http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030416/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/war_terror_alert

I don’t know about the rest of you but if I were a terrorist, the most opportunistic time to attack would be when the level is low. This danger scale is great tool for the U.S. government to play with its people’s fears and to a certain extent, control the risk of terrorist attacks.

I think it plays on fears far more than it controls risks.

I think the American people are getting numb to it already, so it is loosing it's effectivness to do anything very fast.

Terrorist don't look at the Terror Alert before striking... no more than meteo ! They just wait until they find a way to put a bomb or something else.

Change your outfits accordingly.

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/alerts.html

This is like saying "Ok guys our guard is down now we are vulnerable attack us" The color system is not very smart. and i dont think that it matters that much

With our borders still wide open and unguarded it doesn't make any difference what alert status we are using in the cities.

Set up a series of robotic drones along our border that blow up anything remotely resembling a human. After a few days people would stop coming except through the designated checkpoints.

They are bringing drugs in from Mexico through tunnels. The Tohono Oodam indian reservation lies on both side of the Mexican border.
They indians cross back and forth daily and freely, with hundreds of drug smugglers and immigrants mixed in.

So if they can get thousands of tons of drugs into the states, smuggling a crude nuclear device past the RummyCo Rocketshield(tm) shouldn't be a big problem ?

No problem whatsoever. Sophisticated equipment is only used at the major border crossings. There are hundreds of places to cross in remote areas.