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Homeland Security Threat Level Lowered
Aired May 30, 2003 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: This "Just In" to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security has officially lowered the threat level for the United States of America. It had been orange, or high. Down now to yellow, or elevated. We had told you yesterday that apparently some of that so-called chatter that sort of led people in the intelligence community to believe some plots were in the making, had diminished, and thus the threat level has diminished as well.
CNN's Jeanne Meserve is the person who tracks all of this for us from Washington -- hello, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hello. After ten days up at orange. At the time that it went up, it was the wake of bombings in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, and officials said they feared that al Qaeda was operationally ready around the world.
At this point in time, they've made the decision to bring it down after reviewing the intelligence and making a couple of conclusions. One is that the number of indicators and warnings that they had seen has now decreased.
Also, that the period of heightened vulnerability represented by the Memorial Day weekend and the gatherings and traveling, that that would bring, has now passed.
And so the official decision to bring it down to yellow. Another factor, of course, as always, is cost. It is not cheap for localities and states to bring the threat level up to orange. That's something that weighed on decision makers' minds, although I must say, Miles, that this is the fourth time now that we've gone to orange, and the sense is that communities are learning how to do this more efficiently, and so the costs incurred this time were not quite as high as they had been previously.
Also, some federal money is on its way down to the states and localities to help defray some of the costs of the extra policing that threat level orange always brings.
O'BRIEN: So give us a sense of the kinds of things that might change right now. Just a few examples as things move from orange to yellow.
MESERVE: Well, we are still at yellow, and that means there still is going to be plenty of security in place, but when they moved to orange, there were some additional inspections that were done, more thorough inspections at places like the borders and the airports. You'll be seeing a little bit less of those. Some parking restrictions that you might have seen at some airports. Those may come down as well -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Jeanne Meserve, who's appropriately dressed for an orange day. Come in with yellow tomorrow, I think. Thank you very much.
MESERVE: You bet.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired May 30, 2003 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: This "Just In" to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security has officially lowered the threat level for the United States of America. It had been orange, or high. Down now to yellow, or elevated. We had told you yesterday that apparently some of that so-called chatter that sort of led people in the intelligence community to believe some plots were in the making, had diminished, and thus the threat level has diminished as well.
CNN's Jeanne Meserve is the person who tracks all of this for us from Washington -- hello, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hello. After ten days up at orange. At the time that it went up, it was the wake of bombings in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, and officials said they feared that al Qaeda was operationally ready around the world.
At this point in time, they've made the decision to bring it down after reviewing the intelligence and making a couple of conclusions. One is that the number of indicators and warnings that they had seen has now decreased.
Also, that the period of heightened vulnerability represented by the Memorial Day weekend and the gatherings and traveling, that that would bring, has now passed.
And so the official decision to bring it down to yellow. Another factor, of course, as always, is cost. It is not cheap for localities and states to bring the threat level up to orange. That's something that weighed on decision makers' minds, although I must say, Miles, that this is the fourth time now that we've gone to orange, and the sense is that communities are learning how to do this more efficiently, and so the costs incurred this time were not quite as high as they had been previously.
Also, some federal money is on its way down to the states and localities to help defray some of the costs of the extra policing that threat level orange always brings.
O'BRIEN: So give us a sense of the kinds of things that might change right now. Just a few examples as things move from orange to yellow.
MESERVE: Well, we are still at yellow, and that means there still is going to be plenty of security in place, but when they moved to orange, there were some additional inspections that were done, more thorough inspections at places like the borders and the airports. You'll be seeing a little bit less of those. Some parking restrictions that you might have seen at some airports. Those may come down as well -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Jeanne Meserve, who's appropriately dressed for an orange day. Come in with yellow tomorrow, I think. Thank you very much.
MESERVE: You bet.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
