Red Alert

Raise shields, Ensign:

The U.S. government issued its highest terrorism alert ever for commercial flights from Britain to the United States early Thursday after a terror plot was disrupted in London, with a specific concern for tourist-filled flights to major U.S. cities.

[...]

It is the first time the red alert level in the Homeland Security warning system has been invoked, although there have been brief periods in the past when the orange level was applied. Homeland Security defines the red alert as designating a "severe risk of terrorist attacks."

A real threat worthy of the highest level of alertiness, or a ploy to remind the voters of who gets to play with the coloring book? You make the call.