02.23.04
The Best Protection Our Government Can Provide: Colors
2004, February 23rd
I have added a new feature to my website. You can come here and see, each and every day, what your government has done to protect you from international terrorism. Don’t you feel safer now that you know that there are colors to tell you the odds that you are going to be affected by a terrorist threat?
I don’t.
To be honest, I think the colors are at best a waste of resources. At worst, they are a good way for the terrorists to gauge the likleyhood of success. At least they will be a good tool for this until we get so used to being at yellow alert that we ignore it. Then, Yellow = Blue = Green = whatever.
I will put money on the table right now to say that the terror threat level will never go back to green. What is the point? The only industry currently affected by this change is the airlines. The news stops reporting the threat level a few days after it changes. We are already numb to its effects. We will continue to become more immune until another 9/11.
At that point, we’ll probably sign away more of our civil liberties for a new color code.
Supplement: Colors
2004, May 13th
I got this information from http://teacher.scholastic.com/ and felt that it could be useful. I will update it if the color ever changes. Note, we have been in Yellow or Orange since the beginning of the system. We have been in an unwavering state of Yellow for nearly a year as of this writing. Does everyone feel appropriately terrified?
| 3/12/02 | Yellow |
| 9/10/02 | Raised to orange |
| 9/24/02 | Lowered to yellow |
| 2/7/03 | Raised to orange |
| 2/27/03 | Lowered to yellow |
| 3/10/03 | Raised to orange |
| 4/16/03 | Lowered to yellow |
| 5/21/03 | Raised to orange |
| 5/30/03 | Lowered to yellow |