Trump’s comments on Muslims condemned

The Homeland Security Department is working on a new improved terror alert system. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Monday his department will unveil a new national alert system in the coming days to reflect the “new phase” of the terror threat.

Johnson told the Defense One event that this will eliminate “some of the mystery about the global terrorist threat”.

The specifics of the new alert system have not been released, and there is skepticism about how effective it can be.

The discussion came on the heels of President Obama’s address to the nation Sunday about last week’s shooting attack in San Bernardino, California, which the FBI is investigating as an act of terrorism. Often criticized, that structure was phased out and replaced by the National Terror Advisory System (NTAS), which was then modified by Secretary Janet Napolitano under President Obama.

After Johnson’s remarks, a DHS official said that the changes did not reflect a new system entirely, and instead changes to the existing NTAS. A two-tier system was adopted, whereby the second tier can only be reached when there is a specific and credible threat to the homeland.

“I think if it works the same way as the AMBER alert, I think it would”, Nicky Debolt, who is open to using the new system.

Johnson mentioned revising the alert system after five USA service members in Chattanooga, Tennessee, were killed in July in a shooting investigated as an act of terrorism.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is responding to Donald Trump’s new proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the USA, saying it would threaten counter-terrorism efforts.

But Johnson, citing new unknown risks from people who are radicalized at home, plans to add a new level – intermediate, which means officials don’t necessarily know the source of a threat.