When a terrorist cell is exposed and arrested, shouldn't the threat level go DOWN?

How is it, with some 40 arrests between England and Pakistan, the threat level has gone up to its highest ever? From what little has been reported, they’ve been tracking these people for months, and moved in after an arrest in Pakistan out of concern that other cell members would go to ground upon learning of the arrest.

Is this to demonstrate American security is on its toes too? Has GW screwed the pooch over something else and slipped it by under the red alert radar? Maybe they want to pre-empt the story about how the white house has been trying to reduce funding for bomb detection research.

Why wasn’t the threat level raised when the plot was discovered, and these people were still walking the streets?

It seems to me the threat level is a new form of banner headline for DHS press releases.

The terrorist’s victory in Connecticut necessitated a higher level of fear.

It depends, really. I agree with you that the threat level should go up when a plot is discovered, but as for after arrests, i’m not so sure. If they’re a self-contained group with no outside contacts, there’s the possibility that a raid may discover plans for a bombing in a case where the bomb’s already been planted. If they’re supported by an overarching group, a raid could reveal names/places associated with another cell (unlikely if proper cell structure is followed, but possible) in which case the threat is being raised due to these other groups. Plus there’s also the frequency of cells found; if it’s suspected that there are, say, three well-connected cells operating in London, and seven seperate groups are actually found, then the threat is obviously a lot higher than anticipated.

Basically it’s dependant information discovered from locations and interrogation of suspects. Once you have a first-hand source of info., things can move very quickly, and new cells/targets can be heard of.

I am not saying I believe this, but here is my WAG of an explanation.

“With the Terrorist plans disrupted, the remaining terrorist will now be desperate to engage in some form of terror before they too are caught.”

Best I can think of. I think I like elucidator’s theory better.

Jim

Yes, it should. But doing so would obviously make people feel safer, and therefore, some would be much more likely to question the serious erosion of our civil liberties that’s going on. Therefore, they have to counterbalance the news of the arrests with “OMG FEAR!!!11”.

Just my two cents, anyway.

Only if the authorities are certain that they caught everyone involved in the plot. Especially in a case like this one where an attack was aparently going to take place soon.

Also the potential for some group unrelated to the one which was exposed to decide to move up the date of their attack hoping that people would relax because of the low odds of two terrorist attacks at one time.

Finally, one of the legitimate complaints about the whole system of screening people is that the authorities react to whatever the most recent threat was-- so liquids and gels in carry on luggage is out for the time being.