Increasing Alertness, Clarifying Transparency
Ever concerned for our safety, parliament's intelligence and security committee is expected to recommend a "transparent official public warning system for the threat posed by terrorist attacks" in its annual report next month. The issue is "at the heart of an intense debate ... in the wake of the attacks on London" a mere nine months ago.
As one might expect from such quick thinking on our behalf, the intelligence and security committee are recommending the usual panacea: we ought to copy the Americans. The US system is colour-coded, which may be why the intelligence and security committee has waited a little before recommending it. The association of terrorism with vital elements of the chromatic spectrum could be construed as glorification. One hates to think of a respectable cross-party committee stuck in a secret prison having its Britishness forcibly enhanced, when all it was trying to do was help.
At the moment, there are two separate reckonings. One is the "threat" level, which is determined by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and ranges from "moderate" (we haven't detected anything, what are they up to?) through "substantial" (something might be about to happen but then again it might not) and "severe general" (something is about to happen but we don't know what it is) right up to the dreaded "severe specific" (oh my God, he's a Brazilian). The other is the "alert" level, which is set "on the advice of MI5" and ranges from black (lowest) to red (highest). This is all "deeply confusing" to the Conservative spokesman on homeland security (national security having presumably been jettisoned as not in keeping with the new Cameronian cuddliness), who thinks the threat levels ought to be published.
However, the security and intelligence agencies "are concerned that if the threat levels are published they could be misinterpreted", while unpublished threat levels will merely be speculated upon by pundits, worried about by paranoiacs, fictionalised by tabloids, forgotten about by the public, and questioned anew the next time a bomb goes off. It's the age-old security dilemma of generalised dissemination of restricted data versus the bleeding obvious. The Home Office, under the guidance of intellectual firebucket Charles Clarke, is "grappling with the problem". I'm sure I wish them luck.
Officially, the US system has five levels: low, guarded, elevated, high, and severe. In practice, it has two levels: elevated for ordinary days, and high for when the Bush administration wishes to instil fear into the populace, whether to distract them from almost-opposing views, as in August 2004; or, as on the first anniversary of 9/11, simply to remind them who stands like a colossus of freedom, separating the world from Islamic apocalypse with every cluster bomb dropped. In New York, the threat level is set permanently at high, perhaps to give some credibility to Condi's famous mushroom cloud. This is certainly transparent.
As in Britain, the specific criteria which determine each threat level have not been revealed to the public. This gives the system a tremendous advantage: "it is impossible to know when raising it is justified - or, indeed, whether the lack of an actual terrorist strike on each such occasion so far shows that it works, or that it is pointless." That at least is encouraging. Here in the land of faith schools, ID cards and the 2012 Olympics, something which cannot be shown to be pointless would come as a refreshing change.
As one might expect from such quick thinking on our behalf, the intelligence and security committee are recommending the usual panacea: we ought to copy the Americans. The US system is colour-coded, which may be why the intelligence and security committee has waited a little before recommending it. The association of terrorism with vital elements of the chromatic spectrum could be construed as glorification. One hates to think of a respectable cross-party committee stuck in a secret prison having its Britishness forcibly enhanced, when all it was trying to do was help.
At the moment, there are two separate reckonings. One is the "threat" level, which is determined by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and ranges from "moderate" (we haven't detected anything, what are they up to?) through "substantial" (something might be about to happen but then again it might not) and "severe general" (something is about to happen but we don't know what it is) right up to the dreaded "severe specific" (oh my God, he's a Brazilian). The other is the "alert" level, which is set "on the advice of MI5" and ranges from black (lowest) to red (highest). This is all "deeply confusing" to the Conservative spokesman on homeland security (national security having presumably been jettisoned as not in keeping with the new Cameronian cuddliness), who thinks the threat levels ought to be published.
However, the security and intelligence agencies "are concerned that if the threat levels are published they could be misinterpreted", while unpublished threat levels will merely be speculated upon by pundits, worried about by paranoiacs, fictionalised by tabloids, forgotten about by the public, and questioned anew the next time a bomb goes off. It's the age-old security dilemma of generalised dissemination of restricted data versus the bleeding obvious. The Home Office, under the guidance of intellectual firebucket Charles Clarke, is "grappling with the problem". I'm sure I wish them luck.
Officially, the US system has five levels: low, guarded, elevated, high, and severe. In practice, it has two levels: elevated for ordinary days, and high for when the Bush administration wishes to instil fear into the populace, whether to distract them from almost-opposing views, as in August 2004; or, as on the first anniversary of 9/11, simply to remind them who stands like a colossus of freedom, separating the world from Islamic apocalypse with every cluster bomb dropped. In New York, the threat level is set permanently at high, perhaps to give some credibility to Condi's famous mushroom cloud. This is certainly transparent.
As in Britain, the specific criteria which determine each threat level have not been revealed to the public. This gives the system a tremendous advantage: "it is impossible to know when raising it is justified - or, indeed, whether the lack of an actual terrorist strike on each such occasion so far shows that it works, or that it is pointless." That at least is encouraging. Here in the land of faith schools, ID cards and the 2012 Olympics, something which cannot be shown to be pointless would come as a refreshing change.
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