The national Emergency Alert System, which probably startled you when it was tested on Wednesday, is a perfect example of useless big government. It has never been used to communicate about a national emergency and likely never will be.
The Emergency Broadcast System was created in 1963 as a way to preempt television and radio broadcasts to allow the federal government to communicate directly with viewers and listeners. It was replaced with the Emergency Alert System in 1997, which has subsequently been augmented with Wireless Emergency Alerts to send alerts to cellphones as well. The test on Wednesday was the first-ever nationwide test of the Wireless Emergency Alerts system.
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