Keep me in the dark

In last week's episode of 24 there was a threat made against New York with nuclear materials. The president and heads of state decided to not divulge that information to the public, as they continued investigation into securing the nuclear materials, and hopefully diverting the terrorist attack.

Bringing this out of the context of the TV show and into a post-9/11 world, some people would say that it is unfair to the public to keep the "secret" of a possible terrorist attack. For a few reasons, I believe that officials act correctly in not divulging potential terrorist attacks on the evening news.

1. Panic - Saying that there has been a terrorist threat made against New York would send a wave of panic through the state. Thousands of people would try to flee the cities all at one time causing confusing, chaos, and undoubtedly deaths caused by this panic and confusion.

2. Paranoia - If government officials made public every threat against the United States they would probably have to make a channel solely devoted to it because of the amount of threats that come in, and everyone would be paranoid and unable to live.

The question here is would you want to know if there was a terrorist threat against your city/state? At first glance I would say of course I want to know! But thinking about the implications of spreading that kind of panic makes me weary of that kind of information coming out. Panic causes people to do things they never thought they would do.

If investigation is still commencing, and Jack Bauer (or any real life equivalent) is on the case, I think everyone is safer just being in the dark.