THE official terror threat to Britain was made public for the first time this week when a severe alert was published on a government website.
The current severe threat level means that a terror attack on the country is highly likely, according to the new website, which explains the role of the intelligence community. Ministers have simplified the official threat system from seven levels to five after criticism that the old method did not provide reassurance.
The new levels are: low, moderate, substantial, severe and critical. The system merges previous categories of severe general and severe defined into a single severe grade. It also omits the previous lowest category, which was negligible.
The new intelligence webpage at www.mi5.gov.uk has histories of the security and intelligence agencies MI5 (Security Services) and MI6 (Secret Intellegence Services) the GCHQ (Government Communication HQ- the government listening post, the Defence Intelligence Staff and the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre.
The explains the role of ministers, how the agencies are accountable and how intelligence records are released by the National Archive. It also provides links to key legislation.
The cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee called for a more transparent warning system in a report on the 7 July bombings in London last year. The committee highlighted that the threat level had been reduced from severe general to substantial before the London attacks.
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What is also neeed is an honest aproach by the Police on the 'streets' with the enforcement of powers under anti-terorism laws. If the first casualty of war is truth the second must not be missuse of anti-terrorism laws of which regretably there are far too many examples in the past year.
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