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

Posted by BeauHD on from the for-you-information dept.

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.

22 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Please, no... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, this is a good idea, let's all converge on the scene of a shootout... Or whatever.

    On the one hand, with typical "police behavior", often we are lucky when there are "citizen" observers.

    On ywt another hand, this presents a safety danger with unknown consistences many of which are not good.

    Another aspect that comes to mind is that this is just one more step in the direction of a "Police State" where our Law Enforcement are seen as some holy religious order, our Priests in Blue... We've all seen these 200 car processions when a police officer is killed in the line of duty...

    I don't think this is a well thought-out idea.

    --
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    1. Re:Please, no... by jdavidb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think it's well thought out by those who want a police state where we view law enforcement as holy priests in blue. I don't want it, either.

      --
      Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
    2. Re: Please, no... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't want to kill cops, but I also don't care about them any more than I care about people in general. This new program is a clear example of "mission creep", and the likely result will be more people opting out of the increasingly stupid and pointless alerts.

    3. Re: Please, no... by JohnFen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A million times this.

      It's pretty baffling to me how anyone thinks this is a valuable thing to have. Cops have power and do a job knowing that they may occasionally be put into danger (although being a cop isn't even in the top 10 most dangerous professions, so there's that).

      That's a world of difference from helpless and innocent children being abducted, or being alerted to some imminent public danger.

      Although, I have to admit, I opted out once Amber alerts were brought on board. That was already too much mission creep for me.

    4. Re:Please, no... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Informative

      Oh, for fuck's sake, the National Guard is not the militia. They are part of the official armed forces of the US government. The militia is all male citizens from 18-45 able to bear arms. You classist bigoted slur is noted right along with your ignorance of the Constitution.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    5. Re: Please, no... by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Although, I have to admit, I opted out once Amber alerts were brought on board. That was already too much mission creep for me.

      I thought Amber Alerts were a pretty good idea until I got one in the middle of the night for a little girl who had already been found. Then I shut them off.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    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.

      --
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    7. Re: Please, no... by chihowa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When cops feel threatened, they start randomly shooting at people.

      This alert is very useful for letting you know that you may want to stay inside and away from windows. If the 'threat' is driving a blue pickup truck, you may want to not drive your blue pickup truck (or white pickup truck, or red car), lest it be turned into swiss cheese.

      It's an alert that the police are off of their leash and won't be held accountable for any damage or injury that they cause.

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

    How about an app that warns us when police are nearby and can be set to automatically record and stream to chosen sites if they get within ten feet? Cops nowadays are little more than sociopaths in military gear, and I'd rather not I (or possibly even my husband) get raped, killed, and our car arrested on suspicion of resisting.

    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. Police are not the ones that need protecting from anyone.

    1. Re:When *police* are in danger? by CaptainDork · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... PC education/brainwashing system ...

      And for Mac?

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    2. Re:When *police* are in danger? by ThanatosMinor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here's a clue from a responsible adult - if you go into the world and treat the police like an enemy, or teach your kids the same - you are going to be in for a very rough time. Not because of the police - because of your own actions and statements.

      Many people have good reason to believe the police are not there to help them whenever they show up, and that at best they'll be thought of as suspects before victims, and not just suspects but guilty suspects. Trust must be earned. If the police do not have the public's (or any non-empty subset thereof) trust, that is the fault of the police and the criminal justice system as a whole and not that of the public.

      You may be responsible for yourself but you've also been tricked into thinking a police state is a good thing and trying to convince others of the same. But it's a cop's job to protect me, not the other way around. They're public servants and I'm the public so I don't owe the police anywhere near what they owe me. They should smile if I flip them off. Otherwise why am I paying for them?

    3. 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?

  3. Black Alert? by duckintheface · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps a Black Alert to tell the public when unarmed black men are endangered by the police?

    --
    "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
  4. Umm, OK, whatever by JohnFen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't have the foggiest notion what this is supposed to accomplish, really. If a situation is such that a cop is seriously endangered, what in the world could I do about it?

    It looks to me like all this does is to further decrease the signal-to-noise ratio in these sorts of things.

  5. Because police lives... by K.+S.+Van+Horn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...matter so much more than yours or mine.

  6. Why Would Ordinary People Need This? by mentil · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can see this being useful for off-duty police officers, as there have been cases of them being accosted. However, ordinary people don't need to know every time a police officer gets hurt in a traffic collision (statistically, by far, the leading cause of unnatural serious injury or death to on-duty police.) I could maybe see this as some kind of active shooter alert system... but it's so overbroad it's almost never going to be such a scenario, and people will turn it off/tune it out and never get the message. Furthermore, if I'm hiding from a shooter and my phone starts a siren that can be heard a block away, I'm not gonna be hidden any longer.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  7. Re:Who do we call? by geekd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When the cops ARE the danger?

  8. This strikes me as propaganda by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    e.g. something to rile up people and maybe get some more "tough on crime" legislation. I can't think of any other reason to do this. This is not information the public needs to know on a real time basis.

    --
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  9. I just got one of these by jrumney · · Score: 5, Insightful

    BLUE ALERT: Officer has spotted a black man failing to indicate a right turn for at least 3 seconds before starting the maneuver. All residents are advised to remain indoors and definitely do not come out and record the shooting and post to social media.

  10. This should be fun by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'Blue Alerts' To Warn You When Local Police Are In Danger

    Now we'll all get pestered whenever someone points a camera at the police.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  11. Re:Amber alerts, lol... by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 4, Informative

    Exactly. This one would be switched off immediately.

    I mean, Emergency Alerts? Yeah, definitely. If there's a tornado or wildfire or something bearing down on me, it'd be nice to be notified (and not necessarily have to sit there with a TV/Radio on, just in case). AMBER alerts? Well, okay, I suppose that's helpful in certain situations and, besides, I turn it off anyway for much the same reason. I'd leave it on if it could be made smarter. I don't need this alert at 4:00AM when I'm sleeping, but it might be nice if it would store it so that when I start driving to work, it'll pop-up and say, "Hey, keep an eye out for a blue chevy..."

    I might understand something like this for a very narrow area--for example, if police are looking for a suspect hiding in your area, an alert to the people the, say, 12 block cordoned-off area saying that they should lock their doors and be on the lookout for a guy in a green hoodie might be useful. But I think this already exists.

    Again, this system is supposed to be useful for me. How is this proposed system helpful for me?

  12. What about "Black & Blue" Alerts? by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Will they send "Black & Blue" Alerts whenever the police are beating the shit out of someone who is subdued? Will they send "Black & Red" Alerts whenever the cops unload their magazines into unarmed suspects? Will they send "Yellow & Blue" Alerts when they Tazer grandmothers? Will they send "Spotted Alerts" whenever they shoot someones dog? Will they send "White" Alerts when they shoot babies in their crib during SWAT home invasions? Just wondering.