Amber Alerts Aren't for what they Seem

The New Emergency Broadcasting system on Television and Smartphones in no way resembles what it did decades ago. For those of you who are much older than the Me/Y Generation, you will recall distinctly that time when hearing an emergency broadcast usually meant either a genuine natural disaster like a flood or tornado, or was a test for what you presumed might be a foreign attack, a nuclear strike (accompanied by air raid sirens) or some other horrible soon-to-be post apocalyptic scenario. During the last years of the turn of the Millennium, there was a kind of feeling that the world might end, or at least the world as we knew it.
Between the 2012 Mayan fear, the eschatological return of Jesus, and the Cold War doomsday clock, there were enough things going on in the fear centers of the subconscious mind that the last thing anyone wanted to hear was that eerie noise associated with the Emergency Broadcast Network. If the technology for phones were applied back then to regular phones of the age, people would go completely hysterical, and you can bet it would be very similar to the original broadcast of the radio program 'War of the Worlds'.

But that was then, this is now. What is that technology being used for primarily? Bad Weather and claims of Child Kidnapping. Much like putting your children in rubberized transparent bubbles with permanent life support, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with wanting to protect society's members by using vast networks and technologies to protect the children. But a fundamental, or even abstract desire to protect the children can be used as a button - a command line structure to generate control over a population. Much like the 'See something, say something' campaign that invaded large telescreens in shopping centers such as Malls and Walmart, there is a distinct transformation in the power structure and its relationship with the people.

The citizen-spy is becoming the New Man of Tomorrow. Much like the duties added to good citizenship of DARE programs and Just say No, and then RECYCLE programs that occurred about a decade later, the New Man is expected to report suspicious behavior and be the eyes and ears of Big Sis and Co. Big Sis even has a loyal new Department and Monstrous budget called Homeland Security. So now we have Amber Alerts, which are intended to let 1-10 million cellphone users in a region know that they need to stop whatever it is they are doing no matter how important they think it is, and pay attention to this government report of an apparent kidnapping. They must memorize the details of the apparent kidnapper, and report immediately any suspicious person matching that description and their whereabouts.

This system was put into place not too long after a string of anti-vaccine and anti-public education parents pulled their children from school. This system comes on the heals of government lawsuits about pulling the plug on coma patients. It was implemented within the same generation that children can be forcibly abducted by child protective services and sent to hospitals to die under medical malpractice and incompetence. Medicated children, pregnant mothers being amputated while unconscious - these events are real. So what happens if you don't agree that your child should be suspended or held after school for fighting back against bullying? What happens if you feel common core is not producing an intellectual improvement in your child? What happens if your child is being offered a new vaccine or birth control program without your permission or awareness? What do you do if you send your child to school with a bag lunch and the school confiscates it and then throws it away? What do you do if your child is arrested by a police officer, hit with pepper spray, or has their arms dislocated, because of the shape of a half eaten pop tart, or because they wore a T-Shirt with the wrong logo, or wrong color or because they drew a picture of their dad shooting Godzilla with a bazooka using crayons?

So we have an amber alert system, and we have a government that actively criminalizes parents for being parents. The natural reaction of a good parent when their child enters a dystopian event is to remove their child from the environment and relocate as soon as possible. I am not saying there will be no actual kidnappings in the world. I am saying the technology is not intended to catch them, any more than border security exists to control illegal immigration - any more than SWAT Teams with Heavily Armored Vehicles and Military Uniforms and Rifles exist solely or even primarily for the purpose of stopping Heavily Armed Bank Robbers, International Terrorist Bombers, or 1980s style Inner City Gang Wars.

And I don't even believe the Technology for Amber Alert will be limited to child kidnappers. I believe the technology will be used to track any person or vehicle the government wants to remove from the equation. Not just child kidnappers, not just parents in a custody battle being labeled child kidnappers, not just protective parents pulling their children out of school or hospitals or foster care. No, I believe the Amber Alert Infrastructure can be and will be weaponized as a propaganda tool against the masses to target all sorts of people the government dislikes, especially those people who don't "come in quietly". And I believe the general populous will have absolutely no way of knowing the difference between the innocent people and the real criminals they are taught it is being used for.

a reply to: skynet2015

You know what. Just read this, if you can.
Amber Hagerman

In a typical year, 750,000 American children are reported missing, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited children. The vast majority are runaways or family abductions.

Roughly 100 stranger abductions of children are reported each yearone every three or four days, on average. But stranger abductions are in the most troubling category of missing children because nine out of 10 victims are female, half are sexually assaulted, and three out of four are killed within three hours.

In those cases, every moment following an abduction is crucial.

The Amber alert system named for Amber Hagerman who was abducted in broad daylight right in front of her home and murdered two days later has been responsible for bringing home many children whether abducted by strangers or by someone they know. Ambers mother Donna Harris worked tirelessly for states to enact some kind of immediate response system for when a child goes missing. She felt that had such a system been in place her daughter may have been spared her tragic end. To this day her murder is unsolved.
As a mother I can say that I'm grateful that such a system exists. Although my own children are grown now.
Here in the Hampton roads region I've seen the system utilized twice already and both times the missing child was returned unharmed though one was a non-custodial parent who probably wouldn't have harmed the child anyway. The second was abducted by her neighbor who was on their way to NY when they were apprehended by Virginia state police.
I'm pretty sure there is no malice in the system. I also sincerely hope that you never have a use for it.

a reply to: skynet2015

I also remember life before the Amber Alerts, there were a lot of kidnappings in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 80's/90's... The fear of being abducted was very real and I was always looking over my shoulder, always

If the Amber Alert was around during that time, how many of those missing children would have been found?

This article is from 2013 so I'd imagine there were some moreover saved since the articles release:

Because of AMBER Alerts, 602 abducted children have been successfully recovered and brought home safely.

And let's not forget why the law was implemented:

In the aftermath of Amber Hagerman’s abduction and murder, local broadcasters joined with law enforcement to create the AMBER Alert system. AMBER Alerts are emergency messages issued when a law enforcement agency determines that a child has been abducted and is in imminent danger. The broadcasts include information about the child and abductor that could lead to the child's recovery, such as physical description and information about the abductor's vehicle.

17 Years of Amber Alerts Have Saved Over 600 Children
While the notifications are annoying, if it saves a child's life, I'll gladly suffer through it.

a reply to: Jennyfrenzy

True that. I get more annoyed at the system messages my carrier sends me about data usage then amber alerts.

If, by chance, I could save some little kid then its all good.

PS The emergency broadcast system is still tested daily. Any station broadcasting in the USA MUST test the system weekly. There are so many broadcast companies now that they spread them out testing a few every day of the week.
I've only once actually had to rely on the EBS for information. That was back in the nineties when hurricane Floyd was approaching Virginia as a cat three. Lucky for us it lost some steam before it reached us but we still had record floods with 19 inches of rain in a two day period. To this day I've never seen rain like that again. We were all grateful for the heads up as many low lying areas had to be evacuated due to flooding. Mistrust of the government is normal but some of those systems are really good things.

a reply to: Jennyfrenzy

I know this will sound callous but 600 recovered in 17 years with 750,000 going missing each year that is like 35/750,000 that is a .0046% success rate or a 99.9956 failure rate however you want to look at it.......I would bet the numbers before Amber Alert were about the same.

a reply to: ParanoidAmerican

It's a small victory but better than none at all. Better believe I would be thankful for the Amber Alerts if any children I know went missing.

The only thing nefarious about the Amber Alerts are the perp's that kidnap children.

a reply to: Jennyfrenzy

Oh for sure anything helps....but I guess I really question its sucess rate do we know what % were recovered prior to Amber Alert being utilized? I would be willing to bet it was about the same.

a reply to: ParanoidAmerican

I'd be willing to bet there have been more kidnapped/abducted children after the Amber Alert System was initiated than prior to it. As far as actual statistics before and after, I can't find anything but I'm still looking. I'll post it if anything is found.


Amber Alert FAQ

a reply to: Jennyfrenzy

According to this site the numbers have gone down right before the Amber System went live.. but their numbers do not match up with DoJ numbers, I would say they didn't have accurate stats it was only they best estimates..

Link

This is interesting nothing to do with Amber Alert but breaks the numbers down..

Link

originally posted by: AutumnWitch657
PS The emergency broadcast system is still tested daily. Any station broadcasting in the USA MUST test the system weekly. There are so many broadcast companies now that they spread them out testing a few every day of the week.
I've only once actually had to rely on the EBS for information. That was back in the nineties when hurricane Floyd was approaching Virginia as a cat three. Lucky for us it lost some steam before it reached us but we still had record floods with 19 inches of rain in a two day period. To this day I've never seen rain like that again. We were all grateful for the heads up as many low lying areas had to be evacuated due to flooding. Mistrust of the government is normal but some of those systems are really good things.

Also, I live in a small town where the air raid sirens still go off to let volunteer firemen know there is a fire and they are needed at the station immediately. So all of these things are still in use as of this day. Nothing has been wasted.

P.S. I have PTSD because of an attack I suffered for a little under a year by my sitter who lived next door when I was young. I was told not to report it or I would come up missing. When I did finally report it, he would stalk me by standing outside my window each and every night. This continued for about 8 months before we finally found a new place and moved. His sentence? 6 months probation. I guess it helps when daddy is fire chief. I count myself blessed each and every day that I am not dead or missing like those many girls, but at the same time, sometimes when the flashbacks hit, especially when your mind has forced you to forget what happened and closed you off to it, you see little clips here and there, you pray for death.