With the global terror threat evolving to include attacks by inspired terrorists without warning, the Department of Homeland Security shortly plans to establish a new terror alert system more suited to diverse threat, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Monday.
The current National Threat Advisory System (NTAS), which was stood up in 2011 and replaced the original color-coded warning system established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, has never been used. One of the criticisms of the old color-coded homeland security advisory system was that it was never clear why the threat levels would be changed as there were no published guidelines for the five different levels that ranged from low to severe.
The NTAS relies on intelligence of a “specific credible threat to the homeland” and therefore is a “pretty high bar, which is why we’ve never used it,” Johnson said at moderated discussion hosted by Defense One.
“I believe that in this environment we need to get beyond that and go to a system that has an intermediate level to it,” Johnson said. “And I’ll be announcing soon, hopefully, what our new system is that I think reflects the current environment and the current reality.”
The current environment includes terrorist activities directed from overseas and attacks inspired in the homeland and in other countries, Johnson said. But these inspired attacks may be carried out by “someone who may be totally below our radar who acted on a moment’s notice.”
So far federal investigators have uncovered no missed “red flags” related to the murders of 14 people last week at a municipal building in San Bernadino, Calif., by two radicalized Muslims, Johnson said. President Barack Obama, speaking to the nation on Sunday evening, said that so far no evidence has emerged “that the killers were directed by a terrorist organization overseas, or that they were part of a broader conspiracy here at home.”
Going forward, Johnson said “that we need to do a better job of informing the public at large what we are seeing, even if what we are seeing could be self-evident to the public.” That system also needs to inform that public “what we are doing” about the threat “and what we are asking the public to do,” he said.
For example, Johnson said that following the killing in Ottawa, Canada, in 2014 of a Canadian solider by a radicalized Muslim, DHS issued a public statement about “what we’re seeing and here’s what we’re doing about it.” That information to the public would also mention the Islamic State’s calls for attacks against the West, he said.
“You put those two things together, it is an environment in which we should inform the public and we should outline the things that we are doing,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he hopes to make an announcement on the new threat advisory system in the coming days.