WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Homeland Security Department wants to make its color-coded terror alert system more user-friendly.
The agency has created a task force to review ways that the system could provide more specific guidance to state and local government officials about how to respond when the alert level is raised, department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Saturday.
He said meetings have been set up in October to get reaction from states and localities about how the system is working for them.
When the alert level has been raised in the past, local officials complained the threat information provided by the government was too vague and left police and others scrambling to figure out what security measures needed to be put in place.
In Saturday's Democratic radio address, Rep. Jane Harman of California said the system needs to be improved.
``A threat warning system only works if it gives local law enforcement and the public specific and timely information about what to look for and what to do,'' she said.
Spokesman Roehrkasse said increased security across the nation has led to a higher threshold for boosting the alert level.
``We have more protective measures now at yellow than we did a year ago,'' he said. ``Thus it would take a greater threat to raise the national advisory system to orange.''
Yellow indicates an elevated risk of terrorist attack _ the middle level on the five-color scale. Orange means a high risk.
The alert level, now on yellow, has been raised to orange four times since the system was introduced in March 2002.
