The National Terror Alert is going back to Yellow. Breaking news, could not find a link to anything about it, even at FEMA's site.
'Yellow' is a poor color choice. Anyway, how do we get it to green?
What is the source for this, The Homeland Security and the Whitehouse still show orange.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,88194,00.html Friday, May 30, 2003
WASHINGTON — The national terror alert level (search) was lowered from orange to yellow Friday afternoon, indicating that the nation has returned to an "elevated" state of alert for a domestic terror attack.
"The U.S. intelligence community concluded that the number of indicators that led to the raising of the threat level have decreased and the high vulnerability associated with memorial day weekend has passed," an official told Fox News.
The alert level was raised to "high" on May 20 following the deadly homicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (search), and Casablanca, Morocco (search).
At the time, the Bush administration called for increased security nationwide, saying it was concerned that the wave of attacks overseas could spread to the United States. Authorities described the intelligence pointing to a domestic attack as general in nature, with nothing credible suggesting a time, location, method or target.
"The U.S. intelligence community believes that Al Qaeda has entered an operational period worldwide, and this may include attacks in the United States," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (search) said on May 20.
Federal law-enforcement officials said that among the intelligence picked up recently were two electronic transmissions that discussed the possibility of an attack on New York, Washington, Boston and, more broadly, the U.S. coastlines. The officials said there were doubts about the credibility of the threats and stressed that they were not the driving factors in the decision to raise the threat level.
Ridge encouraged governors and mayors to deploy extra police and take other precautions, particularly at large public gatherings during the Memorial Day weekend.
The United States, Britain and Germany temporarily closed their embassies and consulates in Saudi Arabia following the warnings.
The Bush administration had raised the terror alert level from yellow to orange three times previously, each time setting off a flurry of increased security measures by cities, states and businesses. Each time, the level was lowered back to yellow after a few weeks.
The alert was first raised just before the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. A high-level Al Qaeda prisoner then had suggested attacks were imminent on U.S. embassies in Southeast Asia. The alert went to orange, and several embassies were temporarily closed.
It was raised again on Feb. 7 of this year, around the time of the hajj (search), the Muslim religious pilgrimage. Counterterrorism officials had noted intelligence information pointing toward a possible attack around the time of the holiday.
It was then raised in March, when President Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out of Iraq before the U.S.-led coalition invaded the country.
The Department of Homeland Security said that evidence indicated that while Al Qaeda and those sympathetic to their cause were a principal threat, Iraqi state agents, Iraqi surrogate groups, other regional extremist organizations and ad hoc groups or disgruntled individuals might conduct terrorist attacks against the United States or U.S. interests abroad.
The U.S. government also feared that operatives working for the Mukhabarat (search), Saddam's intelligence service, would attempt bombings or other traditional terrorist-style attacks.
The orange alert was lifted after the serious fighting was declared over in Iraq.
The lowest two levels, green and blue, and the highest, red, have not been used since the color-coded alert system was put in place more than a year ago.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
I'm off to Home Depot to return my plastic and duct tape. See ya in a bit.
;-)) We can rename it "Cha Cha Cha" sounds so old-fashioned... what about "Threat Dance"? Okok, we shouldn´t joke about that.
"'Yellow' is a poor color choice. Anyway, how do we get it to green?"
Add some blue....
Lowering the terror alert doesn't do us much good- our field trip is still cancelled! (As if terrorists would attack the middle of nowhere...)
