Color Us Yellow

DHSs threat advisory system may still be a work in progress, but so far its only apparent achievement is fear

By Sarah D. Scalet

August 02, 2004 — CSO — Aug. 2, 2004The other night I caught DHS Secretary Tom Ridge on C-SPAN, perhaps trying to help President Bush distract the cameras away from the Democratic Party machine in Boston. Ridge was speaking before the Council for Excellence in Government about what the Department of Homeland Security has accomplished in its 16 months of existence. He seemed pretty proud in particular of the way DHS has branded itself as a unified department, rather than 22 organizations that were cobbled together post haste. He even mentioned DHSs logo as an example of this.

Youve seen this logo in the background somewherea red, white and blue badge with a bald eagle. But of course the color that we most associate with DHS isnt red, white or blue. Its yellowas in the yellow thats smack dab in the middle of the Homeland Security Advisory System. If DHS has established a brand for itself at all, it is one centered on the five-level, color-coded advisory system, established by the then-Office of Homeland Security in March 2002.

I say five levels, but in practice, its become a two-level system. Theres yellow, elevated, and theres orange, high. Its understood that the country would only go to the severe level, red, during or immediately after a terrorist attack. Well probably never see it reduced to blue, guarded, and we can pretty much forget about green, lowat least in this election season.

After five bumps to orangeall of which coincided with holidays or other possibly symbolic datesthe threat level for the country as a whole has been stuck at yellow since Jan. 9, 2004. Thats seven months. A few times, Ridge has hinted about new threats, but he stopped short of changing the color. The only thing he raised were peoples anxieties.

According to some observers, the threat level isnt just stuck. The whole threat advisory system is broken, said Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser, when I spoke with him a few weeks ago. He predicted that, because DHS officials receive so many complaints every time they change the threat level from yellow to orange, theyre simply not going to change it again, unless they can do so for very specific cities or industry sectors.

Clarke was right. This past weekend, DHS raised the threat level to orange for the financial sector in New York City, northern New Jersey and Washington, D.C. The administration cited intelligence reports that Al Qaeda had done detailed reconnaissance of several buildings for possible truck bombingsspecific enough warnings that, for once, law enforcement seemed to be able to react.

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