Have you ever changed your behavior in response to a terror alert?
Posted at 5:00 AM on October 5, 2010
by Eric Ringham
(24 Comments)
Filed under: Security
The terror alert issued Sunday warns Americans in Europe to "adopt appropriate safety measures." Today's Question: Have you ever changed your behavior in response to a terror alert?
Comments (24)
Hello. And Bye.
You're more likely to get hit by a bus. I'm not wasting my life 'altering my behavior' for anything as improbable as being involved in a terrorist attack (do the numbers yourself).
If I wanted to be on alert all day I'd go to war.
As FDR said, "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself." I know, he was talking about the banking system, but really.... Bankers? Terrorists? What's the difference? Well, you can negotiate with terrorists, but other than that.....
I agree with James on this one. I'm more concerned with the ripple affects of a terrorist attack than the potential of being attacked.
Since I currently work in the wind power industry, I know how easy it could be to knock out power to a city or region, and the potential devastation which could result.
On the other hand, I'm (arguably) borderline paranoid, so I'm hyper-alert in public places anyway. It's common practice for me to note where all the exits, fire extinguishers, AEDs, first-aid kits, unclaimed luggage, and security guard are. Just in case the stuff hits the fan.
I was in Spain during a period of increased ETA-Basque bombing's. I definitely responded. As a visitor/tourist - I didn't know what normal was in any given neighborhood or building or street. But.... here at home - terrorism is like the classic definition of porn. "I'll know what it is when I see it.". but the conservative question is .. .Will you really? ... the liberal question is ... If you look at everythying suspiciously , Isn't everything suspicious?
Well, I've donned my body armor and manned my post.
Follow up:
Honestly there are dumb people who are not alert to life going on about them. They sleep walk, they are the sheep....
They travel to foreign lands and do not adapt or even really join in with the culture. They stand out afraid to notice or change.
If you are going to live, wake up, see all that is about you. If you see a back pack in the distance, note it.
It might be a bomb.
It might be lost item that needs to find its owner.
Is it not wise to just do what you should have all the time anyway and take responsibility as a citizen of the world and let the police or like know so the owner has a chance to recover or at least investigate if other.....
I see too many people where I suspect 'white noise' is all that is happening behind dem eyeballs.
Change response???
How? When does it go up or down?
And when you do not get any detail?
Seriously what is it now Ultraviolet blue?
What was it last week Sunflower Peach?
The week before was it Chartreuse?
Cheney should have stuck to numbers.... I am not going out to buy a color wheel to make sense of whether I should walk out the door with a Uzi or just a umbrella.
Honestly the who terror thing and warning seemed designed to confuse and not inform.
For us to respond right we need numbers, details, and what exactly are you talking about.
What happened? A group in Iran decided to say a lot of random spooky words and it triggered the CIA's alert tapping system?
"So Dave you get that Uzi AK47 u238 soccer-ball?"
"Yup plutonium subway airplane Toledo Belgium."
And here you have two guy really about to head out to play soccer.... knowing the key words slow down the CIA's listening system by tagging it.
I am not interested in how they are getting the information, but some hint that they are competent and really doing work and something is there.
Its not easy work, but some leaders need to not make it more complex then it needs to be....
So back to the colors... WHY!!!
Is Chartreuse good or bad?
How about a 1= really really bad, and a 10=Nothing we have a hint of, but are still watchful.
No. We're supposed to always be alert for odd or unusual circumstances in our surroundings and report it to the authorities. The goal of terrorism is to make us afraid. We can't let them do that to us. We can't live in fear.
Terrorist alert is notice to take notice of yourself and your surroundings. Very often I walk around absorbed in my own thoughts, plans, and ideas, so a reminder to be alert is helpful, even if it keeps me from tripping on a crack in the sidewalk.
Nope. I don't really understand what the different terror levels mean, or the differences between them. I also don't know what I ought to do during a terror alert that is different from at any other time, or what criteria are needed to declare a blanket "terror alert" credible enough to warn me, but vague enough not to give me any useful information about it/send law enforcement to interdict it.
About 94 people die every day from car crashes in the United States. I am more frightened of teenagers texting while driving than I am of terrorist attacks - they are far more likely to kill me!
No, I wouldn't change my plans or behavior.
Your chances of being hurt by terrorists is less than that of driving to work
I don't worry about the terrorists; I worry about the ripple effects of their actions.
Let’s say they manage to drop our electrical power grid for more than two weeks.
(I have worked in the power industry… it would be easy to do.)
The sheeple would panic in first two days, then they would start to get hungry by day three, by day 5 the looting would start in earnest, by day 10 we would have significant social breakdown.
This would burn out the old,sick, weak, and lazy in about three weeks. As long as Russia and China could be kept at bay we would have a long painful time to rebuild.
Check out: the trigger effect with James Burke… it is older… but it will change your life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcSxL8GUn-g
DTOM
Getting ready to book a trip to Paris any day, my husband and I aren't changing our behavior per se. We are however, waiting a few extra days before we make the final decision, just to see if anything changes. With plans to visit the sites and to take the Metro, we do not want to be in fear of an attack that would put us in danger. With children at home, we need to make a smart choice. We did travel to the Coast of Spain shortly after 9/11 and did not run into any problem.
We both agree that we can't stop living/traveling to Europe, this is the fear they (terrorists) want us to live in. We need to show them we are not effected by the threats.
yes i become more cautious and distrustful of others, and less open and not as upbeat as i usually am. i probably overreact to these things but the nature of life is such that terrorism is real and it creates stress and tension but the purpose behind the alert is justified and we should adhere to.
Indirectly yes. Terrorism has caused mainstream politicians to use fear in the hopes of winning votes. This has caused me to vote third party.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
No,
My feeling is that I should always be alert and that terror alerts are part of the machine that inspires fear in order to keep us all from becoming the civilization we are capable of.
Likewise, the paranoia that is ineherent in the agencies charged with protecting the country from terror is plenty high without me adding to the fire.
Yes, I remember in 2004 when they raised the terror alert right before the election - the alert went from yellow to orange, I went from outraged, to utterly outraged.
And then, sometime in the past few years, it just stopped & stayed at orange. So now orange is normal, and no one cares. They've pretty much made fear of a terrorist attack a basic, daily norm. By "they" I don't mean the terrorists. They existed long before this fear did. I mean the military/espionage/industrial/government industry. There is so much money to be made from fear, not to mention bottled water at the airports.....
We could save a lot of trouble if the State Department would just issue a blanket warning to Americans traveling outside the country: No matter where you go, there's always a risk that someone might do you harm, because they despise American cultural imperialism and think all Americans are arrogant SOBs, and we never give them enough evidence to the contrary to change their minds about that.
No. Our nation would be a lot better off if we put a fraction of the effort we put into fighting terrorism into guarding against the people that are more likely to harm us: ourselves. We are far more likely to be harmed by obesity, diabetes, heart disease, distracted drivers, drunk drivers, drug violence...
I live so far out in the sticks that I am just as likely to die in a meteor strike as I am a terrorist incident. The answer is no.
Yes. I travel to Europe and the far east for business 10 to 12 times a year. On occassion I have cancelled a trip or rescheduled though it is a huge disruption.
I believe there is a tendancy to over react to these warnings so I no longer disrupt business trips.
I am more concerned with the striking transit workers in the UK and France.
I live in Paris. I think these warnings are unnecessary and serve only to create an environment of fear. It's not so much for the people who travel frequently, because they are the ones who know it is nonsense. The problem lies more in the fact that most people in the United States never travel outside of the United States and believe their country is the most important country in the worldwide, suffering from what one might call a hegemonic delirium. Less than a quarter of United States citizens hold passports, and it is precisely these people who are affected most greatly and negatively by these absurd and incendiary travel advisories.
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