Agencies craft policies for dealing with ‘severe’ terror threat

Federal executives across the country are developing policies to help them decide when to close federal offices and how best to protect their employees if the nation’s threat level is raised to red, indicating a “severe” risk of terrorist attacks. The Homeland Security Department could issue a red alert for a specific region, or even a specific building, according to several federal officials. “The information would have to be very imminent, specific, and credible,” department spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Monday. Johndroe added that there are no plans to raise the terror threat level. The nation currently faces a “high” risk of possible terrorist attacks, which is orange on the color-coded terrorism alert system. Last week, the Federal Protective Service, (FPS), the Homeland Security agency that protects federal buildings, issued a policy clarifying how federal facilities would respond if the terror threat level were raised to red. In a code red scenario, federal offices would not necessarily close, but agency heads would work with the Federal Protective Service to keep employees safe, according to Chris Bentley, a spokesman with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which includes FPS. Full Story