doc_traig's Journal: Is Code Orange useless, or even harmful?

I work at a large government site as an outside contractor. When the federal administration decides to elevate the nationwide threat level to orange, I cringe, and then shake my head.

I cringe for purely selfish reasons. When we reach orange, it becomes much more difficult to go to work. Suddenly, employees are subjected to jumping the same hurdles visitors to this site are: your car is inspected (twice if you want to park in a garage) upon entering the site for explosive residue, you need to provide two forms of ID, and you need to pass through a metal detector to enter your specific building (this site is akin to a college campus with multiple smaller buildings in one area). What bothers me is that the measures adopted are overkill and can be easily circumvented by "evildoers" if they are dedicated to a successful attack.

I shake my head because the whole color-coded alert scheme is basically a no-win game for the government. If we go to an elevated level and an attack occurs, then the system is useless. If we stay at a lower level and an attack occurs, then the system is useless. If we elevate the level and nothing happens (or a plot is foiled but it's kept quiet), the system is useless. The only positive outcome is if a plot is discovered while under an elevated alert, but it can be argued that the discovery would have been made anyway.

So, we have an elevated alert status that forces the expenditure of an incredible amount of resources that the state and local governments don't have (the feds promise help but if they provide it, it's coming from an overdrawn account anyway), and some localities don't even respond to it at all (Salt Lake City is one example). The cherry on this sundae is that I would imagine any terrorist worth his salt will simply cool his heels until we're back under the soothing "yellow" alert (do you think we'll ever see green? I'm assuming I'll never see blue in my lifetime). And now, on top of it all, the man on the street is starting to mutter that he's ignoring the color-coding altogether because it changes and nothing happens, or doesn't impact his life. That's the side-effect of this whole scheme that seems harmful to me.