The latest fiasco involving the closure of a government-operated website — this time the AMBER Alert site — has highlighted the Obama administration’s public image implosion during the government shutdown.
As The Washington Examiner reported on Sunday evening, the AMBER Alert website had been taken down, leading confused Americans to believe that the entire service had been shut down.
People immediately voiced their concern and disapproval on Twitter.
So if your kid goes missing THERE IS NO AMBER ALERT @JohnWalshAMW WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT THIS???
— Tracie (@tracieeeeee) October 7, 2013
During this shut down, things like AMBER ALERT have also been shut down. We need a revolution. Our govt only cares about their agenda.
— J . W o l f e (@dieWolfe) October 7, 2013
Damn, http://t.co/DwNsXs3pfv was down earlier today, but it’s back up. I totally missed my chance to steal a kid worry-free.
— spencer harlan (@spencerharlan) October 7, 2013
To be fair, the mistake was an easy one to make.
“Due to the lapse in federal funding, this Office of Justice Programs website is unavailable,” the website originally read.
But there was no mention of whether or not the actual service was still operating (it was) and that was the problem.
The lack of information from the federal government was what resulted in the outrage and confusion, creating a public image nightmare that shouldn’t have been. And considering the Obama administration is doing other ridiculous things to make the shutdown hurt — such as setting up barricades outside open air memorials in D.C. — it wasn’t too much of a stretch for people to assume the government was also shuttering the AMBER Alert system.
On Monday, the Department of Justice, which operates the site, came to its own defense, pointing out that the service was never shut down, just the informational website. But in order to clear the air, the website was reopened.
“The AMBER Alert system was never interrupted, but to eliminate any confusion, the informational site maintained by the Justice Department has been restored,” DOJ spokesman Brian Fallon told CNN.
The site had been put behind a firewall to deter possible hackers seeking to taking advantage of the absence of staff monitoring, Fallon explained, highlighting information that probably should have been made available to the public when the website was first taken offline.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also denied allegations that the Obama administration was seeking to make the shutdown as painful as possible.
“That’s, of course, not the case,” he said during his press briefing on Monday.
He pointed out that a formerly furloughed government employee was now once again maintaining the website.
“But again, it’s informational,” Carney added. “The system itself was never interrupted. And I think that’s important for people to know and to report.”
And whose fault is it that people didn’t know?
The White House is trying to point fingers at Republicans during the shutdown, but with the lack of information and botched public relations campaign, it’s President Obama and his administration officials who look like the bad guys.
