The United States government has formally launched a new US terror warning system to take over from the current colour-coded mechanism.
In it, the terror warning process has been simplified to just two distinct levels, highlighting the prospect of either an "imminent" or an "elevated" security threat.
The basic status of each of these levels will be enhanced with additional information, summarising exactly what the threat is and specifying how long it will remain in force.
When a new US security threat emerges, it will now also be broadcast with data on both where it might take place and what it might affect. In some instances, the warning will go out solely to those immediately at threat - not the US public at large. Various outlets will be used as a means of broadcasting the terror alerts - Twitter and Facebook among them.
Details of the new terror warning system were delivered on 20 April by Janet Napolitano - the US Homeland Security Secretary.
Two months after an earlier speech, in which she stressed that the terror risk level was at its most severe since 9/11, Napolitano explained, yesterday, how "the terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly over the past ten years."
The 9/11 terrorist attacks prompted United States officials to introduce the colour-coded US terror warning system concept in 2002. It attracted wide criticism since, in much of the population's eyes, it didn't supply full explanations of the threat involved. It also remained static (‘Orange') between August 2006 and the present day, so wasn't adjusted in spite of a number of attempted acts of terrorism experienced in between.
"We are changing to a system that gives people specificity, tells them what to do, what to prepare, what to look for and how to get more information", Napolitano said, in comments broadcast by NBC television.
"It will be specific to geography, to event or incident", she added. "If the information has changed, if the alert no longer needs to exist, it will automatically go away."
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