FEMA, FCC Hope To Forestall Panic Over National Emergency Alert

Ars Technica has a piece on the "first-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS)," slated for this Wednesday at 2 p.m. EST. An excerpt: "This national system will look and sound much like the current (and local) emergency warnings often seen on TV or heard on radio, but the scope is larger and it can be put under the direct control of the President. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Weather Service (NWS) will all coordinate the test, but it's FEMA that actually transmits the alert code. Concerned that such a test might alarm people, the agencies are going to extraordinary lengths to provide a heads-up. I first heard about the test in an e-mail newsletter from my city government, which told residents last week, 'Do not be alarmed when an emergency message will take over the airways... this is only a test.' The test will display a warning message on TV screens, though as my city helpfully noted, 'Due to some technical limitations, a visual message indicating that "this is a test" may not pop up on every TV channel, especially where people use cable to receive their television stations.'"

Comments

media choice

[mapkinase]

TV and radio? That's it? I do not have it at home and the radio channels in my car are unworthy.

I am already subscribed to a bunch of alerts from my county (text, email notifications) and it works already just fine.

Given that I am spending about 1 hour every day in my car, 8 hours at work (email access), and the rest at home (6 hours sleep - no access to email, texts + access to email and text for the rest of the home time), I would prefer text messages as the basic alert media. With the noted exceptions I always have access to my phone, so I would prefer "text" as a media.

I could not find any comparison in numbers between TV subscriptions and cell phones, but I suspect that more people nowadays have access to text messaging.

Another thing is that TV should be on when the emergency broadcast happens.

From the other hand, cell phones are more easily disrupted (voice, don't remember the anekdotes on messaging) during emergency situations...

Re:media choice

[grumling]

In a real emergency, you'll likely get a reverse 911 call if there's time.

However, as part of an emergency kit you should have some sort of battery powered mass communications device on hand. The EAS isn't just that 10 second alert. If an event is triggered there are designated "tune-to" channels on cable systems and radio bands that can be used to get information out about things like shelters and storm tracks.

If they are actually used or not is another matter entirely.

Re:Almost care

[grumling]

Weather radio stations are not participating.

Re:TV? Radio? Huh?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

My understanding is that millions of twits will tweet in terror and be suddenly silenced...

Re:How effective?

[kannibal_klown]

Who is watching TV and listening to the radio these days?
How will the system reach those of us that get 90% of our content online?
I guess it would work during a sporting event, but what about the rest of the time?

Actually, a large percentage of people still watch TV now-a-days. Just because a larger percentage of SLASHDOT has moved off TV and onto Hulu+Netflex+Torrents+Whatever doesn't translate very well to Joe Sixpack that just wants to watch a few shows in the evening or the occasional Football / Baseball game.

Granted, at 2PM most people would be at work where they won't have access to TV and as much radio but a lot of people (including the elderly and unemployed) will be watching.

Re:the real coup

[grumling]

That pesky Communications act of 1934 (amended every congressional session since) specifically states that the airwaves belong to the people, and the people have designated the FCC as the trustee of the airwaves. By getting a license you grant consent.

The Cable act of 1992 brings cable TV under the umbrella of the FCC as well. Satellite TV, being delivered over the air, falls under the 1934 rule.

It's a Hoax

[Doc Ruby]

On September 11, 2001, the Emergency Alert System (that replaced the Emergency Broadcast System in 1998) did not alert anything. NYC and DC were under multiple attack by planes that immediately crippled the country, surging panic throughout the nation and the world, and driving the USA down the path of ruinous war. But there were no announcements, no sirens, no alerts. Emergency, but no alerts. Precisely the kind of emergency the system was sold to the public to address. After decades, finally needed, useless.

The official explanation is so much media coverage that it wasn't needed. As if any event requiring the system to work is going to go uncovered by the commercial media. That means the policy is for the system never to actually be used.

All those years of "testing" the system, all the money spent, all the alternate preparations ignored in favor of that one - all a total waste.

The weirdest thing is that it took years before I even heard someone mention that it didn't work. A forgettable comedian in about 2004-2005 had about 45 seconds about it

Now they'll spend a load of money on something else. It might even work. But since nobody even noticed, there'll be no reason for this new one to work. Except for those annoying tests that interrupt us. And leave us expecting we've built something necessary in an emergency, when we've just wasted more money on military contractors who delivered nothing.

Re:It's a Hoax

[chill]

It worked for me during the 1998 outbreak of tornados in Tennessee. I was in Nashville at the time and heading south by car when it kicked in. It was off and on all day and helped me navigate between storms and keep safe.

Quite useful that time.

Re:It's a Hoax

[ScentCone]

What were you expecting, an announcement that said, "Alert: We have no idea what to tell you to do, since we have no idea what just happened or what will happen next, who is involved, or the scope of the situation!" ?

Or perhaps: "Alert! Complex conflict with Jihaddist Wackadoos now coming to a head, since they're supporting and harboring the people who launched this attack! We can't tell you a thing to do except watch the news, because it's not the sort of emergency that lends itself to any specific instructions other than to avoid the Pentagon parking lot and Lower Manhattan, not that you could get near them anyway right now."

9/11 wasn't the least sort of situation that the EAS is meant to handle.It's meant to break into something you're already watching, and to pass along specific information. On 9/11, pretty much everything you were already watching was already diverted to news coverage, in real time.

Re:It's a Hoax

[Dhalka226]

Your point is fair enough, but I can't help but notice you fully avoided the question. What would you have said and to what effect? "Beware Arabs?"

The purpose of the system isn't to inform, it is to alert to action. "Tornado coming, duck!" is an actionable alert. The more probable intent at the time of invention, "incoming bombers" or "incoming missile, get to a shelter" is an actionable alert. You would have told people on 9/11 what? At any point in the situation?

Once we knew what was going on, planes were grounded. Fighters were in the air. For all the terrible injury and death that occurred I can't think of hearing about a single case that was because the police hadn't properly cordoned off the area around the towers, or any other such issue where action might actually be feasible. The only things we might have said we didn't know to say.

There may well be problems with the Emergency Alert System, but I would hardly call 9/11 an example of a failure.

Re:It's a Hoax

[Doc Ruby]

No, it was originally created for a nuclear war. But that was 50 years ago. The system has been substantially reinvented at least 3 times since then, of which the current testing is part of the latest change. The system currently warns of all kinds of emergencies, most commonly weather and other natural disasters.

The government knew the attacks were happening. The government had the info within an hour after the initial attacks that all planes were grounded, and that there were only the two targeted attacks. The government had spent all kinds of time and money modeling attacks including ones like that one (despite the CYA BS from Rice and other Bushers about "nobody could have anticipated"), including intel like that made into the August 6, 2001 PDB that anticipated this attack as likely coming soon.

Meanwhile news orgs were saying all kinds of stuff about the attacks immediately, much of which was wrong. The government should have used the EAS to announce the known facts, including the basic government response, to cut off such misinfo and give the public something to indicate our government was working to protect us, despite letting the attack occur. That is what the EAS is for.

Of course, this is the Bush/Cheney government that let New Orleans drown just a few years later. Their job was to discredit the government by spending its time and money on their cronies instead of the public. The EAS failure fits right in.

Re:the real coup

[surgen]

The real story here is that Fed.Gov can take over control of any media outlet without the consent of the media outlet.

No. That is not the story; those are paranoid delusions. Each broadcast station operates their EAS hardware. It can be overridden in many ways, from changing the control setting from "automatically forward messages" to "wait for my cue before forwarding" all the way to removing the electric relay that allows the encoder to inject between the program signal and transmitter.

If we're ever in enough trouble where EAS is used to "take over a media outlet", there will be enough problems going on that no broadcaster will give two shits about the FCC ramifications of not forwarding EAS messages (which are currently pretty weak anyway and not enforced anyway).

Re:the real coup

[Lakitu]

if this is really your concern, then you should not be worried about the FCC, which is decently well-regulated and has visible ties to Congress, or Emergency Alert System, which is a program of cooperation between major media providers in TV and radio and the government.

What you should worry about is all of the extra-judicial cooperation between corporations and the government, with many of them not even questioning government requests even when the government requests have essentially zero legal standing. Ask a cop you know how easy it is for him to get location information from a cell phone provider, for example, without much hassle.

Many of these types of corporations lay down and roll over at the thought of any law enforcement request, partly because they are making major profits off of the cronyism tendencies of present day America, and partly because they were bullied into giving up information without question by government administrations over the last 10 years.

if the official, regulated agency administering very little control over media and the airwaves scare you, then you'll be shocked to find out what the unofficial, unregulated relationships are like.