Sprint Launches Soon To Be Mandatory Emergency Alert Messages

Americans will be forced to receive spurious terror alerts

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, November 18, 2011

Telecommunications giant Sprint has announced the launch of its Wireless Emergency Alerts program that will deliver messages from the federal government directly to millions of Americans as part of a system set to become mandatory on all new cellphones.

“Wireless Emergency Alerts allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to accept and deliver warning messages to wireless networks from the president of the United States, the National Weather Service and state and local emergency operations centers. Sprint customers will be able to effectively and accurately receive warnings and safety information via text alerts to mobile phones that are equipped with the enabling software and based on their geographic location,” states the press release.

Although existing mobile handsets can only receive the messages if their users have opted-in to the scheme, all new models will be designed so as to force Americans to receive the messages whether they want to or not.

The federal government is keen to implement a centralized system of control over all communications, with the recent announcement that all new cell phones will be required to comply with the PLAN program (Personal Localized Alerting Network), which will broadcast emergency alert messages directly to Americans’ cell phones using a special chip embedded in the receiver. The system will be operational by the end of the year in New York and Washington, with the rest of the country set to follow in 2012.

Assurances that the system will be “voluntary” for wireless carriers are completely meaningless given the fact that all the big boys, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, have already indicated they will participate.

Customers will have no choice whether to opt-in or not, they will automatically be signed up by their carrier.

“Consumers will have the option….to block all PLAN alerts except for those issued by the president,” reports the L.A. Times.

In other words, for the first time ever the feds will have a direct line to the millions of Americans who use cell phones and be able to use the messages to transmit whatever they like, whether that be genuine safety information, fearmongering about spurious terror alerts, or political propaganda.

The “special chip” that the government will use to reach Americans is already present in high-end phones like the latest iPhone.

“The 90-character alerts will be delivered at no charge to the customer and have a distinctive vibration cadence and audio tone similar to what is heard for emergency alerts on broadcast television and radio. Additionally, notification of a wireless emergency alert will be distinguished in the handset’s messaging inbox with a distinctive icon,” notes the press release, adding, “Wireless users can opt out of all message types with the exception of presidential alerts.”

As we reported last week, concerns about the public’s reaction to a national broadcast test of the Emergency Alert System prompted the test to be shortened from an initial 3 and a half minutes to just 30 seconds.

Before the end of the year, Sprint plans to team up with the New York City Office of Emergency Management, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, and FEMA to conduct a test of the new mobile alert system.

“The test will deliver a series of different geo-targeted wireless alerts to multiple Sprint mobile phones strategically located in Brooklyn, The Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island,” according to the press release.

The PLAN program is part of the wider move on behalf of Homeland Security to create a public environment dominated by a pervasive sense of fear and paranoia, a context in which the safe exercise of constitutional freedoms doesn’t normally thrive.

As we have documented, not only is Big Sis already telling Americans to report on each other via Orwellian Wal-Mart telescreens, but new street lights now being installed in major cities have the ability not only to record people’s conversations but also to display emergency “alerts” issued by the federal government.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

Fear-based Terror Alerts to Become Mandatory On Cell Phones

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
May 10, 2011

It’s not enough the government and its corporate media propaganda tool commandeer the television and radio with phony terror alerts and incessant nonsense about Muslim miscreants who are inspired by FBI agents provocateurs to talk about terrorism.

Soon it this propaganda will reach out to your cell phone. It will be mandatory to receive this propaganda.

CBS and the AP report today that next year the government will mandate all new cell phones will be required to have a chip that receives government propaganda and fear-mongering. Many smart phones already have technology easily commandeered by the state. Government propaganda will supersede all other calls.

Carriers AT&T and Verizon say they will implement the technology. Eighty-five percent of Americans over 18 own a cell phone.

Following the debunked Osama death raid, the government announced it will alert the public to emergencies via cell phones. The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the system will warn people about terrorist attacks, natural disasters or other emergencies.

The new system will be in place in New York City and Washington by the end of the year and in cities across the country by the end of next year, according to CBS New York.

In addition to Amber Alerts and warnings of imminent doom from terrorists who hate us for our freedom, the system will send out “urgent blasts from the president,” according to the New York Daily News.

New Yorkers soon to get emergency cell phone alerts in what Bloomberg calls 'quantum leap forward'

NY Daily News

BY Erin Einhorn

CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Monday, May 9th 2011, 9:19 PM

Emergency officials will soon be able to blast critical alerts to anyone with a cell phone in a certain section of the city.

If Times Square needs to be evacuated because of a bomb threat or if a hurricane is bearing down on Queens, warnings will be bounced from cell towers.

"Making sure that [people] get useful and life-saving information, quickly and easily, right on their mobile phones, will help more people get out of harm's way when a threat exists," said Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator W. Craig Fugate.

The system - called PLAN or Personal Localized Alerting Network - uses cell phone towers to send messages to everyone currently in a certain area, regardless of whether they're visiting from out of town or have a phone registered elsewhere. People won't have to register in advance to receive the alerts.

The messages, including urgent blasts from the President, information on imminent threats and Amber Alerts about missing children, will supercede all other phone traffic so they won't be stalled or delayed.

FEMA's Fugate and Federal Communications Commissioner Chair Julius Genachowski plan to announce the new system at the World Trade Center site Tuesday in a press conference with Mayor Bloomberg and top phone company execs.

They system is expected to be up and running in New York and Washington by the end of the year - months before the rest of the country.

Mayor Bloomberg called the alerts a "quantum leap forward in using technology to help keep people safe."

National Emergency Alert System Set To Launch In NYC

NEW YORK, (CBSNewYork/AP) – A new national alert system is set to begin in New York City that will alert the public to emergencies via cell phones.

WCBS 880′s Paul Murnane In Lower Manhattan: Verizon And AT&T Are On Board

The announcement of the new emergency alert system came Monday in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death and an uptick in security and safety concerns around New York City.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the system will warn people about terrorist attacks, natural disasters or other emergencies.

Starting next year, all new cell phones will be required to have a chip that receives the alerts. Some smart phones already have the technology...[Full Article]

Obama Launches Total Takeover of Media System

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
February 8, 2011

Even the Washington Post describes it like something out of Orwell’s 1984. The FCC has approved a presidential alert system. Obama may soon appear on your television or call your cell phone to warn you about the next specious al-Qaeda underwear bombing event.

Commissioners voted last week to require television and radio stations, cable systems and satellite TV providers to participate in a test that would have them receive and transmit a live code that includes an alert message issued by the president. No date has been set for the test, according to the Post.

Once again, the government has imposed an unreasonable and absurd mandate on business and the American people.

“The Federal Communications Commission today took action to help pave the way for the first-ever Presidential alert to be aired across the United States on the Nation’s Emergency Alert System (EAS),” the FCC announced on February 3 in a press release. “The national test will help determine the reliability of the EAS system and its effectiveness in notifying the public of emergencies and potential danger nationwide and regionally.”

Play/Download mp3 FecderalNewsRadio interviews the FCC about the system.

As Next Generation EAS systems become operational over the next few years, they will complement other public alert and warning systems now being developed, including FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) and the Commercial Mobile Alert System that will enable consumers to receive alerts through a variety of multi-media platforms on their smart-phones, blackberries and other mobile broadband devices.

If implemented, the president will be able to commandeer your smart phone any time he wants and for any reason the government deems necessary.

In November, communications company Alcatel-Lucent announced that it’s creating a Broadcast Message Center that will allow government agencies to send cell phone users specific information in the event of a local, state or national emergency, including those now ubiquitous government warnings about fantastic terror plots that invariably fizzle out or are run by FBI informants and agents provocateurs. It seems not a week or two passes that some gullible Muslim is duped by the agency into a fantastic terror plot (for instance, blowing up Christmas trees).

The Broadcast Message Center is designed to force mobile phone manufacturers to adopt the Federal Communication Commission’s Commercial Mobile Alert System. Under the new system, all phones would receive emergency alerts directly from government bureaucrats.

Former DHS boss Tom Ridge has admitted that the government exploits terror alerts for political gain. Ridge said he “was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.” A specific al-Qaeda terror alert hyped up prior to the election was downgraded by the DHS after Bush beat fellow bonesman Kerry in the election.

Obama’s warnings about a supposed al-Qaeda attack on targets in Europe was exaggerated for political purposes, Pakistani diplomat Shamsul Hasan said in October. “I will not deny the fact that there may be internal political dynamics, including the forthcoming midterm American elections. If the Americans have definite information about terrorists and al-Qaida people, we should be provided [with] that and we could go after them ourselves,” Hasan said.

No terror event occurred. “It was nothing specific, nothing very new,” said Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask after the official warning. “We agree that there is no indication of concrete targets, concrete dates and concrete terror groups,” added German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere.

In addition to your cell phone, the government wants to take control of your internet broadband in the event another phony terror attack threatens the homeland.

Lisa Fowlkes, deputy chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the FCC, told FederalNewsRadio on Monday that the FCC is looking at how wireless broadband could also enhance the EAS as part of a recommendation that was in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan from last year. The idea is to hijack broadband and the internet for emergency alerting propaganda with the “Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) being developed by FEMA and the wireless industry,” according to Fowlkes.

The system would break into your computer or wireless device and broadcast presidential propaganda announcements, FEMA reports, so-called “Imminent Threat Alerts,” and AMBER Alerts.

Government has devised other creative ways to disseminate propaganda. For instance, California introduced a bill last year to commission a study on emerging electronic license plate technology and examine ways that it could introduce new ad revenue streams. In addition to ads, the technology would flash Amber Alerts and other information.

Earlier this month, DHS unveiled a new terror alert system that will hijack social networking sites as one way of informing people of terrorist threat updates. “The new, two-tiered system will provide alerts that are more specific to the threat and even recommend certain actions or suggest that people look for specific suspicious behavior, she said. They also may be limited to a particular audience — such as law enforcement — rather than broadcast to the general public, and also will have a specified end date,” reported Information Week Government.

In December, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the expansion of the Department’s national “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign to hundreds of Walmart stores across the country — launching a new partnership between DHS and Walmart to help the American public play an active role in informing on each other. Thousands of Wamart stores will have telescreens pumping out government propaganda.

FEMA is also working on a new system that would send emergency alerts as text messages to wireless phone users. The system is still about two years away from full implementation, according to the agency.

CMAS is slated to begin deployment in April 2012.

Related article...

FCC: Presidential emergency alerts to be tested [Federal News Radio]