Overcoming Terror

Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security's site is just one example of a national warning system that in the end stirs up more anxiety than it quells. Loaded with scientific terminology, yet woefully bereft of any tangible data, the U.S.' early-warning mechanism has transformed us into a nation of worriers, not warriors. Forcing citizens to ride an emotional roller coaster without providing any clear instructions on how to soothe their jitters, the current security system has had a profoundly negative impact on our individual and collective mental health. I call this a "pre-traumatic stress syndrome," and its effect on our day-to-day lives is debilitating.

Established in March 2002, the U.S. terrorism warning system is broken down into the now-famous color-coded levels of alert--green, blue, yellow, orange and red. The degree of risk changes from level to level, even though the specificity of the threat need not. Beginning with a "low risk" green, the threat levels then graduate to "general," "increased and predictable," "likely" (the notorious Code Orange) and culminate with the red-hot "imminent."

Since September 11, 2001, the state of domestic alert has randomly seesawed through the color spectrum, rising as high as "orange" on at least eight occasions. Each time the color has changed, a public official has stepped before the cameras with explanations that alternate between vague and indecipherable. Goose-bump-inducing terms such as "dirty bombs" and "shelter-in-place" are nonchalantly tossed out, but never are Americans given a soup-to-nuts explanation of exactly what is going on. This exercise in ambiguity doesn't serve to calm people as intended. Instead, it scares the bejesus out of them. After all, terrorism is not about war in the traditional sense of the word. It is about psychology–about frightening ordinary people, making them feel confused and vulnerable. And, regrettably, the government is unwittingly engaging in this activity as effectively as Al Qaeda.

Like a car alarm that sounds not when a vehicle is broken into, but instead, whenever it passes through a bad neighborhood, the nation's early-warning system has effectively rendered Americans paralyzed behind the wheel, unable--or unwilling--to step on the gas.

Contemporary clinical data–and my own extended research in this area–prove time and again that to be optimally effective, safety alarms must include four basic components: (1) a credible, trustworthy source communicating the alarm; (2) a disclosure of the specific and anticipated event that has elicited the warning; (3) an effort to reassure those being alerted about the value of unified efforts; and finally, (4) a clearly defined set of actions that citizens can take in order to escape a calamity.

And yet, since September 11, each of these basic principles has been systematically violated in the design and delivery of terrorist alarms issued by the government.

In the first six warnings after the 2001 attacks, different communicators–from Attorney General John Ashcroft to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge–appeared before the press, alleging that they possessed "reliable" information from "credible" sources that an attack was "imminent." In most cases, the perpetrators were described as anonymous terrorists; their attack would take place sometime in the immediate future; and their target was any number of unnamed locations in the U.S. (or anywhere else in the world, for that matter). As if this fuzzy description of impending doom wasn't sufficiently stultifying, officials then stopped short of offering any specific action that citizens might take in response to the supposed terrorist attacks, other than to remain on alert and to keep their eyes open.

Eventually, these widely disseminated, narrowly defined warnings created greater levels of fear, which over time morphed into general anxiety.