Posted on 05/11/2011 1:20:06 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
From next year, new phones and other hand-held devices will be required to be fitted with special chips to receive the alerts, which will also be sent by state and local authorities. Users will be able to opt out of every type of alert except those from the president, said the Federal Communications Commission.
The system will include alerts about missing children and will supersede all other phone traffic to avoid delays.
Mr Obama, who has been dubbed the "texter-in-chief" thanks to his devotion to his BlackBerry and heavy use of text messages during his 2008 campaign, may face criticism from libertarians for the compulsory nature of the presidential alerts.
But officials see the system, known as Personal Localized Alerting Network, or Plan, as a logical progression from alerting the public via radio and television.
"The lesson that was reinforced on 9/11 was the importance of getting clear and accurate information to the public during a crisis," said Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, where the scheme will be deployed first next year. It will then move to Washington and most other large cities.
He called the alerts a "quantum leap forward in using
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
lol!
Yes indeed.
Good tag line.
One of my taglines is: “Language is liquid, it runs through your ears like water through your fingers. Propaganda works.”
P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people some of the time ... “
I’m feeling like P.T. Barnum is one of the “czars” in government. And Lincoln has been proved right over and over again.
“Users will be able to opt out of every type of alert except those from the president”
Oh, so sorry...pressed the wrong button. I’ll pay a $150 fine
I’m guessing that next on the agenda will be interruptions to service so he can make a speech or send a public service announcement or appeal to vote for him again in 2012.
Special chips to receive alerts? So, what more will the “special chips” be capable of??
Yeah, rots a ruck getting that one enforced.
They may get away with requiring new phones to include said chips but only a ninny would voluntarily allow the Central Planning, Nanny-Statist, Big-Gubmint to tinker with existing cell phones, most notably, mine!
Not surprising, there is no outcry how this will disadvantage the poor, you know those who can't afford a drivers license to prove they are citizens when voting???
And there will be a new fee (non-tax deductible, of course) tacked on to your bill to support this program. Naturally, those who are receiving cell phone service at no or reduced rates because they are “disadvantaged” will pay no such fee.
Good point. The first time somebody tries to put a chip in my phone, the phone goes in the garbage can. I already don’t fly.
Little by little they will force us off the grid, where we can’t communicate except in the good old-fashioned person-to-person way. All the hip little communicators can stay plugged in until they forget how to use their brains.
THX1138 was a masterpiece and George Lucas a genius—except when I watched it a few years ago they had deleted the part about the elementary school teachers. Oh well, that didn’t turn out to be too prescient anyway, did it?
Will be REQUIRED? FUBO.
Guess my new phone this year will be my last phone.
My simple four word reply, thank you Mr. Bob Grant,
GET OFF MY PHONE!
My simple four word reply, thank you Mr. Bob Grant,
GET OFF MY PHONE!
Oh, not just the libertarians.
Get the damn government out of my personal life.
Exactly.
And I can see the entrepreneurial nature of our country generating black market businesses that can safely remove those things.
I'd be up for that.
What’s to stop him from sending anything to our phones and having us arrested for downloading (you fill in the blank)?
Think about that one.
NO!
Keep the one you have for as long as you can!
Just don't buy a new one when/if this happens.
Or - Hi there! You are getting this because I am Me and you couldn't opt out from Me. I am the One we have been waiting for. Carry on with your waiting. Oh yeah, terror alert tamale - the true owners of America are coming to take back what is theirs - don't interfere and nobody gets hurt (except for a few hundred thousand or so pent-up-rage killings).
Oh - but of course since they can mandate the purchase of health care, they will mandate everyone buy a new cell phone and then via technology render any old ones inoperative.
very well said.
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