"U.S. aviation alert level remains at orange"

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Aviation alert level remains at orange
By BEVERLEY LUMPKIN
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON -- The U.S. threat level for aviation remains at "orange," or
high, eight months after Britain said it had disrupted a plot to blow up
airliners headed to the United States.

Bush administration officials say there is no indication the danger has
receded.

When the plot's discovery was announced in August, the U.S. immediately
raised the level to orange, the second-highest level, but only for the
aviation sector. The rest of the nation stayed at yellow, or "guarded," the
next level down.

"The threat still exists," Transportation Security Administration spokesman
Christopher White said in a recent interview. "The threat is very real and
we need to remain at orange until the threat no longer exists."

The disrupted plot allegedly involved people planning to construct bombs
onboard aircraft from small amounts of liquids or gels carried in
innocent-looking containers. More than a dozen people, all British, are
awaiting trial in the case.

White pointed out that U.S. officials, working closely with their British
counterparts, banned all liquids from flights overnight.

After conducting extensive research into explosive materials, White said,
the agency began allowing limited quantities of liquids to be carried onto
planes.

Since Sept. 25, under the "3-1-1 rule," passengers have been allowed to
carry on three-ounce or less bottles of liquid, all stored in a quart-size,
clear, zip-top plastic bag, with just one plastic bag per passenger.

White said both the orange alert level and the 3-1-1 rule are directly tied
to intelligence about the current threat. He refused to speculate how long
each might remain in place.

The chief intelligence officer at the Homeland Security Department, Charles
Allen, also said it would be premature to lower the level for aviation at
this point, and he noted that the head of the U.K.'s counterterror agency
last November warned of continued high level attack planning.

"We live in a time when there are bad guys out there who continue to have an
interest in striking at us using the aviation sector," Russ Knocke,
spokesman for Homeland Security, said Monday.

The color-coded threat system was established by presidential order in March
2002 as a way to inform law enforcement agencies quickly when intelligence
indicated a change in the terrorist threat facing the nation.

The system runs from a low of green, through blue for "guarded," yellow for
"elevated," orange for "high" to red for "severe" - or under attack.

P.J. Crowley, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who worked
in the Clinton administration, said Monday the color-coding system no longer
communicates anything useful to the public. He said it was originally
intended as an alert solely to law enforcement but then started being used
to communicate to the public as well.

"Someone in the White House decided it would be used as a P.R. tool and it
was abused as a P.R. tool to the point it became meaningless," said Crowley.

But Crowley added, "obviously, we continue to fly in record numbers," so it
may be that the system actually is ignored by the public while communicating
information to law enforcement.

Knocke acknowledged that in the early days of the department, changes to the
system covered the entire nation and were perhaps broader than they needed
to be. Now, he said, the system is better able to target by sector, by
threat and even by geographic region, which, he said, is "evidence that as a
department and as a country we are maturing in how we recognize, communicate
and respond to potential threats."

Knocke said there is still an ongoing investigation into the August plot
that has resulted in a wealth of information that continues to support the
actions taken.

"We're very satisfied with how airport operations are working," he said.

On the Net:

TSA: http://www.tsa.gov/

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