“It is irresponsible to do this and contrary to our national security efforts”, US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in an interview on MSNBC in response to the Republican presidential candidate’s proposal to ban Muslims from coming into the country.
Advertisement
Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver, says the timing of the announcement shows the significance of the San Bernardino terror attack. “He’s dropping poll numbers”. Many recall the color-coded system put in place during President Bush’s administration and managed by former Secretary Tom Ridge shortly after 9/11 that was oft-criticized then modified almost a decade later by Secretary Janet Napolitano under President Obama.
Johnson said the new alert system will reflect the current security environment when “not having a specific credible piece of intelligence specifying a plot isn’t the end of the story”.
The current National Terrorism Advisory System, which was launched in 2011, has two levels – elevated throated and imminent threat.
“You should not consider this a replacement of this program, but rather some important reforms of the program that would allow it to be more effectively used to communicate with the American public”, Earnest told reporters.
“The NTAS system is meant to do that, but it has this trigger that’s a pretty high bar, which is why we’ve never used it”, he said. The new changes will presumably lower that barrier and make possible the detection of those who Johnson says could be “totally beneath our radar”. He said a review of the system had been doing on for “quite some time”.
“I think if it works the same way as the AMBER alert, I think it would”, Nicky Debolt, who is open to using the new system.
Advertisement
Hashemi says it will be hard to predict self-radicalization of individuals in the United States and warn Americans about potential attacks.
