Can the Government Protect You From Terrorists?

— -- Like everyone else, I'm frightened about terrorism and eager to have the government protect me. But will the Homeland Security Advisory System really do that? I'm skeptical.

This week, Tom Ridge, the director of "Homeland Security," revealed his team's new color coding system to alert Americans to terrorist threats. "For every level of threat, there will be a level of preparedness," said Ridge.

Each threat gets its own color. Red would mean the greatest threat — under a red alert "all air traffic might be grounded." Orange might mean "taking additional precautions at public events."

This week we're on yellow alert, which means "agencies might increase surveillance of critical locations." Might. None of this is mandatory, and local agencies don't have to go along.

Most people we talked to don't feel any more secure. "I think all it does is scare people, make them apprehensive and more afraid of what they're doing in their life," said one woman.

"What am I supposed to do?" asked another man. "Do I stay in my office, do I not stay in my office? Do I walk outside? Do I pick up a phone and talk to somebody? I just have no idea what to do."

According to Ridge's office, "The color-coded system provides a common language ? people will know automatically what they are supposed to do. Now cities can use this system to develop a plan in the event we have to raise the threat level. By listening to their local TV and radio stations, citizens would be advised to do things."

Government's Previous Attempts

Maybe this new plan will work better than our previous attempts at warning systems. Remember them? Those government-sent warnings that were supposed to replace normal TV programming and tell us what to do in an emergency? They've been annoying us for years, requiring TV stations to interrupt programming to say, "This is a test of the emergency alert system."

But wait: Wasn't Sept. 11 an emergency? Yet on Sept. 11 , the government's alarm was silent. It was never used in New York, or in Washington, D.C.