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A new lawsuit filed in New York is seeking to stop the implementation of FEMA's new "Presidential Alert" messaging system, an alert used for national emergencies that can be deployed by President Trump. Plaintiffs in Manhattan are suing Mr. Trump and FEMA Administrator Brock Long, claiming the alert system is a "violation of Americans' First and Fourth Amendment rights to be free from Government-compelled listening, as well as warrantless, non-consensual trespass into and seizure of their cellular devices."
Plaintiffs compare the alert system to "hijacking private property for the purpose of planting a Government-controlled loudspeaker in the home and on the person of every American." This new presidential alert is nationwide and only used for advance warning of national crises.
According to FEMA, the alert is not a text or SMS (short message service) but an audio and text warning that will display as a notification across a user's cellphone -- similar to the ones carriers receive during Amber Alerts and weather emergencies.
Previously: FEMA Emergency Test Message to be Sent to Most U.S. Cell Phones on Sept. 20 (or Oct. 3)
What to Expect From the U.S. Wireless Emergency Alert Test Today
(Score: 5, Informative) by Snotnose on Saturday October 06 2018, @09:44PM (12 children)
One thing I hate about my new phone is I can't disable these stupid alerts. Never even knew they existed until there was a missing kid, 500 miles away, at 2 AM. Damn phone scared the shit out of me. Next day lots of people were bitching about it, and then some SJW said "please don't disable these alerts, they're important!". Once I knew I could disable them it was quick work to do so.
Recent alerts I've gotten. The power in my area is out. No shit, the TV and lights turned off, going outside no streetlights are working. Figured it out for myself a good 5 minutes before the alert. Next one was the power was back on. Um, yeah. I was watching TV when that one came in.
Don't even get me started about the missing kids in the middle of the night. What do you think I'm gonna do, get out of bed, dress, and drive around in my car looking for them? Not gonna happen.
I suspect the main issue with the presidential alert is due to the shit Trump spews via twitter, and we're afraid he'll spew that same shit with an alert I can't disable.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @09:51PM
I'm happy to live in NY State and pay a little more tax than in other states. Looking for our NY Attorney General to go after Trump's history of tax fraud next. At least some of the money and gifts from his father that he's hidden are (I believe) not protected by statute of limitations.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @09:52PM (2 children)
What phone do you have? Even the iPhone lets the user disable AMBER alerts and Emergency alerts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Sunday October 07 2018, @12:26AM (1 child)
LG X Power, bought Feb of '17. Trust me, there's no way to disable the alerts on this phone.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @04:56AM
Sure there's a way.
Drop the phone into a Faraday cage.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Saturday October 06 2018, @10:00PM (5 children)
I too disabled those Amber alerts as soon as I got the first one. 99.99999999999999999999999999999% of the time it's just custody dispute crap in a messy divorce. Fuck that.
(Score: 4, Funny) by black6host on Saturday October 06 2018, @10:16PM
Wow! You must be like, I don't know, a Sigma 20 Hundred Black Belt or something with that kind of precision! j/k :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @10:25PM (2 children)
Yeah, I left them on for a long time, but every single alert was distracting and far away from me. They need to geographically target these messages if they want me to enable them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @02:11AM
I shut mine off after being woken at 3AM one night for an alert on the other side of the state. It's one of the first things I do with a new phone now.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday October 07 2018, @08:25PM
The Silver and Amber alerts are regionally targeted and can be disabled on my LG phone. The emergency notifications are a much wider scope but I can still disable them, Only the Presidential warnings offer no way to disable or control them to my knowledge. Here in the SW US, I get more Silver alerts than anything else. Another old person gets lost in the dessert on the way to or from the grocery store.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:28PM
what kind of pitiful fuck gets permission from the government to marry and produce slave children for the state? and they want to have me ratting these pitiful fools out because the wrong "guardian" has the slave child? fuck you, pigs!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Sunday October 07 2018, @12:29AM
I thankfully had no problem disabling the Amber & Emergency Alerts on my phone (Moto E4), but surprisingly that wasn't enough to prevent the far louder Presidential Alert, which also apparently is designed to trigger the maximum-vibration setting. When it went off, I was taking a nap, so the combination of the tone & buzzing sounded enough to my sleep-futzed brain like the old Emergency Broadcast/Alert System tests [youtube.com] that I spent few very confused seconds thinking it was coming from the TV that used to be in the family room about 20 years ago.
What baffles me is why they didn't just have this be an extension of the nationwide Emergency Alert System that they started testing several years ago; the fact that it's being sent to phones instead of televisions & radio shouldn't matter that much. Then again, natural disasters & terrorist attacks would all qualify as local emergencies better suited to the older local system; the only thing I can think of that'd be a genuine nationwide emergency would be nuclear missiles being minutes away from flattening every major city in the country, in which case all we can really do is put our heads between our knees and kiss our asses goodbye.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:59AM
Um, what? You don't know what you're talking about. You can disable them.