Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/05/three-new-yorkers-are-suing-tr.html
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The possibility that Trump might send stupid national alerts pales compared to what he might do to cause the need for a real national alert.
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The PDF embedded at the bottom of the article seems quite unrelated - wrong URL?
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This suit is almost as dumb as calling it a “Presidential Alert.” It comes from FEMA not the president. Is there room for abuse? Sure, but it’s not a direct line from the oval office into your phone.
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I enjoy making fun of the alert system as much as the next person, but holy shit what a waste of time.
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It wasted about one of my seconds… plus time to read all the hand-wringing.
As pretty much always, I wasn’t talking about you.
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My cat is on board with this lawsuit; she HATED the alert sound and tried to attack the phone.
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I think it’s worthwhile, as a rhetorical exercise, to call attention to some of the assumptions underlying the whole project. Specifically, it relies on an Eisenhower-era connotation of “Presidential” which doesn’t really apply when “the President” can mean “some shithead with less idea about what’s going on than you already have”.
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This suit has as much chance as making it through the courts as political robocalls being blocked.
I can remember sitting thru untold numbers of, “This is a test. This is only a test…” while watching TV as a kid (it was really frequent), so I do not find this surprising. On the other hand, I can certainly see the desire to keep this thing out of the reach of Dolt 45’s tiny hands.
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My old flip-phone didn’t receive the alert. I also have a couple of friends whose smart phones didn’t get the alert, either.
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Indeed. After the fun and games in Hawaii earlier this year, there is an obvious need to check that the system works. This isn’t The Beloved Leader Speaks To His People. Yet.
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The ones you remember were all local. They are useful because many emergencies (wild fires, tornadoes, flooding, etc.) require getting specific information to people in that region. It’s hard to imagine an emergency that would require getting info to the entire nation at once (from Alaska and Hawaii to Maine and Florida and Puerto Rico). Even the attacks of 9/11 were handled pretty readily by the news media, which provided a bit of a check and balance on what the government communicated.
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I have some doubts about the usefulness of this system, which predates Trump anyway. Suing to block it is dumb. We waste so much time trying to solve problems that haven’t even happened.
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I was in the car with my husband and my parents – we all have smart phones and only I received the alert. We enjoyed a family-time grumble about the whole hullaballoo while I eyed my iPhone with increased suspicion. I’d like to think that your flip phone is immune to presidential shenanigans.
One of those New Yorkers?
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As long as it’s called a “presidential alert”, I don’t want to receive it and completely support this lawsuit.
Well, calling it a “Presidential Alert” is probably entirely appropriate. I can’t imagine a disaster that would potentially affect the entire country that wouldn’t be directly related to the idiocy of the orange shitweasel.
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This is stupid. Do you really want to be the last to know the missiles are on their way?
Speaking of which, check out this device I just learned about:
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