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Your Phone May Send You 'Blue Alerts' To Warn You When Local Police Are In Danger (androidpolice.com)

The FCC recently announced a new alert program called "Blue Alert" that will notify the public of threats to law enforcement in real time. "With the creation of a dedicated Blue Alert event code in the Emergency Alert System, state and local law enforcement will have the capability to push immediate warnings out to the public via broadcast, cable, and satellite providers, as well as to consumer smartphones through the Wireless Emergency Alert system," reports Android Police. From the report: Much like both the SILVER and AMBER alert programs, and utilizing the same notification system, Blue Alerts aim to warn the general public of threats to public safety and/or imminent danger. However, the police force focused alert system provides timely information to the public when police officers may be in danger. Chairman of the FCC and recent deregulator of the internet, Ajit Pai detailed the new FCC order saying, "Similar to the Amber Alerts that many are familiar with, Blue Alerts will enable authorities to warn the public when there is actionable information related to a law enforcement officer who is missing, seriously injured or killed in the line of duty, or when there is an imminent credible threat to an officer."

The December 14 order from the FCC activates the Blue Alerts service for one calendar year to deliver the notifications over the Emergency Alert System, and for 18 months over the Wireless Emergency Alert system.

6 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Great, Now we'll know when to commit robberies. by technosaurus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What a total waste of money, time and infrastructure. Not that any PD would ever use it, but still...

  2. FOIA and create an app from that data by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If a city wants to track crime then put that free data to good use and create a useful app for good people.

    Buy up an entire towns worth of data on every person, home, crime and layer it.
    Not just the open free city data, all the pay to view private sector data that is collected on crime.
    Get all the data on crime, generations of criminals, insurance costs, rent costs, number of people sharing a home. All the hidden statistics that really show what a part of the USA is really like over the decades.
    Layer the numbers, crimes over an interactive real time map.
    Then FOIA the Blue Alert event code and layer that on top.

    Sell a demographics app to warn people from outside the city, the better parts of a town that they are entering a bad part of the town.
    A nice friendly bright normal map GUI in the safe areas.

    The more darker, gloomy colors with voice and GUI when entering an area that should always be avoided. A final apex predator warning for the no-go area parts of a city.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  3. Re: Please, no... by retchdog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh, of course it won't provide any information; it'll just tell people, at most that police are being shot at in their neighborhood. They'll just turn it on every so often when they need to rile up the public or when there is an unwanted protest happening. Hell, maybe they'll even use it appropriately a few times, but even then, it might as well just flash "PANIC!" on the screen.

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  4. Re:When *police* are in danger? by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just passing one by is quickly becoming a coin-toss as to whether or not we end up beaten and arrested on trumped-up charges especially if we're black.

    OK, I'll touch the third rail -- I have plenty of karma.

    Coin-toss, eh? Like, 50-50 odds. Guess you're pretty much hosed if you pass 5-6 every day like I do. How am I still alive?

    Oh, because the real numbers are somewhere around 1.5% of encounters where force is used or threatened . (Pro tip: that means the percentage of encounters where force was actually used is less than 1.5% -- about half that, according to the report.)

    This sort of fanciful swill is what passes for "insightful" on Slashdot these days. The nerds are rapidly becoming outnumbered by the brain-dead activists.

  5. Re:When *police* are in danger? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Have you ever wondered about *why* white people from the suburbs are successful? It's not the "white power structure" or racism. It's that we aren't programmed to fail by being told nonsense about how the world actually works.

    Serious question - how would you know you weren't programmed with nonsense about how the world actually works if you've never had to leave the bubble of your white-centric upper-middle class neighborhood?

  6. Re: Please, no... by dwillden · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No, a "Well Regulated Militia" is in the definition of the term "Well Regulated" in 1790 a functional militia. That means the citizens who make up the militia have their own arms so that they can be called out by their local community leaders and respond with weapons (and ammo) needed to be a force to contend with. A disarmed populous that has to rely on a government stockpile of weapons being available is not a functional militia. The Minutemen didn't have time to head down to the villiage armory, wait for the armorer to be woken up and issue weapons. They heard the call, grabbed their weapons and responded. The founding fathers knew that. The Battles of Lexington and Concord were directly due to British efforts to confiscate gunpowder stockpiled by the communities. But the militia was able to respond with it's own weapons and history was set.

    Further the Militia Act clearly states that the National Guard is NOT the militia, it is part of the formal US Military. While nominally under control of the local state, it is funded and equipped by the Federal Government and can be called up over a Governor's objection. We the people are the Militia, and if we are not armed we are not a functional or "Well Regulated" militia.

    --
    I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.