Confused about the Homeland Security Alert System? You’re not in bad company; many police across the nation sure are. You can find out more straight from USA Today or read CNN’s meaning of the colors.

For those with a Mac, there’s even a Homeland Alert status applet for Mac OS X now, complete with a screenshot.

Besides the fact that the system is mostly meaningless for color-blind people, there are many who think the system needs lots of improvement.

Personally, I don’t think the system is much good at all. Maybe I’m misstaken about the whole thing, but it seems to benefit the news media first and foremost, and does not change the impression or plans of any would-be terrorists. An attack can still happen if we are in blue or green “terroritory”. People are getting searched everywhere now. If the country goes into an even higher state of alert, is everyone supposed to get stripsearched going to the supermarket?

Besides, without consulting a chart or anything, which color is the current graphic? Is it yellow, red, or orange? It’s not so clear in that graphic that had a gradient that seems to go from red in the center to yellow in the periphery.

Other countries seem to do fine without any Star Trek-like colorized propaganda meter. I think that terrorism is a very bad thing, but having even more facets of our lives being ruled in terror is exactly what any terrorist would want. The little alert status just adds to the fear which is already too prevalent in our society.

Please share your views on this matter by posting a comment below. I’d love to hear what others think about this matter.

By-the-way, we’re currently in a state of orange hair alert. *grin*