To provide more flexible and timely communications with the national public regarding potential terror threats, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is adding another component to its National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) aimed at better keeping Americans informed as terrorist threats evolve.
The addition of “bulletins” to the NTAS will allow DHS to “achieve the objective of more flexible, timely, and useful communication with the public regarding terrorist threats through the introduction of an additional component of NTAS to accompany the existing NTAS Alerts,” says a DHS fact sheet on the modification to the NTAS issued on Wednesday. It says the bulletins “will provide information describing broader or more general trends and current developments regarding threats of terrorism.”
The NTAS was stood up in 2011 and includes two types of alerts, elevated and imminent, neither of which has ever been issued. An elevated alert is supposed to warn of a credible terrorist threat against the United States and its territories and include specifics in terms of timing and location.
An imminent alert would warn of a credible, specific and impending threat or ongoing attack.
The change to the NTAS was prompted by the recent terrorist attacks in San Bernadino, Calif., and Paris where authorities didn’t have intelligence of an imminent attack.
By including bulletins with the NTAS, “We want to put in one place for the public to see what we are seeing concerning the homeland and what we are doing abut it and what the public can do about it,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said.
Bulletins will have a set duration and the first was issued along with the announcement. It says the global terrorist threat has entered “a new phase,” pointing to recruitment of terrorists via social media and self-radicalized individuals that could act with little or no notice.
“DHS is especially concerned that terrorist inspired individuals and homegrown violent extremists may be encouraged or inspired to target public events or places,” the bulletin says. It adds that the recent attacks in California and Paris show that “terrorists will consider a diverse and wide selection of targets for attacks,” and warns “about threats and violence directed at particular communities and individuals across the country based on perceived religion, ethnicity, or nationality.”