Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to announce Thursday that the almost 9-year-old threat alert system will go away in April.
Nobody ever had the guts to lower the terror level to below yellow:
In its lifetime, the threat level has been raised to orange/high five times, although it went to that level three other times for specific industries. The threat level was raised to red/severe once -- on August 10, 2006, and only for commercial flights from the United Kingdom to the United States -- when British authorities announced they had disrupted a major plot to blow up aircraft. The level went down to orange on August 16, 2006, where it remains.
The general threat level is yellow/elevated. The two lower levels have never been used, and task force looking at the system recommended in 2009 eliminating them altogether and making yellow the lowest threat level but renaming it "guarded."