SO WHAT?
An interesting lede in a NYT news piece:
Americans are closely divided on whether they think the United States is prepared to deal with another terrorist attack, but the overwhelming majority have done nothing to prepare for such an attack themselves, according to a recent New York Times poll.
The poll found that most Americans are not worried that they or a family member will become a victim of terrorism, with the majority of the respondents saying they do nothing different even when the government raises the terror-alert level.
All that proves is that Americans aren’t dumb. The alert system is less than useless for civilians (and possibly for first responders, too) and the chance that any one person will be directly affected by future terrorism, infinitesimal.
One Response to “SO WHAT?”
 Comment by Sarah October 28th, 2004 at 5:50 pm |
What that alert system is useful for: I used to think it was useless too. But there ARE businesses around here that do things differently depending on the alert level. Maybe not everyone, sure. But I worked for FEMA all summer, and one of the things we were told was what would happen when the alert level changed — how the security in our area owuld be difference. When not to even bother coming to work because we would not be allowed to come in. Police stations, nuclear energy reactors, Dam personnel, etc. All of these are effected by the general alert level. When it’s a specific threat, sure they can contact those people directly. when it’s more general though, this is a easy way of getting the news out to everyone that needs to know. |