the new defences are, and then attack. If it goes green, it would be an invitation.

So, the only change that makes sense would be that the alert goes down to green, while security measures are increased drastically.

That'll be fun to watch.

Kevin said...

I actually have a chart on the wall of my office showing the various color threats.

Plus, FDA used to display the current threat level on their homepage, but since the recent redesign, they're left it out.

Anonymous said...

Don't recall the airport threat level actually changing. For an interesting rumination as to why, the very smart Bob Blakely wrote about it a bit back, coining Blakley's (First) Law:

"Every public alert system's status indicator rises until it reaches its disaster imminent setting and remains at that setting until it is retired from service."

http://notabob.blogspot.com/2009/05/porkalypse-blakleys-law-and-who.html

-jml

Bates said...

Plus, orange helps stave off scurvy.

DrGaellon said...

I recall it being Yellow on a few occasions... but pretty much no. Frankly, given the (notably vague) definitions of the levels, I don't think the threat level has been any less than yellow since the inception of commercial flight.

kkisser said...

The threat level can never go below orange because if it did and something happened, it looks like our vast and omnipresent security apparatus was asleep at the wheel. Likewise, it will never go to Red, because if it does and we aren't hit, then our security goons look like paranoid flakes.

As a communication tool, this color coded scale is next to meaningless, as a color doesn't convey any content, other than shades of paranoia. Which is nice, in a way, but not actionable.

as a PR tool, it's stupid, because it basically is just a blinking light that says "Boo!" But as is the case now, after 7 years, no one even pays attention to it, other then to go, "So yeah, Orange, huh? That's nice. So, is my flight at the gate yet?"

Jim Bales said...

I recall the threat level according to "Sesame Street":

Red -- Threat Level Elmo
Orange -- Threat Level Earnie
Yellow -- Threat Level Burt
Blue -- Threat Level Grover
Green -- Threat Level Oscar

Sadly, Google's image search isn't finding it.

Alex Epstein said...

Let Me Google That For You:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Threat+level+elmo

Zifnab said...

It's been at yellow for months, if not years. I think the last time it budged was during the 2006 Congressional Elections. We haven't heard from it since because no one heeded that final warning (re: Democrats won in a landslide).

Now, when we get hit with another 9/11 but a thousand times worse than original 9/11, we can blame Obama for not properly warning us by implementing the 24-countdown clock like Dick Cheney really wanted.

Jo said...

You know if TPTB did away with the system, a portion of the US would be running around, chicken littles, saying that the sky was falling because the absence of the rainbow-colored chart certainly means impending doom as no one can deny that doom is *not* impending due to lack of a system identifying the scale of possible doom.

Someone needs to rename the yellow/orange levels to "DON'T PANIC"...

Mike Cane said...

At the terminal for the Satan ^h^h^h^h^h Staten Island ferry, the threat level was dropped from MARSEC 2 to MARSEC 1 months ago.

Rob said...

It started at yellow, and I predicted on the spot that it would be an essentially binary system, toggling between "bad" and "worse." Anything below "bad" would make people stop feeling so anxious as to be automatically compliant and cease to justify political excesses. Anything above "worse" would pretty much be invoked only if there was actually an incident already, when people would already be maximally alert.

In the few years that followed, the threat level occasionally jumped to "worse," and many people astutely noticed a close correlation between the movements of the threat indicator and the political fortunes of the administration. The tool having lost credibility in most people's minds, it ceased to serve any significant purpose, either security or political.

After the 2004 elections the system seemingly was just forgotten. At some point along the way the DHS decided that airports needed a separate threat level from the country at large, and for years the indicators have remained at their (presumably) final setting: "bad" for the nation, but "worse" for airports.

Currently the system serves a single vestigial purpose: in airports the frequent announcements that "the Homeland Security Threat Level is currently at orange" enforce the social contract between TSA agents and travelers, the former reminded to be edgy and excessively reactionary, and the latter reminded to be fearfully compliant with agents who are known to be edgy and excessively reactionary, not to mention utterly unaccountable by any obvious mechanism.

Jim Bales said...

Alex,

Thanks for finding it -- it's all in the search strings. If you do an image search on Google for "sesame street threat level" (my search), Google doesn't find it. Nor does "Threat level X" where "X" is any of the characters except Elmo.

For example.

Sean Hansen said...

I think the threat level's main job is to make you forget your dignity long enough to take off your belts and shoes. I still need a few drinks to soothe the pain though.

It went yellow during the '04 election so it could be sent to Orange after debates, excessive death tolls in Iraq, economy problems, and the Democratic convention.

In an unrelated thought, when did republicans start calling things "Democrat blankity blank"? Do they not understand the difference between acceptable abbreviations to save time and change something into a basic noun(Democrat) and using a noun when a possesive term is needed( "The Democratic blankity blank" "The Democrat's Blankity blank)?

Rich said...

Wikipedia seems to have a compilation of the changes. Looks as if it only sorta-kinda went to Red/Elmo once. See http://tinyurl.com/ckkb8x

Jonathan Polin said...

I remember it being yellow for quite a long time, 'cause I had a Firefox extension that displayed, in humorous terms, the current alert level. For yellow it was "Scared", and I wanted to find out what the other levels were and was too lazy to look at the source.

Like many of you above, I'm honestly not seeing the point of the whole system anyway.

Ed D. said...

I guess the right people read this blog. Check out this release from the DHS on July 14, 2009.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced the formation of a task force to conduct a 60-day review of the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS). The mission of the task force is to assess the effectiveness of the system in informing the public about terrorist threats and communicating protective measures within government and throughout the private sector.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1247586668272.shtm

Anonymous said...

it's just a security blanket anyway.

http://www.artwareeditions.com/artists/artist_ins.php3?artist=89&object=285&view=491

Anonymous said...

I believe this is what you were looking for, James: http://media.photobucket.com/image/Threat%20level%20elmo/noweasels/CodeElmo.jpg

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