Op Ed: How Long Can the Country Stay Scared
A terrorist alert that instills a vague feeling of dread or panic, without giving people anything to do in response, is ineffective. Even worse, it echoes the very tactics of the terrorists. There are two basic ways to terrorize people. The first is to do something spectacularly horrible, like flying airplanes into skyscrapers and killing thousands of people. The second is to keep people living in fear. Decades ago, that was one of the IRA's major aims. Inadvertently, the DHS is achieving the same thing.
Are we scared yet?
A country or countries can stay afraid for a pretty long while - take a look at the cold war.
As for the terror alert levels, maybe they do it so that if an actual terror attack happens, they can pretend they knew about it.
I don't think the DHS is doing it inadvertently. I think they know exactly what they are doing.