Specialists rap warning system

As the nation stepped up security yesterday with extra police on the streets and fighter jets in the sky, a broad range of specialists warned that the color-coded terrorism alert system should be replaced because it frightens people and wastes public resources even in those cities not mentioned as possible targets in intelligence reports. The debate over whether the rating system is too blunt an instrument had been largely dormant since spring, the last time the level was lowered to yellow, or elevated, alert. But criticism resurfaced after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge raised the alert to orange, or high, Sunday, citing increased intelligence chatter about a possible Al Qaeda attack on multiple US cities using airliners. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey and a leading critic of the system, said Sunday’s announcement was “a perfect example of the ambiguity — the `Crayola confusion’ — generated by the threat advisory system,” and contended that the Homeland Security Department failed to provide Congress with a review of the system, which it was mandated to do by law last week. Full Story