sign up here to worry yourself silly

The BBC:

E-mail terror alerts will be sent out to the public under a new system launched by security chiefs at MI5.

From Tuesday, people will be able to register on the MI5 website to receive updates when the threat level changes.

I think I’ve only ever seen it at ’severe’, meaning “an attack is likely”.

Why on earth would you want to receive this information by email? Also, as SpyBlog put it so eloquently, at around the time of the liquid explosives on aircraft threat,

Threat Level CRITICAL - now what are we meant do?

Um… bring the washing in?

But seriously, we aren’t required to do anything other than “remain vigilant”. John Reid, the Home Secretary, says:

Threat levels in themselves do not require specific responses from the public.

Back to the usual bland reporting from the BBC, which never seems to ask the right questions - or indeed any questions - when reporting such subjects. I like the BBC, but do we need it to reproduce information from the Government?

The initiative follows considerable interest in similar information for the public introduced in August on the MI5 and Home Office websites.

I’m sure there is interest. But what form does it take? How was this interest measured? Do people generally look just the once, or do they return time and again to see if anything has changed? The sort of things web administrators are routinely asked.

…Whitehall says the move to introduce e-mail terror alerts has been in the pipeline for a while.

How long?

…The Home Office says it is part of a long-planned programme

Is that supposed to be a positive?

of reaching out to the public and keeping it better informed about the terrorist threat.

Why on earth does it take Government ‘a while’ to put together a webform that connects to a mailing list? Something acquaintances have done within minutes?