4 ms·

> Why are they useless? I can’t speak to tornado alerts, but the Amber Alert child alerts were becoming excessive and useless in my state. I was getting alert

> Why are they useless? I can’t speak to tornado alerts, but the Amber Alert child alerts were becoming excessive and useless in my state. I was getting alerts from many hundreds of miles away, often while trying to sleep. Other times they’d forget to put relevant information in the first alert so they’d send several more to follow up. When we finally got a series of multiple Amber alerts in the middle of the night, most of the people I know turned them off. The system may have started with good intentions, but it was mismanaged and abused so much that it became useless.

nells 4y ago
- armada651 4y ago
  These HN comments get so tiring. Yes, I'm sure everyone would be better off if only countries were managed like a tech startup.
  - nells 4y ago
    I’d rather they didn’t get managed at all ;)
  - mvdwoord 4y ago
    False dichotomy much? It should be possible to improve policies without introducing dependencies to crappy JavaScript frameworks.
- yesBut00 4y ago
jerf 4y ago
"When we finally got a series of multiple Amber alerts in the middle of the night, most of the people I know turned them off." To be honest I wonder if the people in charge were starting to get a kick at waking up so many people, or if they were engaging in some sort of malicious compliance, e.g., maybe the people responsible for sending the alerts out are also pretty pissed off at being woken up to send them out. The stated reason for them existing leaves no room for there to be any reason to be sending these out at 3am, if neither the abductee nor the putative abductor were known to be nocturnal.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I suspect it's all automated, and since the vast majority are custody issues, there's probably something like "you were supposed to hand over your daughter by 10 PM, but we don't count it as late until after midnight, and THEN your ex-wife has to call and complain, and by the time it's in the system it's 3 AM, and the system automatically sends the alert". And then they don't even send another alert saying she was found safe and sound sleeping at her dad's house.
  - palmscenter 4y ago
    There is nothing automated about originating those alerts. The actual procedure for transmitting the alert is manual. The incident has to meet state criteria including likelihood of harm to the child, criminal activity, information about the vehicle and other facts. A missing child in a custody dispute alone is rarely enough to trigger an alert. One of the leading types of child abductions leading to alerts is vehicle theft with a child in the vehicle. Not a custody dispute.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      > One of the leading types of child abductions leading to alerts is vehicle theft with a child in the vehicle. Not a custody dispute. "The vast majority of child abductions are carried out by a relative or close acquaintance of the victim, often a divorced parent who was not granted custody... about 20 percent involved a kidnapping by a stranger or slight acquaintance of the child. In the other 80 percent of cases, the youngsters were taken by a relative (most often a parent) or an acquaintance (frequently a babysitter)." source: https://psmag.com/social-justice/amber-alerts-largely-ineffective-study-shows-4792 https://psmag.com/social-justice/amber-alerts-largely-ineffe...
      - EE84M3i 4y ago
        Are there any stats available about the breakdown for the subset that get amber alerts?
giantg2 4y ago
Like most government websites I've used, they're junk with no thought to UX. Maybe go with the UX best practice of allowing the user to choose how they want to be alerted? Is that so hard? Government can't get basic shit like this right, I wonder how they're handling the rest of it...
paiute 4y ago
I made an effort to look them all up for a while, almost all of them are custody disputes and the child isn't in real danger. I mostly ignore them now. We did have a girl nearby that was actually missing and they couldn't issue an amber alert because it didn't meet the criteria. It took them a few days to decide to issue one in exception to the criteria and within that day the girl was found (due to the amber alert).
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  The vast vast majority of "child kidnappings" are just a divorced set of parents bickering, or one parent ignoring court orders and trying to just run away with the child.
registeredcorn 4y ago
>I was getting alerts from many hundreds of miles away. Isn't part of the issue that when a child is taken, the assumption is that the kidnapper will immediately flee the area? I think hundreds, plural, might be excessive, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to notify people within a certain distance based on high speed and how much time has passed; maybe 50-100 miles? I can see getting annoyed at multiple messages, but it's also important to remember that working with time sensitive emergency services is a extraordinarily difficult thing. It's like, everything is important all at once, and your mind can only process it all so fast. It's extremely time sensitive, and if you mess up any of the details, you are directly delaying the proceedings. I haven't had to issue anything like an Amber Alert, thank God, but I did have to relay some information from a victims family to a supporting organization, and basically screwed it up the first time around. I ended up having to end the call with the family, call the organization to see what they needed, call the family back, then call them again with the relevant details. It was an incredibly brutal thing. You can feel the rawness of the emotion through the phone for the people. In my own experience, like, I could hear people crying and screaming in the background. It's this insanely personal moment for them, but you kind of have to force your way in the middle of it to make something happen. The person who I started off with had to hand the phone over because they thought they were about to pass out. It's really a very difficult to communicate in the midst of a crisis. Anyway, I'm not sure which area you're in, but from my own experience, the very few times I've gotten one, it was always very succinct and clear. Child's name, description of their clothes, make/model/license plate of car, which direction they were headed, and when it happened. I certainly don't blame you for turning off the alerts, or for being annoyed at the emergency services. The point wasn't to finger wag or whatever, it was just to say that it's extremely difficult to do, let alone do well.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The problem is that very few are actually "stranger danger" kidnappings; they're almost always custody disputes. And if you live anywhere near a major city, you will get them relatively often. If there was a way to turn off "parent kidnappings" and leave the rest on, I'm sure most people would take it.
  - 4y ago
kawfey 4y ago
I agree, insofar that the integrated cellular emergency alert system is not good. I disabled all but presidential alerts (which should theoretically never happen until ICBMs are flying over our heads, except that one time in Hawaii), and signed up for City/County EMA texts for weather and hazards warnings. I also have a weather radio sitting in the corner with SAME alerts enabled. Sure, that might not work well when I'm on travel, but when I'm on travel I'm typically in places with a ton of built-in mass notifications systems (airports, metro & train stations, roadside state DOT banners) so I don't feel I'm missing out.

nells 4y ago

armada651 4y ago
These HN comments get so tiring. Yes, I'm sure everyone would be better off if only countries were managed like a tech startup.
- nells 4y ago
  I’d rather they didn’t get managed at all ;)
- mvdwoord 4y ago
  False dichotomy much? It should be possible to improve policies without introducing dependencies to crappy JavaScript frameworks.
yesBut00 4y ago

jerf 4y ago

"When we finally got a series of multiple Amber alerts in the middle of the night, most of the people I know turned them off." To be honest I wonder if the people in charge were starting to get a kick at waking up so many people, or if they were engaging in some sort of malicious compliance, e.g., maybe the people responsible for sending the alerts out are also pretty pissed off at being woken up to send them out. The stated reason for them existing leaves no room for there to be any reason to be sending these out at 3am, if neither the abductee nor the putative abductor were known to be nocturnal.

bombcar 4y ago
I suspect it's all automated, and since the vast majority are custody issues, there's probably something like "you were supposed to hand over your daughter by 10 PM, but we don't count it as late until after midnight, and THEN your ex-wife has to call and complain, and by the time it's in the system it's 3 AM, and the system automatically sends the alert". And then they don't even send another alert saying she was found safe and sound sleeping at her dad's house.
- palmscenter 4y ago
  There is nothing automated about originating those alerts. The actual procedure for transmitting the alert is manual. The incident has to meet state criteria including likelihood of harm to the child, criminal activity, information about the vehicle and other facts. A missing child in a custody dispute alone is rarely enough to trigger an alert. One of the leading types of child abductions leading to alerts is vehicle theft with a child in the vehicle. Not a custody dispute.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > One of the leading types of child abductions leading to alerts is vehicle theft with a child in the vehicle. Not a custody dispute. "The vast majority of child abductions are carried out by a relative or close acquaintance of the victim, often a divorced parent who was not granted custody... about 20 percent involved a kidnapping by a stranger or slight acquaintance of the child. In the other 80 percent of cases, the youngsters were taken by a relative (most often a parent) or an acquaintance (frequently a babysitter)." source: https://psmag.com/social-justice/amber-alerts-largely-ineffective-study-shows-4792 https://psmag.com/social-justice/amber-alerts-largely-ineffe...
    - EE84M3i 4y ago
      Are there any stats available about the breakdown for the subset that get amber alerts?

giantg2 4y ago

Like most government websites I've used, they're junk with no thought to UX. Maybe go with the UX best practice of allowing the user to choose how they want to be alerted? Is that so hard? Government can't get basic shit like this right, I wonder how they're handling the rest of it...

paiute 4y ago

I made an effort to look them all up for a while, almost all of them are custody disputes and the child isn't in real danger. I mostly ignore them now. We did have a girl nearby that was actually missing and they couldn't issue an amber alert because it didn't meet the criteria. It took them a few days to decide to issue one in exception to the criteria and within that day the girl was found (due to the amber alert).

mrguyorama 4y ago
The vast vast majority of "child kidnappings" are just a divorced set of parents bickering, or one parent ignoring court orders and trying to just run away with the child.

registeredcorn 4y ago

>I was getting alerts from many hundreds of miles away. Isn't part of the issue that when a child is taken, the assumption is that the kidnapper will immediately flee the area? I think hundreds, plural, might be excessive, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to notify people within a certain distance based on high speed and how much time has passed; maybe 50-100 miles? I can see getting annoyed at multiple messages, but it's also important to remember that working with time sensitive emergency services is a extraordinarily difficult thing. It's like, everything is important all at once, and your mind can only process it all so fast. It's extremely time sensitive, and if you mess up any of the details, you are directly delaying the proceedings. I haven't had to issue anything like an Amber Alert, thank God, but I did have to relay some information from a victims family to a supporting organization, and basically screwed it up the first time around. I ended up having to end the call with the family, call the organization to see what they needed, call the family back, then call them again with the relevant details. It was an incredibly brutal thing. You can feel the rawness of the emotion through the phone for the people. In my own experience, like, I could hear people crying and screaming in the background. It's this insanely personal moment for them, but you kind of have to force your way in the middle of it to make something happen. The person who I started off with had to hand the phone over because they thought they were about to pass out. It's really a very difficult to communicate in the midst of a crisis. Anyway, I'm not sure which area you're in, but from my own experience, the very few times I've gotten one, it was always very succinct and clear. Child's name, description of their clothes, make/model/license plate of car, which direction they were headed, and when it happened. I certainly don't blame you for turning off the alerts, or for being annoyed at the emergency services. The point wasn't to finger wag or whatever, it was just to say that it's extremely difficult to do, let alone do well.

bombcar 4y ago
The problem is that very few are actually "stranger danger" kidnappings; they're almost always custody disputes. And if you live anywhere near a major city, you will get them relatively often. If there was a way to turn off "parent kidnappings" and leave the rest on, I'm sure most people would take it.
- 4y ago

kawfey 4y ago

I agree, insofar that the integrated cellular emergency alert system is not good. I disabled all but presidential alerts (which should theoretically never happen until ICBMs are flying over our heads, except that one time in Hawaii), and signed up for City/County EMA texts for weather and hazards warnings. I also have a weather radio sitting in the corner with SAME alerts enabled. Sure, that might not work well when I'm on travel, but when I'm on travel I'm typically in places with a ton of built-in mass notifications systems (airports, metro & train stations, roadside state DOT banners) so I don't feel I'm missing out.