Arizona may ignore next orange alert

The Arizona Republic ^ | June 1, 2003 | Judy Nichols

[hsmomx3]

As the nation lurches from orange to yellow on the terror alert scale for the fourth time, Arizona officials are considering not following the federal moves in the future.

"It creates incredible problems: overtime, financial, functional," said Frank Navarrete, the state's homeland security director. "It's not quite to the point where it creates havoc, but it's quite disruptive."

[hsmomx3]

Do you think the governor is right to ignore the alerts?

[jjm2111]

IGNORE COLOR CODE TOMMY AND OUR WONDERFUL DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY????? HOW DARE THEY!!!!!

Serially, this color code stuff is nonsense.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

I think this was posted over the weekend.

How are the Governor's approval ratings these days? I thought I heard they dropped from 90+ to high 70's. I forget where Bush is at.

[EggsAckley]

Gee, I hope they beef up the guarding of the London
Bridge.

[psychoknk]

I could see his argument. Raising security can be quite expensive, especially during the country's current economic situation. Plus, there are places terrorist attacks will probably not occur, or at least have a much lower probability of occurring. For instance, New York or Los Angeles are more susceptible to attack than, say, Anchorage. As such, should the same level of security be applied to both places? My answer is no. Security levels should be like weather forecasts: there are different levels and threats in different parts of the country.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

Why not? I've been ignoring them.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

BTW, there's no talk of ignoring them. They'll continue to read all of them and consider them seriously. What they won't be doing is treating them as an automatic trigger for AZ government spending if the alert is based on a threat to NY.

[Consort]

No way. It could John McCain in danger and we.......ummmmmmmm.....well...ahh...it...could save money, I suppose...why rule anything out?

[LanPB01]

Twice in this article someone talks about Arizona's "own intelligence". Unless Arizona has suddenly been granted a lot of powers I'm not aware of, who is doing this intelligence gathering for them? The Tucson police force? I question the depth of their intelligence community when it comes to threats from foreign terrorists.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Why not, Arizona ignores daylight savings time.

[hsmomx3]

I, too, think it's nonsense but there is always that possibility when we least expect it. Napolitano is hungry to spend money where she wants and I suppose her pet projects are more important than security.

[dead]

What terrorist in their right mind would even be in Arizona?

[BlackbirdSST]

I question the depth of their intelligence community when it comes to threats from foreign terrorists.

A rule of thought easily applied to the feds! Blackbird.

[thatsnotnice]

Do you think the governor is right to ignore the alerts?

They might as well, they're ignoring daylight savings time. [Which I don't really mind... except that the big Navajo reservation DOES go by daylight savings time, so you end up with a state that does not with a big hunk in the middle that does. It also means that part of the year they are in the "right" time zone and part of the year they are not. Whatever.]

Same for the alerts, BTW. Just don't complain when something happens. Like if terrorists were to start tossing flares in their national/state parks to cause big fires and disrupt tourism and destroy things... don't start crying for federal help unless you go along with the program.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Good for AZ! The overtime and extreme expenses required to respond to the fed's Chicken Little routines are too much for taxpayers.

[SamAdams76]

I think this color-coded alert system is the corniest thing to come out of Washington since the metric system scare back in the mid-1970s.

As well, I believe that we are trapped into flip-flopping between orange and yellow for the forseeable future. If we ever drop below that, we will be telegraphing to the terrorists that we are officially letting our guard down and that may prompt them to strike. In fact, they might be waiting for just such a downgrading of the terror alert to strike.

[Mister Baredog]

"We're most likely to continue to follow the recommendation, but we will look at our own intelligence,"

UH OH! Note to terrorists: try Arizona, California, and Oregon, your RIGHTS are protected there.

[Mister Baredog]

In fact, they might be waiting for just such a downgrading of the terror alert to strike.

Good, then it's working as a deterrent, what's wrong with that?

[henderson field]

Don't forget that these color code alerts are brought to you by the same people who missed the warning signs and facilitated the World Trade Center disaster - the FBI and CIA, who were supposed to be gathering intelligence and protecting us but instead were swindling the American taxpayer out of $30 billion. Remember, too, that none of these people were fired, so you have the same level of competence at these agencies although they are chanting the mantra of Fatherland Security.

[WellsFargo94]

Twice in this article someone talks about Arizona's "own intelligence". Unless Arizona has suddenly been granted a lot of powers I'm not aware of, who is doing this intelligence gathering for them? The Tucson police force? I question the depth of their intelligence community when it comes to threats from foreign terrorists.

LOL! I was wondering about their "intelligence" myself. Wonder if the peace loving Muslims will use Arizona as an opportunity to strike now that this is out in the open.