Suit seeks to block Trump from sending 'presidential alerts' to phones
Three New Yorkers are suing in federal court to try to halt a test scheduled for Wednesday of a system that allows President Donald Trump or any future president to send alert messages to the cellphones of all Americans.
The activists filed the suit last week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, arguing that the system violates their free speech rights and constitutes an unconstitutional seizure of their electronic devices.
In the new lawsuit, J.B. Nicholas, Kristine Rakowsky and Liane Nikitovich contend that the system will effectively turn them into "government loudspeakers" that would allow Trump or others to disseminate propaganda.
Nicholas, Rakowsky and Nikitovich accuse Trump of disseminating "weaponized disinformation" on Twitter and say they "don't wish to receive text messages, or messages of any kind, on any topic or subject, from ... Trump."
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/01/trump-presidential-alerts-to-phones-857287
= new reply since forum marked as read
Also, turning off phone during message just means you get it when you turn your phone back on.
and unless he is doing a photo-op of "sending" a message within that system (it wouldn't be coming as a "tweet" 
from his phone), then someone else is going to be doing it from the "Presidential Message" account (or whatever it is named within the system).
I just keep posting the diagram. I also reminded folks about the Hawai'i false alarm emergency alert about an incoming ballistic missle -
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The system has come under growing scrutiny in recent months, with public safety officials complaining that it requires upgrades on several fronts. Critics say alerts are often sent too widely, sowing fear among people unlikely to be affected by the threat in question. There have also been calls for the alerts to be sent in languages other than English. The communications commission has approved some changes, but they will not take effect until next year.
Last month, officials from Harris County, Texas, met with commission officials about their frustration over how, during Hurricane Harvey, they could not pinpoint alerts to area residents most likely to be affected by the storm without alarming a broader swath of the county.
The commission, which sets the technical standards for the alerts, is under pressure to update its rules to force wireless carriers and phone makers to work together to ensure that the system is more effective. Last week, Pai announced a proposal to update the alert system to improve its location-targeting ability.
The inability to target more precisely the areas facing potential threats has deterred some public safety officials from issuing alerts. Sens. Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein, both D-Calif., wrote to Pai in October that state residents had not gotten emergency alerts to leave their homes as wildfires raged nearby because of substandard location-targeting and other technical problems. “These emergency services are caught in a bind between notifying individuals in imminent danger and risking mass panic,” the senators wrote in the letter.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/2018/01/13/nyt/fcc-to-probe-hawaiis-emergency-notification-misfire/
Some tech sites took a dive into the system -
The disastrous false alarm issued by Hawaii over the weekend has raised concerns about what safeguards the state had in place. The state-wide alert, which told people a ballistic missile was about to hit, terrified residents and visitors, as the state scrambled for 38 minutes to issue a correction.
Officials soon released a timeline of events, saying the state’s software contained a menu option that allowed a live alert to be sent in place of a test, a problem that several people quickly categorized as a design failure. The state released an image that showed a list with options for test and live alerts next to each other. Officials later said the image did not accurately portray the system, and released what it characterized as a “representation” of the system, but said that it could not share an actual screenshot.
While the state has not named its software provider, evidence suggests it is an Idaho-based company called AlertSense, a FEMA-approved company that says it works with clients in states around the country. The audio version of the alert broadcast in Hawaii was posted on the company’s website. The first image released by Hawaii also appears similar to example software provided to The Verge by AlertSense. For instance, the word “templates” appears above the alert options in AlertSense’s software, and is barely visible in the first image issued by the state. (A local TV station in Hawaii independently came to the same conclusion.) The Verge’s review of the program suggests that functionally there is only a one-click difference between sending a test and a live alert.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/18/16905512/hawaii-missile-software-false-alarm-emergency-alert
And thankfully, the error and how it happened when using the software, forced a review of how the warning system application was designed and how it should be upgraded to help avoid this. I believe upgrades have already occurred.
If he were technically savvy, there could be concern about use (or misuse) of this tool. And he is known to micromanage things. But something like this is beyond the attention span.
When, not if, Mueller charges come down, and it looks inevitable that congress will be forced to impeach, he will use it to rally his new confederate army.
