What bothers me about the orange alert is the cost and lack of possible results. By federal law cities and counties are required to go on heightened alert status, meaning higher levels of emergency service personnel and equipment, mostly all on overtime. Most muni governments are already financially stretched to the limit and there's little federal compensation for orange alerts. Law enforcement and emergency response members are basically 'on call' anyways, so what a farce.

As others have pointed out, if some individual wants to get to accomplish whatever he or she feels is necessary, no orange alert, huge federal bureaucracy of door shakers at airports or increased police patrols are going to stop them. Does anyone actually believe an orange alert is going to stop a dedicated terrorist? If so, then our move to a full police state will be easy to accomplish.

This is no different than the money laundering provision in the Patriot Act that Ashcroft has used to chase common criminals, drug dealers and harrass Americans of Mid-Eastern descent. Bin Laden and most peaceful Mid-Easterners for centuries have always used traditional Arab 'banking' methods of personal exchanges guaranteed by word of well established people who do those things.

These are just more examples of government saying 'we're taking care of you' while slipping their hands in our pockets for more money to accomplish nothing under the guise of patriotism while taking big chunks of our personal freedoms. $30 billion is in the 2005 budget for the Homeland Security federal bureaucracy, complete with czar. Put that together with the mess in Iraq and we're doing more to shoot ourselves in the feet than Bin Laden could ever have hoped for.

 

 

OK, so some of you do actually feel safer. Interesting. I guess that is the idea though. I'm not real surprised at those who did feel it was doing something positive, it tended to fall along party lines. I guess I should have expected that.

How many times do you think they can go to orange with nothing happening before people start to disregard it?

After all the failings of gov't intelligence so far, why do you feel that it is trustworthy at this point?

What do you think the gov't is doing to overcome the obstacles mentioned re stopping someone with no regard for their own life?

I just can't seem to answer these questions with any kind of trust or faith. IMHO, the whole thing is largely a charade, and is purely politically motivated.

It might be defeatist, but IMHO, to believe that terrorists could not come up with another "sucker punch" on the scale of 9/11 just because of our "new and improved" security measures is pretty naive. The possibilities are endless, our capabilities are not.

I know I'll likely get some flak for this post, but I refuse to live my life in a state of "orange" alertness, IMHO, the terrorists win if I go about my life in that manner. I think that every day the American public alters their daily lives or fears for even a minute is a victory for terrorists. To let them turn the USA or Canada into a police state type scenario like was mentioned above would be the ultimate victory for them, and IMHO, we're doing a lot of their dirty work for them on that front. Willingly sacrificing our own freedoms.

Waxy

 

Waxy, isn't the idea of the alert system to make sure that nothing happens? The boy that cried wolf did it just to see the reaction. The government raises the level of alert because they believe there is a credible threat. Not to see the reaction.

The problem is, you and I can speculate all we want. We will not know foresure what terrorist actions are deverted due to actions taken. Was there a credible threat during Christmas a month ago? Were terrorist plots foiled by actions taken? Who knows?Was the information given to the public accurate? Who knows?

The alert system is meant to keep another attack from happening and so far it has done just that.
Interesting enough, the people that think it is not working also follow party lines.


P.S. New avatar huh? Looks good. What was the old one? I never could make out the detail.

 

Whatever party line you belong to this statement is unverifiable and if you were in a position of responsibility proclaiming this would be irresponsible at best. You can certainly say that in the time we have had the 'alert system' there have no attacks. That would be a correlation with absolutely no indication of cause and effect.


Whistler

 

One more thing I forgot to ask. What freedoms have you lost by being more aware of your surroundings




If another attack happens while on alert then we will know it has failed. Until that happens how can you say with any certainty that it does not work?

 

I didn't say it didn't work.

At this point you cannot say whether it does or doesn't work. In fact you will never really be able to prove it works. You will only ever be able to show it doesn't work.

Whistler

 

I agree one hundred %.

Hope the Moderaters are watching us play nicely.

Thanks for giving us a place to think.

 

I've always been aware, that hasn't changed, that also doesn't have much to do with my freedom.

The Patriot Act, passed on the reactionary fears of Americans post 9/11, is the first step toward a police state, and it's a large one at that. If you don't think that has taken away your freedoms I don't know what to say.

They are looking at similar legislation up here, and it scares the bejeezus outta me.

What about your freedom to move about the country, do business, etc..? It has all been impacted for the worse. Some view it as a minor inconvenience, for others it's cost hours of billable time or time spent with familiy, for some it's cost them their livelihood. It has had a large price tag for everyone IMHO.

Like Whistler said, so far it would APPEAR that the terror alert system is working, but for all you or I know, the terrorists are just taking some time off and planning the next huge attack. Bluff a little and watch the Americans scramble - all the while taking notes. IMHO, Christmas was an unlikely time for any real (ie 9/11 type) terrorism, there would be no element of surprise that is critical to terrorist attacks. So we either maintain a constant level orange and defeat ourselves (IMHO) or we go about our business and do the best we can behind the scenes and deal with the consequences. IMHO, the consequences are pretty much a given, regardless of our actions, as long as there are people out there willing to sacrifice their lives to terrorize Americans.

I know which I method I prefer, but obviously there would never be a conscences on the issue.

Waxy

P.S. - My old avatar was .gif of a penguin slapping another one on the back and into the water, hilarious, but I could never get it to work.


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Originally posted by haulingboat
Waxy, isn't the idea of the alert system to make sure that nothing happens? The boy that cried wolf did it just to see the reaction. The government raises the level of alert because they believe there is a credible threat. Not to see the reaction.
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How many times can the gov't say there's a credible threat, nothing happens, and we go back to yellow before people start completely ignoring the warning and it loses it's effectiveness.
People get complacent and will inevitably begin to take each consequtive warning less and less seriously. That's the crying wolf analogy.

Also, like I said in my post above, who's crying wolf? Who's observing how the warnings are reacted to? IMHO, the terrorists have the most to gain and learn every time we tip our hand by going to orange, credible or not.

Waxy

 

376 times. Then credibility is gone.

I don't mean to be sarcastic. I mean to demonstrate that their is no way to answer your question. I believe that the system is meant to keep things from happening. That is the purpose. We cannot do nothing. The government recieves " chatter." When "chatter" goes up all we can do is be aware. Hopefully in the future, the government will be able to give more specific information, thus allowing the people directly affected by the terror theat to be the only ones affected, instead of putting the whole country on alert. Until that day comes we have the current system.

For those of you that disapprove of the system, please display facts that show evidence of the system failing. We have seen the cry wolf theory. IMHO, It doesn't hold water. It would be nice if we went to orange and then caught somone red handed and could say,"see we told you it was coming and we caught it just in time." That hasn't happened. How do we know that the terrorist that was suppose to blow up the golden gate bridge didn't turn around when he saw the road block? Or that the terrorist decided not to go to the airport because he saw his name on the news as a suspect to be aware of.

BTW, Orange means a whole lot more than looking over your shoulder. It means tighter security at airports, bridges, and other areas prone to attack. It means tighter scruttiny of passengers coming from foriegn countries.

I think the longer we go without an attack the more credibility the system gains.

 

And assuming another attack takes place, with or without the alert system being at a whatever hue, does that justify the expense, living in fear of an attack by constant government reminders and relinquishing our civil rights?

Israel has been at war since 1947 and has security as tight as a nation of 5 million with easily guarded borders can make it. Even 20-years ago it was a pain to fly El Al because each and every piece of baggage was searched. Go to a cafe in Tel Aviv and look at the Uzis sitting at people's feet. And they still sustain terrorist attacks on a regular basis.

It's going to take a lot more than political rhetoric and alert colors to convince me that our foreign policy is wiser than paying market price for oil as I watch my country turn into a police state.

 

There are no facts to either support or refute the system, yet.

That said, the biggest problem is that after a certain number of 'false alarms' people will stop caring about what color alert we are on. Sooner or later local governments will scale back their 'beefed-up' security operations and individual workers will develop apathy. The heightened alerts may indeed deter terrorists, but we don't know that for sure and with no visible consequences...well, we will let our guard down. BTW, this is not my opinion, there are plenty of psychological and sociological studies that document this phenomenon in similar situations.

Quote:

I think the longer we go without an attack the more credibility the system gains.

Unfortunately you cannot logically defend this position.

whistler

 

As I wrote in another post, look at Israel's security and tell me how effective any system can be against a dedicated terrorist. And, again, why would Bin laden expend resources on us when we're doing a fine job of sending our own soldiers to be killed and draining our treasury? All he needs to do is keep that ball rolling. Maybe throw in an attack this summer to raise our paranoia levels to where our government could literally envelope us with 'care'.

 

What civilrights have you personally relinguished? Do you live in constant fear do to government reminders? Why should the government not remind us that there are people wishing to kill us, especially when "chatter" tells them they are going ahead with plans?

How is this moment in history any different than the government warnings of nuculear attack during the cold war years?

 

You and I have agreed that there exists no evidence that proves or disproves either side of the story. That being said why is your argument logical and yet mine is not? There is no doubt that terrorist still want to kill us. There is proof that they have not succeeded in the last two years. Why havent they succeeded?