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Trump Will Get Power To Send Unblockable Mass Text Messages To All Americans (nymag.com)
President-elect Donald Trump will have access to a system which can send unblockable texts to every phone in the United States once he becomes the president. From a report on NYMag: These 90-character messages, known as Wireless Emergency Alerts (or WEAs), are part of a program put in place after Congress passed the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act, in 2006. WEAs allow for targeted messages to be sent to every cell phone getting a signal from certain geographically relevant cell towers (or, in a national emergency, all of them). While it'd be a true nightmare to get screeching alerts from your phone that "Loser Senate Democrats still won't confirm great man Peter Thiel to Supreme Court. Sad!", there are some checks and balances on this. While President-elect Trump hasn't shown much impulse control when it comes to his favorite mass-messaging service, Twitter, the process for issuing a WEA isn't as simple as typing out a 90-character alert from a presidential smartphone and hitting "Send." All WEAs must be issued through FEMA's Integrated Public Alert Warning System, meaning that an emergency alert from the president still has at least one layer to pass through before being issued. While FEMA is under control of the executive branch (the head of FEMA is selected by the president, and reports to the Department of Homeland Security), the agency would have a vested interest in not seeing their alert system bent toward, uh, non-emergency ends.
Journalists, be careful what you publish. Don't give donald ideas!
What the fuck is this? I don't like Trump because I have a brain cell, but this is bullshit garbage. msmash/manish needs to go.
There's plenty Trump is actually doing that will have drastic consequences over the next few decades to be concerned about. Lets not start worrying about a power he hasn't abused yet, has made no comments that show he will abuse it, and if abused would be more an annoyance than a crisis. Priorities people.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
First FEMA tweet
Rosie O'donnell is a yuge bitch!!!!
And Obama had this power too. Don't remember quite how far back this goes, but pretty sure Bush was able to do it too.
And EVERY president going back to the start of the Emergency Broadcast System, since 1963, has had the ability to commandeer all airwaves as well. It was accidentally set off once, in 1971.
Meh.
Next story.
Trump will soon have the power and authority to launch a Preemptive Nuclear Strike and you are worried about the misuse of the WEA's Text Messages?!
Instead of reading a summary of Mr. Trump's 3AM tweets in The Wall Street Journal each morning, I'll be force to read each one as they come in real time.
Why is this news? Obama has the power now. I trust Obama, as a professional Chicago-machine politician, even less than Trump.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I hate pointless fear mongering articles. Best example of fake news there is right here on slashdot.
Trump isn't likely to abuse the alert system but leave it to slashdot to make an issue of it.
Trump won. Get over it already.
What the fuck is this? Seriously? What. The. Fuck. Taco must be turning in his grave/money pit at what the various owners of Slashdot have done to it since he sold it on.
As the old adage goes: "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it"
Can we stop complaining about things that may possibly is some crazy parallel universe happen?
I didn't vote for the guy but can we at least wait until he is in office and doing stuff before we jump off the deep end?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
All of a sudden, the left and the media are afraid of the powers that have been given to the president...
Correct. This is a totally sensationalist story.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I hate pointless fear mongering articles. Best example of fake news there is right here on slashdot.
Trump isn't likely to abuse the alert system but leave it to slashdot to make an issue of it.
Trump won. Get over it already.
I'm so weary of all this one-sided bickering and sniping over Trump that I've decided that Democrats should be considered enemy combatants.
To be more clear, I now consider Democrats to be the equivalent of the "other side" in a war - they will still oppose every and any thing your side does, they can lose a battle and still wage war, incessant and total non-compliance, they will fight to the last man, and any victory - even pyrrhic - is still a victory. Any means are justified in the pursuit of their ends.
All the things an unruly child does, but forever.
In my mind the Democrats are *permanently* a party of dishonour, disgrace, and corruption. A group that simply gets no "benefit of the doubt" or "concessions of fairness" or anything like that. They are children, now and forever. We should treat them as such.
I was thinking through the recent news (last night) that Trump got Carrier to keep 1000 jobs in the US, and how I couldn't see a way to frame that in a bad light. Lo and behold! Recent comments on Slashdot manage to paint this as a bad thing. They even pulled out the Hitler comparison for good measure.
The Democrats are defeated. Leaderless and feckless, the only thing they can do is complain.
No plan, no leadership, and rife with corruption.
It's hard to see why anyone would be a part of that crowd.
Because Donald Trump is technically a sociopath?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Because Donald Trump is technically a sociopath?
Then you must be REALLY relieved that the Clintons didn't get the executive power they were hungry to regain.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.