On Thursday, starting around 2:18 p.m. Eastern Time, your phone will buzz with an emergency alert. It won’t be a familiar weather alert or amber alert, which have been pinging phones since 2012, but a national, “presidential alert” that is being tested nationwide for the first time. It’s a great tool to have if there is an emergency, and Trump, once he knows this new power works, should be careful not to make it political or abuse the power.
Most cellphone users already get some emergency alerts pinged to their devices. If there’s a flash flood in your area, for example, your phone will buzz with an emergency notification alerting you of the potential threat. If a newspaper you follow has a new breaking story, they might also send an alert. These messages quickly and easily keep Americans up to date on news, weather, and other happenings.
Trump wants to take these alerts one step further, however, and test the capacity of emergency alerts on a nationwide level with a “presidential alert.”
That’s a great idea. Why shouldn’t the technology literally at our fingertips be able alert us to a nationwide threat?
Already, though, the idea of even testing such a system has its critics. Some users have threatened to turn off their phones to prevent Trump’s message from getting through (Unless your phone is off, you will get the alert and there is no way to opt out). There’s even a hashtag to encourage people to turn off their phones — #godark920.
That seems the wrong approach — you don’t have to like the president to support a nationwide test of an emergency alert system that could save lives and quickly share information rather than waiting for the Internet rumor mill.
The critics, though, do make some good points. The presidential alert is quite close to what the name implies, and the president does get to decide what to say and when to send an alert. Given Trump’s recent politicization of disasters (for example, calling the death toll from Hurricane Maria a Democratic ploy to make him look bad), it does not instill confidence that direct presidential control of an alert system wouldn’t easily be abused.
Another concern is that the president might overuse the alert system — perhaps treating it as a personal line into every American’s phone. That would make the potential for a nationwide alert meaningless — an electronic version of the president who cried wolf. The law setting up the alert system does, however, stipulate that the alert “shall not be used to transmit a message that does not relate to a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made disaster or threat to public safety.”
Another potential problem is that having such a system, if it lacks proper oversight, could easily create a nationwide panic as happened earlier this year in Hawaii, when a “test” message about a missile strike went live as if it were real, causing widespread panic before it was recalled.
Given these valid concerns, the president, should be careful to not prove his critics right.
If the system is used as intended, however, then testing the alert before deploying it for the first time in an emergency is something that should be welcomed.
