Security is an idea at the front of everyone's mind since recent events have made it clear that we are not afforded the luxury of total separation from violence. It's not plausible for everyone to live in bomb-shelters, that's too "red scare" for the proud residents of the world's most powerful country. What we have implemented to calm nerves is a snazzy terrorist Threat Alert System.
It's a color-coded system meant to help decide what security posture our nation should assume. Its colors go from green, at the lowest threat, to red, at the highest. We currently reside in threat level orange (high level) if anyone cares. But, strangely, nobody does.
According to surveys conducted in more than three hundred smaller cities, only a quarter of them have put measures into place specifically for this alert system. Many don't even know what it is and have simply gone back to a routine security stance.
Threat condition orange, aside from sounding fairly lame, suggests that all cities provide tighter security during highly attended events under the presumption that such gatherings create targets of opportunity. Cities should maintain a more abundant police and general security force, and, according to the code, people should consider periodically working from home instead of going to their normal workplaces. Most cities say they fail to participate because of the extra costs that such procedures entail, and since appropriate agencies have yet to allocate the $657 million Congress allotted for security.
Perhaps someone ignoring these color codes is just practicing common sense. If we examine our recent history, we find the number of terrorist attacks on small and mid-sized cities is 0. What have been hit are strategic military spots and targets that will maximize damage, media coverage and economic harm.
Terrorists, by definition, do not commit mass murder for the sake of murder, but in order to cause terror. On an individual level, I credit most Americans with knowing this, but the path of tax dollars seems to indicate otherwise. I hardly foresee the local cow swap in Austin being firebombed, a deed that would make global news for approximately two days. Constantly reminding citizens of our vulnerability by flooding home and garden shows with police is not a sensible answer.
On the other hand, the government has decided that the immediate threat of terrorist attacks might be over, so we can soon slide into the slightly more comfortable "elevated" alert. Thank heavens.
Of course, our security officials might wish to examine our history once again and see that large-scale attacks don't occur within a short time span. Americans saw the first attack on the World Trade Center in '93, the barracks in Saudi Arabia in '97, then the big one in 2001; the odds of 2002 being a dangerous year are seemingly low. The terrorist that trained in Arizona, remember, spent years on a plan executed in a single hour.
We should likely feel less secure the longer we go between significant attacks, not grow more complacent. Perhaps stronger focus on the cause of these attacks would benefit the safety of the American people more than bracing for the next impact.
The hope that this alert system will prevent the next attack is ludicrous. With terrorists being capable of working in wholly independent cells, they can just wait until the color is green. We cannot assume that terrorists won't base their actions according to the current security alert level.
A quick-fix visual aid, we will find, can do nothing but display the moment that we let our guard down.
Darren Todd is an English literature junior. Reach him at lawrence.todd@asu.edu.
