US Government Reworking Its Terrorist Threat Warning System

Damian Paletta, Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2015

The U.S. government is reworking its threat-warning system in order to alert Americans about terrorism risks even if officials don’t know of imminent attacks, reflecting an exposure in intelligence gaps following attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Monday that officials have to use “a new system that has an intermediate level” of warning rather than relying on the existing National Terrorism Advisory System, a four-year-old initiative that has never been used. That system replaced a color-coded threat-level system put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, which was criticized as an overly simplistic response to the complex situation it addressed.

In order for NTAS to issue a warning, a credible threat first must be discovered. Officials have said the lack of foreknowledge about imminent attacks has made this system somewhat irrelevant.

Officials believe this system needs to be modified so warnings or other information can be publicized, even if law enforcement and homeland-security officials don’t know concrete details of a coming attack.

Mr. Johnson, speaking at an event in Washington hosted by Defense One, a news outlet that focuses on national-security issues, said, “We need a system that adequately informs the public at large, not through news leaks…We need a system that informs the public at large what we are seeing.”

“Hoping that I will announce this in full in the coming days,” he said.

The NTAS replaced a color-coded threat-level system put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, which was criticized as an overly simplistic response to the complex threat it addressed.

Mr. Johnson’s comments come less than a week after a shooting rampage in San Bernardino killed 14 people, an attack the White House has now called an act of terrorism.

Mr. Johnson said officials are adapting to what he called a new wave of “terrorist-inspired attacks,” rather than attacks directed by senior leaders of Islamic State or al Qaeda. This contrasts with the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, when terrorists killed 130 people using bombs and guns in what was apparently an assault directed by Islamic State.

“Since Paris, we’ve in effect been in a heightened security posture, and what we’ve said is there’s no specific credible intelligence of a Paris-like attack on the homeland, but we are concerned about copycat attacks,…Paris-inspired attacks by lone wolves.”

Mr. Johnson also said a number of other changes are under way. He said DHS and the State Department are reviewing the “visa waiver” program that allows people from other countries to enter the U.S. through a more-streamlined process.

He said his agency also is reviewing the K-1 nonimmigrant visa one of the suspected San Bernardino shooters used to enter the U.S. several years ago.