Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) & Emergency Alert System (EAS)

Anyone who knows me accepts that I do not trust ANY government, yet alone my own, any farther than I can spit. Yet these people also know that I despise sensationalism and lying by omission. So even when I don’t like someone or something, I want the whole truth and nothing but the truth out there. With that said, please read on and arm yourselves with the power of knowledge.

Growing up in the sixties and seventies, I remember radio and TV airplay being interrupted by "tests" run by the Emergency Broadcast System: "This is a test..." After reading the article “Did You Know Feds Will Temporarily Cut Off All TV and Radio Broadcasts on Nov. 9?”, it made me realize that I haven't heard these tests for quite some time and that there was a lot of information missing in this article which got me thinking and researching what was missing and WHY hadn’t I heard these broadcasts in awhile?

The Emergency Broadcast System was initiated in 1963 during the Kennedy Administration, to allow the president to address the entire nation in an emergency. The EBS was later further expanded through an interagency effort with the FCC, FEMA and the National Weather Service (NWS), to permit the system to be used for state and local emergencies.

Although the EBS system was established for national messages, many broadcasters and local officials recognized that the system could be used to notify listeners about local emergency situations. As of the beginning of 1996 the FCC had received 20,341 reported activations of EBS (since 1976). Approximately 85% of these activations were for weather related emergencies. The number of activations was most assuredly higher as stations were not required to report their usage of the system.

The system was never used for a nuclear emergency, though it was activated more than 20,000 times between 1976 and 1996 to broadcast civil emergency messages and warnings of severe weather hazards.

In 1996 a law was passed to replace the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) with the new fangled digital Emergency Alert System and EBS was officially retired in January 1998 (isn't there always an upgrade?). This resulted in a temporary (of several years) suspension of the mandatory tests.

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States put into place in 1996-98, superseding the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) and the CONELRAD System.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designed the Emergency Alert System (EAS) so officials can (supposedly) quickly send out important emergency information targeted to a specific area.

This new system provides access to broadcast stations, cable systems and participating satellite programmers for the transmission of emergency messages (and less obtrusive weekly tests). The EAS uses digital codes developed by the National Weather Service (NWS). NWS offices can originate coded messages that are area specific and will only activate EAS decoders and send emergency warnings to people in the affected geographic area.

EAS has become part of IPAWS - the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a program of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). EAS is jointly coordinated by FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Weather Service (NWS). EAS equipment must be FCC certified for use.

In 2004, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on whether EAS in its present form is the most effective mechanism for warning the American public of an emergency and if not, on how EAS can be improved, such as mandatory text messages to cell phones, regardless of subscription. As noted above, rules implemented by the FCC on July 12, 2007 provisionally endorse replacing the SAME protocol with CAP and allow governors to compel universal activation of the system within their own states.

Executive Order 13407 of June 26, 2006 Public Alert and Warning System “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.) and the Homeland Security Act of 2002, as amended (6 U.S.C. 101 et seq.)” (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13407) and established, as policy, the requirement for the United States to have an effective, reliable, integrated, flexible, and comprehensive system to alert and warn the American people.

FEMA is designated, within the Department of Homeland Security, to implement the policy of the United States for a public alert and warning system as outlined in Executive Order 13407 and has established a program office to implement IPAWS. FEMA and its federal partners, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service and the DHS Science and Technology Directorate are working together to transform the national alert and warning system to enable rapid dissemination of authenticated alert information over as many communications channels as possible.

Once the nations radio and cable broadcasts went digital (satellite was already digital) in November of 2010, the FCC officially announced plans and procedures for national EAS tests On February 3, 2011, which will involve all television and radio stations connected to the EAS system, as well as all cable and satellite services in the United States. The national test will transmit and relay an EAS test message from the White House. The date for the first national EAS test is November 9, 2011.

So do our laws, bills and executive orders allow the U.S. government to:

• Round up civilians and put them camps? – Yes. Has any past or current administration taken advantage of these loopholes to do so – NO.
• Take control of the U.S. internet – Yes. Any past or current administration attempt to do so – NO.
• Take control of U.S. broadcasting services – Yes. Any past or current administration attempt to do so – NO.
• Take our property, homes and land – Yes. Any past or current administration attempt to do so – YES and they have, just NOT on a large nationwide scale.
• Use multi-national cooperative military to “secure” the U.S. – Yes. Any past or current administration actually do so – Not unless you count NATO and other similar alliances and treaties.
• Practice any of these “activities” – Yes and just about every past administration has done so, including the current.

So B.S. aside: No administration has taken wrongful advantage of the loopholes in our laws, executive orders or bills to actually do this and despite how much I detest our current government, there is no strong indication that it is planning to do wrong now. Personally I don’t think anyone populating our government (at any level) today, is stupid enough nor has the guts to start another American Revolution. They are not strong enough YET and they know it, so they won’t risk losing what power and control they already have.

Bottom line: We can run stupid and scared
or we can arm ourselves with knowledge
to run prepared.

Read more detail on this evolution of EBS to EAS

TNT