According to wing-nuttery, democracy was supposed to die today. Only a technical difficulty kept us from complete totalitarianism. Pfewww!
If you’ve watched TV in the last week or so, you might have seen a notification that a test of the emergency broadcast system was going to be performed on Wednesday at 2:00 est. If you’re like me, you didn’t pay much attention because, well, tests have been happening my whole life and who watches TV in the middle of the afternoon? As long as I knew that a massive tsunami wasn’t going to hit my Northern California coastline, I really didn’t care.
Well, wasn’t I the silly one? Renew America’s Steve Zieve warned that the dictatorship has begun:
Now, in a secondary move to seize all power in the country for himself and his syndicate, Obama has decided that he will confiscate ALL television and Radio broadcasts for a supposed “test” of the EAS (Emergency Alert System). Communication for both US television and Radio will be cut off on 9 November 2011 for at least 3-4 minutes. This is both unprecedented in our history and constitutes the final phase of Obama’s testing of his ability to seize communications in the USA at will. In the past, real Presidents of the USA have asked for time from the various broadcast networks when there was an emergency and they needed to speak. No more. We are now firmly in the bowels of the Obama dictatorship and said tyrant is violating each and every principle and law contained with the US Constitution.
American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer agrees. He’s not a conspiracy theorist (we know this because he says so), but it’s a conspiracy nonetheless.
Here’s the video:
This was all supposed to be accomplished in somewhere between 30 seconds and four minutes. If only you had taken that moment to put your lunch in the microwave, your brain would still be intact.
Well, good news for wing-nuttery. The test failed. The emergency broadcast system has existed since 1963. In the past, it was used locally, to warn of local disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, gas leaks, etc. Today was the first time a test was done at the Presidential level.
“I think the biggest reason nobody ever tested it was because of all the concerns of what could happen and what could go wrong,” Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Craig Fugate told CNN Tuesday. “We take a different approach. If we don’t test it, we don’t know what we need to fix.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t go off without a hitch.
At 2 p.m. Eastern time, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington sent out a live emergency alert notification that was supposed to be accompanied by a “this is only a test” audio and video disclaimer.
In some cases the disclaimer was broadcast. In other cases the message was missing altogether or did not include the audio caveat. And some observers were even annoyed by the alert’s dated graphics.
“It’s 2012 and our emergency alert system still sounds like a Speak and Spell and looks like an Atari 2600,” wrote one among a range of instant reactions broadcast on Twitter. The tweet was apparently a response to the 1960s-style black and white lettering of the television message.
In some cases the disclaimer was broadcast. In other cases the message was missing altogether or did not include the audio caveat. And some observers were even annoyed by the alert’s dated graphics.
Some even reported hearing Lady Gaga.
As far as the conspiracy. The President has always had the right to interrupt broadcast media.
“Under the rules, the president can interrupt (a broadcast) and speak as long as they want,” Emergency Management expert Art Botterell told CNN. “But in the case of other (non-presidential) messages, there is a two-minute limit.” So there is “lurking fear” that some equipment may be programmed to cut off emergency alerts after two minutes, he said.
The system was not used during the September 11 terrorist attack, Botterell noted. But it remains, at a national level, a symbol of the president’s authority and responsibility, he said.
Besides, isn’t TV so 20th Century? When the President’s voice starts coming through my smart phone or iPad, it might actually be effective.
