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I realize recent news may make this distinction seem somewhat unrealistic, but when can the government install software onto private property when the owner is not the subject of an investigation?

When they label you as a terrorist using undisclosed and likely fuzzy criteria.
 
Hmmm, good question. I thought text's but if it's an emergency alerts would make sense. Maybe both?
Functionally it's a text with (I think) a unique ringtone/vibe pattern (based on the previously quoted regulation about them in the thread)
Looks like my next iPhone will be a iPod touch. I don't want weather alerts, amber alerts, or what ever any crook in the White House wants to say.

You can turn off the Amber alerts and the emergency alerts. Chances are we will never have a "presidential alert".
 
Why would anybody want to disable this? Verizon has had this for awhile now, and I've only received one alert which was an amber alert. Regardless if you turn it off, you'll still receive text messages. When the particular amber alert was issued, everybody, smart phone or feature phone received some kind of alert whether it be push message or text message.
 
When they label you as a terrorist using undisclosed and likely fuzzy criteria.

Example(s)?

Targeted suspects are based on plenty of intel and oversight. Local and federal law enforcement were able to track and apprehend the Boston suspects w/o accusing innocent parties. I did not see anyone pinned as a suspect until gathered intel was checked and double checked. The recent ricin letters were traced to two men in Mississippi, both proclaiming their innocence until further intel proved one sent the letters to frame the other in a personal feud. The more recent letters were traced to a mentally unstable Texas woman who wanted attention to further her career during an acrimonious divorce.

The government is not out to get you, you're one of millions of individuals living in the U.S. (or xxx nation). Currently there are checks and balances in addition to oversight in ascertaining possible domestic threats. If local and federal authorities target you, there's usually good cause. This isn't "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay".
 
good thing, i like to stay updated. would be nice to see 'em.
but i have to say, it's pretty frustrating when you're waiting for someone's reply and your network trolls you....:rolleyes:
 
I think George Lopez said it best:

"My grandmother used to think the Amber alert was the same girl. Every time we pass it.....Mira, Amber got into another car today. Sta mas puta que la chingada"
 
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well i dont like these network messages, i can stay up to date without these messages.
i'd be better off without these messages, it's time to turn off notifications.
 
The real questions to ponder are:
1) Is the authorization to do this limited enough under the WARN Act (which gave the government the authority)?
That of course is a good question to ask. The scope of this alert system appears quite limited.

The WARN Act, codified in relevant part at 47 U.S.C. § 1201-05, instructed the FCC to form an advisory committee in order to recommend action to the FCC:

The Advisory Committee shall develop and submit to the Federal Communications Commission recommendations--

(1) for protocols, technical capabilities, and technical procedures through which electing commercial mobile service providers receive, verify, and transmit alerts to subscribers;

(2) for the establishment of technical standards for priority transmission of alerts by electing commercial mobile service providers to subscribers;

(3) for relevant technical standards for devices and equipment and technologies used by electing commercial mobile service providers to transmit emergency alerts to subscribers;

(4) for the technical capability to transmit emergency alerts by electing commercial mobile providers to subscribers in languages in addition to English, to the extent practicable and feasible;

(5) under which electing commercial mobile service providers may offer subscribers the capability of preventing the subscriber's device from receiving emergency alerts, or classes of such alerts, (other than an alert issued by the President), consistent with section 1201(b)(2)(E) of this title;

(6) for a process under which commercial mobile service providers can elect to transmit emergency alerts if--
(A) not all of the devices or equipment used by such provider are capable of receiving such alerts; or
(B) the provider cannot offer such alerts throughout the entirety of its service area; and​

(7) as otherwise necessary to enable electing commercial mobile service providers to transmit emergency alerts to subscribers.
47 U.S.C. § 1202(c).


Following those recommendations, the FCC was instructed to do the following:

[T]he Commission shall complete a proceeding to adopt relevant technical standards, protocols, procedures, and other technical requirements . . . to enable commercial mobile service alerting capability for commercial mobile service providers that voluntarily elect to transmit emergency alerts.
47 U.S.C. § 1201(a).


Congress did require the FCC to examine whether subscribers should be allowed to continue to opt-out of alert notifications, and submit a report of their findings to Congress:

Any commercial mobile service licensee electing to transmit emergency alerts may offer subscribers the capability of preventing the subscriber's device from receiving such alerts, or classes of such alerts, other than an alert issued by the President. Within 2 years after the Commission completes the proceeding under paragraph (1), the Commission shall examine the issue of whether a commercial mobile service provider should continue to be permitted to offer its subscribers such capability. The Commission shall submit a report with its recommendations to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate and the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives.
47 U.S.C. § 1201(b)(2)(E).


The FCC, in turn, adopted rules providing which types of messages participating cellular providers are required to send to their subscribers:

A Participating CMS Provider is required to receive and transmit three classes of Alert Messages: Presidential Alert; Imminent Threat Alert; and Child Abduction Emergency/AMBER Alert.

(a) Presidential Alert. A Presidential Alert is an alert issued by the President of the United States or the President's authorized designee.

(b) Imminent Threat Alert. An Imminent Threat Alert is an alert that meets a minimum value for each of three CAP elements: Urgency, Severity, and Certainty.

(1) Urgency. The CAP Urgency element must be either Immediate (i.e., responsive action should be taken immediately) or Expected (i.e., responsive action should be taken soon, within the next hour).
(2) Severity. The CAP Severity element must be either Extreme (i.e., an extraordinary threat to life or property) or Severe (i.e., a significant threat to life or property).
(3) Certainty. The CAP Certainty element must be either Observed (i.e., determined to have occurred or to be ongoing) or Likely (i.e., has a probability of greater than 50 percent).​

(c) Child Abduction Emergency/AMBER Alert.
(1) An AMBER Alert is an alert initiated by a local government official based on the U.S. Department of Justice's five criteria that should be met before an alert is activated:
(i) Law enforcement confirms a child has been abducted;
(ii) The child is 17 years or younger;
(iii) Law enforcement believes the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death;
(iv) There is enough descriptive information about the victim and the abduction to believe an immediate broadcast alert will help; and
(v) The child's name and other data have been entered into the National Crime Information Center.​
(2) There are four types of AMBER Alerts: Family Abduction; Non-family Abduction; Lost, Injured or Otherwise Missing; and Endangered Runaway.
(i) Family Abduction. A Family Abduction (FA) alert involves an abductor who is a family member of the abducted child such as a parent, aunt, grandfather, or stepfather.
(ii) Nonfamily Abduction. A Nonfamily Abduction (NFA) alert involves an abductor unrelated to the abducted child, either someone unknown to the child and/or the child's family or an acquaintance/friend of the child and/or the child's family.
(iii) Lost, Injured, or Otherwise Missing. A Lost, Injured, or Otherwise Missing (LIM) alert involves a case where the circumstances of the child's disappearance are unknown.
(iv) Endangered Runaway. An Endangered Runaway (ERU) alert involves a missing child who is believed to have run away and in imminent danger.​
47 C.F.R. § 10.400.


An alert is required to contain certain information:

A WEA Alert Message processed by a Participating CMS Provider shall include five mandatory CAP elements--Event Type; Area Affected; Recommended Action; Expiration Time (with time zone); and Sending Agency. This requirement does not apply to Presidential Alerts.
47 C.F.R. § 10.420


"CAP" refers to the "Common Alerting Protocol", and those five message elements are set forth in the reference provided here:

Common Alerting Protocol. The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) refers to Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) Standard CAP–V1.1, October 2005 (available at http://www.oasis-open.org/specs/index.php#capv1.1), or any subsequent version of CAP adopted by OASIS and implemented by the WEA.
47 C.F.R. § 10.10(b).


An alert can be no longer than 90 characters, and cannot contain a URL or telephone number (except for presidential alerts). 47 C.F.R. §§ 10.430, 10.440.

Subscribers' mobile devices are required to have the following capabilities:

(a) Authentication of interactions with CMS Provider infrastructure.
(b) Monitoring for Alert Messages.
(c) Maintaining subscriber alert opt-out selections, if any.
(d) Maintaining subscriber alert language preferences, if any.
(e) Extraction of alert content in English or the subscriber's preferred language, if applicable.
(f) Presentation of alert content to the device, consistent with subscriber opt-out selections. Presidential Alerts must always be presented.
(g) Detection and suppression of presentation of duplicate alerts.
47 C.F.R. § 10.500.


But, an alert is prohibited from preempting an active voice or data connection. 47 C.F.R. § 10.510.

Where an alert is restricted to a specific geographic area, a cellular provider may not broadcast the alert to a broader area than specified:

A Participating CMS Provider must transmit any Alert Message that is specified by a geocode, circle, or polygon to an area not larger than the provider's approximation of coverage for the Counties or County Equivalents with which that geocode, circle, or polygon intersects. If, however, the propagation area of a provider's transmission site exceeds a single County or County Equivalent, a Participating CMS Provider may transmit an Alert Message to an area not exceeding the propagation area.
47 C.F.R. § 10.450.
 
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I also would like to opt out. I will resort to using jailbreak / hacked firmware if needed. My phone belongs to me, and not to the president or anyone else. I don't want to receive spam alerts.

The president isn't going to be spamming you with ads for penis enlargement pills. It's not like President Obama is sitting there in the Oval Office typing out messages. It's to notify you of an impending natural disaster or potential attack.

HBO and showtime do not use any public airways. They never go over those spectrum. They go over cable lines so that argument of your is a fail.

Lets assume you are correct. You aren't, because they're broadcast via satellite to the providers (and customers of Dish and DirectTV), but let's just assume you are. Do you think those cable lines don't touch public land? Not a single inch of the tens of thousands of miles of cable criss crossing this country that HBO's signal might travel over goes underneath public land?

The only argument that is a fail is yours.
 
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When I

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When I plugged into iTunes today the message came up from AT&T. I simply pushed cancel and I don't tho I it installed.
 
We got them last week here in Cleveland, I had to pull myself of the ceiling from the tornado warning we had last week. I had just fallen in to a nice deep sleep...

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I also would like to opt out. I will resort to using jailbreak / hacked firmware if needed. My phone belongs to me, and not to the president or anyone else. I don't want to receive spam alerts.

They are only for emergencies, like tornadoes and Amber alerts. Also, emergencies and Amber alerts have different settings...
 
I can't imagine what's going through the head of someone who turns off amber alerts.

Can anyone explain why you would do it?

Well, if you are the kidnapper, I suppose getting alerts on this in real time could make you a little nervous.
 
Hopefully a Cydia tweak will come out to remove/block this.

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Maybe the new family share access is how Big Brother is keeping his tabs on you.

It clearly has an on/off feature, but why would you want to turn it off? It's been on Verizon iPhone 5 for a while and have yet to hear anyone complaining about getting a warning or important information.
 
It clearly has an on/off feature, but why would you want to turn it off? It's been on Verizon iPhone 5 for a while and have yet to hear anyone complaining about getting a warning or important information.

It's a very good thing that it can be turned off.

A few weeks ago, there was an amber alert here in Denver/Longmont. A guy took off with his kid without permission.

The first few hours, I got about five amber alerts for the same thing, not really a problem. Later that night at work, within an hour, I got at least ten more amber alerts, some of them within five minutes of each other, all for the same alert. I had to turn it off, remember, I was at my job.

I use T-Mobile so these have been active for months.
 
Read up on some history. These emergency alert systems have been around since the 50s. The president has had the power for decades to issue an "Emergency Action Notification" and override all television broadcasts to address the country. That's far more expansive power than a text message. :rolleyes:


You lost all credibility on this topic when you decided to use Obamas 'O' symbol as your avatar.
 
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includes MVNO users also

I am no an AT&T customer, using Consumer Cellular instead. They're an AT&T MVNO.

But I also received the AT&T update and that changed Cellular settings so this looks like an AT&T phone (including a new item in Settings -> Phone labeled "AT&T Services").

And I can no longer access the configuration settings for MMS etc. Ugh.
 
Looks like my next iPhone will be a iPod touch. I don't want weather alerts, amber alerts, or what ever any crook in the White House wants to say.

I sugest you just stop using cell phones. iPhone was just the last one to get this update. Flip phones are going to be getting this system next. Android already had it working.

Since the White house one has NEVER in its history been used it is a non issues. Just people spreading FUD.

All others you can turn off. On my phone I turned off everything but extreme. Which means I will get things like tonado warning which yes I would want.

I turned off amber alerts because to be blunt they just are not useful and most of the time I find they are for places more than 5 hours away and I am inside a building most of the time.
 
I also would like to opt out. I will resort to using jailbreak / hacked firmware if needed. My phone belongs to me, and not to the president or anyone else. I don't want to receive spam alerts.

not really going to be able to happen. As soon as you phone hits a network those networks can push down the updates so your phone will work with their network.
 
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