ACKERMAN ON ALERT SYSTEM, ETC.

Bruce Ackerman's argument is very sensible: Homeland Security should ditch the alert system.

We are manufacturing a culture of fear. The Homeland Security Department has every incentive to put the nation on alert lest an attack catch it flat-footed. National news organizations have every incentive to transform any incident into the biggest ongoing story of the decade. It is time to call a halt to this cycle. Unless the Homeland Security Department has real evidence pinpointing particular targets, it should keep its anxieties to itself

The whole article is sober and worth a read, and follows the lines of argument by Rittenhouse and others. Link via HA.