This looks like a great idea:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=786821&f=21

"cellphone users in New York and Washington will soon be able to receive alerts by text message in the event of a national or regional emergency... Text messages will be sent to customers of participating cellphone companies who are in an area affected by the emergency. "

There's an opt-out option for all but Presedential alerts, and it's a limited roll-out, but it sounds promising. I wonder if older cel phones will be able to opt-in without having to upgrade?

I don't want a government mandated spy chip in my mobile phone to track where I am. I don't need a more efficient way for the terrorists to keep me updated on their latest dastardly plans or a wag the dog style Presidential alert interrupting my situational awareness whilst looking out for bees.

Just how different is this from a 911 call center's "reverse 911" capability?

In my county "reverse 911" will only call to homes with the old land line systems.

"Reverse 911" has been used successfully for wild land fire evacuations of neighborhoods/communities.

Blake

www.outdoorquest.biz
www.outdoorquest.blogspot.com

Reverse 911 isn't a mass surveillance technology. To localise the alert Text or Presidential cut in messaging service requires the authority to know where you are located continuously.

The main issue I have is the mass surveillance aspect of the new government mandated chip. The chip will have to interact with the phone OS so that it can over ride it much like non mask able interrupt feature. It will have the ability to end a conversation that you may be having (you could for instance be indicating to the police authorities where exactly a terrorist bomb might be located or saying your final goodbyes to loved ones) to prioritise the government message. i.e. it would be a network government mandated QoS system to ensure governmental communication priorities. i.e. a localised kill switch. It should also be noted that Interweb communications are now used more than voice data.

The other specifications for the built in chip could be even more interesting, such as key word searching from voice recognition (gets around very specific NSA data transmission bandwidth infrastructure issues), voice buffer recording so that conversations can be recording i.e. the last 24 to 72 hrs, much like a black box aviation recorder, location tracking (useful to location stamp the voice recordings), covert recording of audio and video and Internet tracking and recording, data mining and voice and internet kill switching.

There is no data protection legislation for personal information in the USA.

Too late.

My county offers a service through Nixle - http://www.nixle.com/

It's 100% opt-in, it can deliver messages via phone or email. You can tailor it to specific alerts from certain departments or agencies.

I think all government services should offer their citizens this and let them configure what they want or if they want it at all.
If someone wants to bury their head in the sand or refuse to adopt the technology, so be it.

This is great - will post on it when the service begins. Surprised it took so long.

DC already has for years had a text alert system for "event" notices that I have found very useful -- such as police activity (lots of suspicious package incidents around here that shut streets down), severe weather warnings and transportation disruptions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Ogb38vtgM

What is quite interesting in the above link was a fellow stating that the EAS system, which is now to be implemented on personal cell phone equipment would have save many lives during the Tornado storms on the 27th of last month, yet failed to tell inform the viewer that there is already an EAS infrastructure already in place - No Presidential EAS alert has been sanctioned during its 50 year history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System

Australia has a similar service which has been in operation since December 2009.

In the current version, a voice message is sent to every land line, and an SMS message is sent to every mobile phone based – this is based on the billing address of the phone. So if the phone was registered to someone in a particular postcode/zip, and an emergency occurs in that area, a message is sent.

In the updated version, I believe the message will be send to all phones which are actually “active” in a particular coverage area ; I’m not sure what the ETA of that is.

There is no requirement for a “special chip”, however in Australia, all phones must be registered and all are digital (GSM or 3G), I’m not sure if that is the difference ?

I read something about this type of system put to use in Japan during the last disaster. There was a mention that when the sensors read the quake, it send the message to a control center at the speed of light (faster than the earth could move), which instantly transferred the info/warnings to the high-speed trains, businesses, all radios, televisions and cell phones.

Sue