A Modest Proposal for a FReepers "Instant Alert Network"

Butter Pecan Fan ^ | November 3, 2001 | butter pecan fan

[WIMom]

Let's say there is a group of FReepers who are selected, elected, or whatever for the alert team. Those FReepers would be the only ones allowed to post articles in the alert section. It would be their responsibility to see that the alert section is updated and free of outdated posts. Also, information threads such as phone numbers and emergency contacts could be placed there as well.

[John Farson]

While your idea would keep the chaff out, it would also reduce the chance of FR breaking any news. (what if news breaks at 3 AM in Cincinatti?) A voting system would achieve the same, without creating another division between freepers.

If enough people judge the post to be significant, perhaps it could even be upgraded to the Alert column/box, as the situation develops.

[Fred25]

NORTH OF YOU, NEAR SAN LOUIS OBISPO

[WIMom]

There is a breaking news section where a post could be placed and promoted to the alert section if it was voted upon that it needed to be there. From my understanding of this proposal, the information placed there would be life-threatening only and the team would be in place 24/7. The 'CNN is reporting' threads could be in breaking news as always. Also, from the proposal, this is information before the media reports it.

[MistyCA]

LOL...yes, I was aware of Diablo Canyon. I am also concerned about the Vandenburg Base. Years ago (before my time :) ) the Japanese apparently attempted to fire against Vandenburg and missed. There is a Restaurant in Goleta that has the old shell displayed where it fell. Fortunately back then the weapons weren't that good and their aim was rotten.

I always worry about Santa Barbara, however, ever since an incident back in the 70's when I met a UCSB student who was here on visa from Morocco and heavily involved in revolutionary activity and gun running. I learned that much later, of course. Any college town needs to be on alert for activities counter to the well-being of our nation. The cynical side of me wonders how many of them are provided cover by sympathetic professors and ignorant students anxious to support their cause. The person I refer to above was actually elected student body president! Hmmmm. Makes ya think. Gives me a friggen headache! :(

[blackbart1]

Have you checked with JimRob on this? He may or may not go for this.

[MistyCA]

I think this was thrown out as an idea and is only being expounded upon here. I am sure someone will prepare and present a proper proposal once the fine tuning has been done. Never occured to me that anyone would try to pull this off without proper approval and authorization. The original poster obviously put a lot of thought into this and wanted some feedback. Seems like a good way to approach it to me. Big thumbsup to Butter pecan fan! BTW, IMHO, Butter pecan icecream is the BEST!

[Fred25]

HEY, ANN COULTER JUST GAVE A SPEECH THERE!

THERE WAS A RAWA SPEAKER AT THE UNIVERSITY A FEW DAYS AGO

(RAWAs are political leftist militant Afghan women and their friends.)

You are right in the middle of a hotbed of political activity!!

[lelio]

(RAWAs are political leftist militant Afghan women and their friends.)
Not to start another thread here, but RAWA is just fighting for women's basic rights in Afghanistan. They shouldn't be labeled as left/right when they are arguing that women shouldn't be treated as slaves.

[Fred25]

Ok, I won’t debate that. At this time, I support them.

Here are some good links to RAWA photos and info....

LINK

LINK

[MistyCA]

Oh Lordy be! You are just full of interesting info for this little small town girl! Yikes! HOTBED! :( A little Berkeley in the making? Damn!

BTW, last night I was listening to O'Reilly (just caught the tail end of a conversation). He was speaking with a guy who was the recipient of a whole lot of flack from a city council member who objected to him putting up a flag and leading the Pledge of Allegiance at a City meeting. Turned out to be in Santa Barbara!

Also, I want to add something about the incident back in the 70's. I was a mere ignorant then....had not yet, to my knowledge, reached the infidel title. However, these guys who were here on student visas, and their friends, were driving around in mazerattis and made a habit of frequenting bars, etc, and picking up on young girls. They would befriend them and offer them expense paid trips abroad to stay in villas in Morocco. No strings attached. I learned later that they would carry luggage that contained concealed weapons. I doubt whether anyone who chose to go on one of these jounts had a clue. My point is, however, that this has been going on for a long time, and we have been dupped into participation in ways we will never fully comprehend, imo.

The activities are fully and well concealed as our communities become infiltrated and "worked". Back in the 70's I was home one day minding my own business when this acquaintance came to the door and asked if I could keep a piano for him. I looked out and saw a piano on top of a convertible car! lol. I said I would do it because I loved pianos and did not have one. A couple months later I heard a knock on the door and the guy was back to collect the piano. It was loaded up on the top of another convertible car and they drove away. Later, when I learned from the news about some arrests in Europe, it dawned on me that the piano was probably concealing something....I have no clue what. I hardly knew these people and the behavior seemed odd to me, but I chalked it up to them just being from a different culture. We are raised in America to be tolerant and accepting. We don't think like some others do. Most of us don't have an imagination wild enough to understand or comprehend some of what goes on around us because it just wouldn't occur to us outside of a movie theater! It's time to wake up, America!

[snorkeler]

btt

[flamefront]

Great post and a constructive re-thinking of what we all can do to improve the immediacy of communication here. I just want to blirt out a few related ideas that have been on my mind as well that can help frame possible related tools --

• Freenet/Gnutella P2P subnetworks
• e-mail broadcasts
• notifiers that are responsive to news filters and set-up for groups as in the bumplists here
• a new form of personal civil defense network
• convergent use of many inputs - radio, TV, net, net steams, forums, rumors, etc.
• establishing automatic cross link references to establish quick corrobation of stories that appear.
• etc.

[Osinski]

Ok good idea. The problem I have is what if FR is down during a crisis...like earthquake in CA or something else?

[Fred25]

BTW, last night I was listening to O'Reilly (just caught the tail end of a conversation). He was speaking with a guy who was the recipient of a whole lot of flack from a city council member who objected to him putting up a flag and leading the Pledge of Allegiance at a City meeting. Turned out to be in Santa Barbara!

Hey, I saw that guy! He said “Channel 12” had video of the event, but I couldn’t find any Channel 12 in Santa Barbara. Do you have a local cable Channel 12?

Yes, don’t keep any pianos for anyone now.

[MistyCA]

Whoaa.....you are right! No one seems to have considered that. I guess we have to try to rely on cell phones? Hmmm. In any event, in that case, the network would break down in certain areas. I think Butter Pecan covered that by broadening the phone list to include 4 or 5 alternative numbers. Plus, there again, there is really no reason to wake up all of America is California has an earthquake, is there?

[MistyCA]

I think Channel 12 comes out of Santa Maria, but I don't watch network TV....and I don't subscribe to the Santa Barbara Newspress. They called me one day and said they wanted to apologize for the bad service I had experienced! I said, "Bad service! No way! The delivery service was great! I just don't want your liberal, distorted news that comes days after the fact! I have better sources of news, thank you!"

[MistyCA]

BTW, I bought my own piano! :)

[gwmoore]

I like the idea. There are a few potential pitfalls (Backbone down, ISP or especially GSP down etc). The internet does NOT work like the original ARPANET was conceived and implemented, with redundancy and decentralization including multiple, random, processing nodes. Most ISP's use the same routing for the first few hops (my DSL does, at least), and I have had had some serious outages because of GSP server problems in the past. You can get serious problems from a single node disruption if it "happens" to be your GSP which is disrupted.

I would give some serious consideration to a "phone tree" in each area code or geographical location, so the phone # actually appears (I have anonymous/unavailable caller ID block), to beat the incessant telemarketing calls.

If you don't have an ID, you don't get through. Having the call(s) originate in the area code of the FReeper would get around that.

This being said, I am 100% back of it, Live just outside Philly, PA, have a scanner and ham radio, among other things ;-).

Count me in on this and for development/implementation help if required.

Keep the Faith for Freedom

MAY GOD BLESS AND PROTECT THIS HONORABLE REPUBLIC

Greg

[butter pecan fan]

I think Butter Pecan covered that [Free Republic down in a crisis] by broadening the phone list to include 4 or 5 alternative numbers.

FReepAlert would be mostly telephone-based, for immediate, confirmed notification (important in knowing the chain will go on), but obviously if the forum is up it greatly strengthens communication, because people who've received an alert can log in and meet others who are also monitoring the situation.

One key element I didn't really cover yet is that contact information would include 2 or 3 different phone numbers in order of preference, and members would be asked to keep a copy of their contact list in their wallet, purse, car or some combination of the above as well as at home near their phone. Easily done, since contact list will be distributed by email - just print out 1 or 2 extra copies when you print the original, and stick one in your billfold, give one to the wife, etc.

A sample contact list might give:

first name of FReeper
home number (normal hours: 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.)
work number
cell phone number in case not reached at work or home.

With such a scheme, and so many who have cell phones, you can see why it's NOT a stretch to think FReepAlert members might be reachable at least 2/3rds of the time.