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 ...
Buy a Canadian plan with international roaming? How about the prepaid anonymous phones bought with cash? Maybe they’ll be outlawed.
OK! Reason #1001 why I will never acquire a cell phone.
Anybody know? Is there a way I can rig my TV so it never displays his image or transmits the yell or the whistle that constitutes his voice when he favors his worshipers with a “speech”?
You mean like the 72 versions of the presumed killing of Osama bin Laden?
Hate to ruin your day, but there already are free phones for poor people:
http://www.jdnews.com/news/phone-63600-service-cell.html
There are certain people I don’t want having my cell number. This POTUS is one of them.
WTF? When the WTC towers collapsed, the cell towers located on top of the WTC went down too. Survivors were trying to find old fashioned pay phones to call their families and leave messages.
It’s bad enough already with the TSA gropers, and now we peons will have ubiquitous Obama-chips implanted in every cell phone to receive the royal announcements from the Kenyan Clown?
That’s true. In DC the cell networks and the land lines all crashed on 9/11, predictably. So there is a another reason for this plan, because everyone knows there will be no phone service in a true disaster.
‘_______changeover from ‘personnel departments’ to ‘human resources.’
Just wow. I am very surprised to see this subject/job title brought up.
I have a family member who originated that position for the aircraft company he worked for back in the late ‘50’s.
He was sent off to another state, and in very many ways ‘administered’ to other employees who were being transferred from the home base, usually on a short term basis, and he was called a “Personnel Administrator.”
Sometimes, a ‘Field Base Administrator.’
He opened 2 other field bases in 2 additional states during his career.
By the time he retired in the mid ‘90’s, the term ‘human resources’ was around.
Not in his office - ‘Personnel Adminstrator’ to the end!
Why do I think he will somehow use this for fundraising?
“Special chips to receive alerts? So, what more will the “special chips” be capable of??”
Well, undoubtedly, the Feds will need to know your whereabouts 24/7 to ensure you get POTUS’s emergency text, so the chips likely would have some sort of a tracking feature.
My God! What are they trying to do. Recreate Orwell’s 1984 world?
Now we will have to have “big brother” with us all of the time and he will give us “doublespeak” daily complete with political indoctrination on an hourly basis?
Next, our cell phones will have the capability to send video of our private lives directly to the Ministry of Propaganda and re-education authorities.
i’m keeping my stupid phone with texting blocked!
Screw obama!
Great. Yet another reason for people to engage in cell-phone rudeness, perennially checking their phones even as they purportedly engage in face-to-face conversation. (When even the NYT recognizes behavior as rude, we can rest assured it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/fashion/17TEXT.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hpw)
Surely they cannot be expected to risk their lives by failing to check their phones every other second to ensure that an emergency message from POTUS hasn’t arrived...
I don’t get it. Since when does a terrorist want to send text warnings to his victims?
You in North Dakota?
Oh, I have. Anything which can remotely control my phone can generate any manner of communication from it as well to any 'desired' undesireable other phone, carrying any sort of information, and without my knowledge or consent. Criminals and enemies of the State can be created wholesale, entire networks documented (or targeted). Nope. Start this and I start pulling the battery when the phone is not in use.
No way! I don’t want that evil creep’s voice anywhere near my cell phone. In fact, I don’t want the government anywhere near it, and I sure don’t want to have a special chip so the government can “communicate” with me.
This gets more insane every day. Somebody please make it stop!
Yep.
In my state there already are free phones for the poor. It’s advertised on TV all the time.
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