The Guardian reports that a cross-party select committee is to recommend that the UK should adopt a US-style terror alert system.
A cross-party committee investigating the background to the July 7 bombings is expected to recommend a transparent official public warning system for the threat posed by terrorist attacks. It would be similar to the kind that has proved controversial in America.
The idea, which is likely to be one of the conclusions in the intelligence and security committee’s annual report next month, has caused consternation among the security services. The issue is at the heart of an intense debate involving MI5, the Home Office, and the committee, in the wake of the attacks on London.
Of course such a system has worked so very well in the US to date and US citizens know exactly what each level of alert actually means and how their behaviour should change accordingly. Well actually no that isn’t true at all and so obviously we should adopt such a clearly useless system here also.
The very well respected security consultant Bruce Schneier wrote an excellent analysis of the US alert system in October of 2004. The most telling passage of his analysis is below.
In theory, the warnings are supposed to cultivate an atmosphere of preparedness. If Americans are vigilant against the terrorist threat, then maybe the terrorists will be caught and their plots foiled. And repeated warnings brace Americans for the aftermath of another attack.
The problem is that the warnings don’t do any of this. Because they are so vague and so frequent, and because they don’t recommend any useful actions that people can take, terror threat warnings don’t prevent terrorist attacks. They might force a terrorist to delay his plan temporarily, or change his target. But in general, professional security experts like me are not particularly impressed by systems that merely force the bad guys to make minor modifications in their tactics.
I really don’t think that the public really need to be informed of every alert as without any guidance as to how they should respond once they have been alerted it just causes a state of anxiety.
It makes sense to inform people to evacuate a building when there has been a specific threat against that building. But to issue an alert when intelligence has revealed a few scant details about a vague threat to a building in the London area clearly helps no one especially if the advice is to continue about your daily business as usual.
If the government is causing terror to it’s citizens then they are doing the job of the terrorist for them. The terrorist would never need to ever follow through with any of their threats to achieve the same effect in this scenario.
