Homeland Security Advisory System

Homeland Security Advisory System

Introduction

Every country is concerned about its security in today's highly unsecure and extremely prevailing terrorism environment. Similarly, United States of America is concerned about his security and created the “Homeland Security Advisory System. It is a color-coded terrorism threat warning system, administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This system provides recommended protective measures for federal departments and agencies, which they are required to implement in order to deal with terrorist attacks. U.S. media also called it 'Terror Alert Level”.

Discussion

Intent of the System

The Homeland Security Presidential Directive 3 was established in 2002 by President Bush, which established Homeland Security Advisory System. The main purpose to form this system is to inform various levels of government, public and private sectors about the threats of terrorism to the homeland. It was established with the belief that it would effectively and quickly disseminate the threats against the homeland security and improve the information sharing for preparation purposes for terrorist threat (Moser, 2008).

HSAS has five color coded threat levels: Red signals the severe risk (Severe), Orange signals high risk (High), Yellow signals significant risk (Elevated), blue signals general risk (Guarded) and Green signals low risk (Low). The information from US intelligence system represents these risks. The key factors in determining the threat level are severity and probability.

Expert's Opinions

HSAS was created for American's security, however, after sometime people came up with different remarks that are in favor as well as in disfavor. The homeland security policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, Jena Baker McNeill, said that HSAS need to be more specific about threat meaning that what it is really about. She further said that if people don't get what the HSAS is trying to convey then what is it suppose to do? There should be ...