Conspiracy Theory De Jour: This is Only a Test

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says it is coordinating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for a mandatory nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) at 2:20 p.m. EDT. These are not the weekly tests TV and radio stations are required to do that are as melodic as a 2400 baud phone modem starting up. Today's test will be a simultaneous broadcast on EVERY radio and television station in the United States.

This is only the second time the system has been tested nationally. The first test on November 9, 2011 didn’t go so smoothly. Some people heard distortion or static on the radio, while some TV viewers were [treated to/assaulted by] a Lady Gaga song.

What this test will prove is that the government has the ability to take over everyone's television and radio on very short notice. They also have the ability to take over smart phones, but that will not be tested today. Will this ability be used to make important announcements such as a leader being assassinated? Will this ability be exploited to ensure all us unwashed masses get the same disinformation? Is this test being done because there are real and tangible reasons to make sure it working in the days to come?

The official reason for having the EAS is to enable the President of the United States to speak to the United States within ten minutes. The EAS was, curiously, not used during the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. However, on February 11, 2013, hackers broke into the EAS networks in Great Falls, Montana and Marquette, Michigan to broadcast an emergency alert that zombies have risen from their graves. At least someone is putting the technology to worthwhile use.

My CT related questions are:

1) Within ten minutes of what happening?
2) Why, after being in place since the late 1990s is there suddenly a need for a nationwide test.
3) Is this Katy Perry's only chance of ever being heard on my favorite radio station?

Nothing against Katy Perry, she's just going to sound a bit awkward on a classic rock station.

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WaveyDavey's picture

The Duck and Cover cartoon was mean in response to your comment. Smile

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

Slightkc's picture

our office area was really close to the Parade Field on the Post where I work. The first time they fired off the cannons to recognize a high-level retirement, my coworker slid from her chair to under her desk in one second flat! As she realized the building hadn't been bombed she timorously poked her head out from under the desk to see the rest of us staring in her direction.

My need for high-level risk and excitement has somewhat abated as I've grown older... but I will NEVER give into the amount of --fear-- the PTB want me to feel 24/7/365.

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WaveyDavey's picture

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

Yep, during the Cold War in the 1960s we had nuclear-proof school desks to get under in case somebody dropped The Big One. Don't make them like than anymore. Wink

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"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."

mimi's picture

to duck and cover. Why didn't we have them in Germany? Because all the nukes would fly over Germany, but not dropped on Germany? They would target just the US and the US nukes would just target the Sovjet Union?
Seventy years later they still talk all about the nukes and all the dangers.
How fucking crazy is all that?

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Dr. Strangelove; Fail Safe and Seven Days in May. All are from a ten year period between '55 and '65. That genre was pretty popular for over 20 years and included some very good and very terrifying flicks.

I'll always remember the sick feeling at the pit of my stomach during a scene in the mini-series, "The Day After." It was set and filmed around where I grew up in the Kansas City/Lawrence area. We all knew there were plenty of missile silos around us when I was a kid. That troubling scene was a shot across the fields with missiles rising from the ground and headed toward the Soviet Union. The firing meant that their missiles would be arriving on our heads within minutes. "The Day After" presented the cause of the war in overheard radio and TV reports of a crisis around Berlin again (it was set in the early 80s as Reagan was ranting about The Evil Empire).

One of the most troubling thing about this election is that we're likely to return to those bad old days again. And I'm not talking about Trump. It's Hillary and her designs on Russia that worry me.

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mimi's picture

I feel I missed thirty years of movies and that is just unacceptable, isn't it? Smile
Everything worries me about Russia-US bickering, about all the refugees. I just wonder if those people who sit in the State Department and DoD ever knew what it means to be a refugee in a foreign country with no rights and no roof over your head.

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Though I'm sure plenty of them have been to refuge sites. You'd think empathy would kick in at some point.

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now feel they can be successful with a first strike. New technologies, $108 billion to upgrade our nuclear capabilities, and enough fools in the government and Military to justify the logic, and collateral damage.
Hillary and Bibi are gearing up to nuclearize Drones, bomb Iran, and follow up with securing international power and dominance. The EAS will inform us we are under martial law, and restricted to stay indoors while our militarized law enforcement rolls out the new equipment, and Wall St empties our bank accounts. Non- Christians will be incarcerated in Europe, Africa, and North America, and any resistance will be met with sure and swift elimination. Government satellites will hack all the auto computers to disable private transportation. The New World Order Oligarchy will set up business in the Chicago, will control all of the world oil reserves, and freshwater, and the population Purge will begin. Water and gruel will be universally rationed.

I write in jest...with an uneasy sense that destroys the fun.

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Cachola's picture

After that terrorist alert us NYC residents were treated to a couple weeks ago I am thankful that smartphones are not being tested. As I don't have a radio or tv, I am depending on you to tell me what music they choose this time. Wink

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Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

WaveyDavey's picture

Nothing happened on my radio station. Perhaps others got something. Instead I offer for your perusal sensory torture the test from five years ago.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9t9IWc55Q4]

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

Cachola's picture

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Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

Hillbilly Dem's picture

The last 2 minutes of Dr. Strangelove (Or How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb):

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFkryh6hC-k]

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"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey

Damnit Janet's picture

and they can control it. I've been told so many times to cover the cameras on our laptops/pads. That NOTHING is private nowadays.

I feel so cut off when when we experience a jag in our internet. The thought of them turning it all off scares me.

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

WaveyDavey's picture

first 'smart' phone. He had already covered the cameras with duct tape. Now, mind you, this person is no slack-jawed yokel who's afraid of leaving the television plugged in during a thunder storm because it might burn down the house. This man, like me, is a software developer.

Neither he nor I will never use 'The Cloud' for storage. We both see it as voluntarily giving up our privacy.

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

Socialprogressive's picture

The only thing to be stored in clouds is water.

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When I offer to wash your back in the shower, all you have to say is yes or no.
Not all this "who are you, and how did you get in here?" nonsense.

Damnit Janet's picture

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

thanatokephaloides's picture

Neither he nor I will never use 'The Cloud' for storage. We both see it as voluntarily giving up our privacy.

My first tagline at TOP several years ago was:

Keep your powder dry and your data LOCAL!

I was repeatedly castigated for that, along with every other "Cloud non-beLIEver" statement I made there. But since DK itself cloudified as part of the DK5 upgrade clusterfuck, I've noticed response times slowing. The Cloud overhead is noticeable.

Of course, on 3/15, that all became irrelevant to me......

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Cachola's picture

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Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

WindDancer13's picture

that contains the message "Not today, NSA!" when viewing through the camera. I bet they would sell well.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

WaveyDavey's picture

just said, "And now we interrupt our regular scheduled broadcasting for a test of 'the end of the world' machine and whatever message the government has prepared for us." Then the DJ started playing "One Nation Under Groove", chimed in a few minutes later to say "if you can't trust the government to be on time...then who can you trust?"

It's now 5 minutes later and still no EAS-y listening music. Government Test = Fail?

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

Damnit Janet's picture

we the people paid a pretty penny for this "test".

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

WaveyDavey's picture

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

Damnit Janet's picture

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

thanatokephaloides's picture

Possible Failure but here's what I am sure of: we the people paid a pretty penny for this "test".

Actually, "We The People" didn't pay for it. Broadcast stations and CATV networks have to absorb that cost as one of the expenses of doing business, per FCC Regs:

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national public warning system that requires broadcasters, cable television systems, wireless cable systems, satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) providers, and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers to provide the communications capability to the President to address the American public during a national emergency. The system also may be used by state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information, such as AMBER alerts and weather information targeted to specific areas.

source

Like all other FCC compliances in the broadcast and pseudo-broadcast industries, station/channel operators pay for implementation.

English Translation: advertisers pay for it. You know what that means: less programs, more ads.....

Sad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Damnit Janet's picture

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

"conspiracy theory questions?"

Seems as though you are just wondering about some things.

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lunachickie's picture

that might have been somewhat snarky Wink

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WaveyDavey's picture

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The people, united, will never be defeated.

lunachickie's picture

I don't think of them that way, they're just questions Smile

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Damnit Janet's picture

Free Thinking is allowed on every other day depending on shift differentials and seniority. Failure to comply with said thinking laws will result in a fine of losing the ability to think for oneself when one thinks it's appropriate. This is not the case, thinking is a controlled substance now that should be regulated and inspected. Unlike guns, the police and our drinking water.

You may think on this when the time is proper for you to so freely... when we tell you to do so.

Any free thinking will be subject to a sin tax.

Biggrin

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

lunachickie's picture

Dammit!!

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Well, until January, anyway. I can't make any promises after that. Wink

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The USSR .. oops... I meant to say Russia, is much better prepared for the Hillary memorial thermonuclear holocaust. Really, between Europe, Russia, China and the US the death toll should be no more 500 million+. Why do you fear this, you should embrace it as it is our last chance to purge the world the commonists and secure Hillary, the first woman president, the Time Magazine person of the (final) year?

Now after the first nuclear volley we need to plan to get our act together to continue to dominate the world with our remaining fraction of our population. There is at this point a mine-shaft gap with the USSR .. oops!.

Sorry, but this is one-half joke and one-half reality.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Damnit Janet's picture

They will do these tests and prepper type shows and articles because they know these tests put the nightmare of nuclear clouds into our heads.

Sirens might make you worry about tornadoes or tsunamis - depending on where you live. But the emergency broadcast tests do on thing.... make us worry about the nuclear war.

They are priming us. Just more bread and circuses.

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

they stepped on a really good Enya song on XM. Squawk squawk squawk. If this had been a real emergency, you would be dead. Sheistkopfs

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shaharazade's picture

bring back the stupid terrorist color coded alert thermometer. That was a doozie. I think the war on terra is going to get a new name after the election maybe The Reheated Cold War 2 starring Putin. Their jacking up the fear level and it's getting ridiculous.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

because they feel the rebellion coming and it is a way to disarm we, the people. We won't be able to band together if we have no communication. They will stream even stronger propaganda, than they currently stream, in order to keep us in line. I have little trust in the EMS because it is a tool for them only - at our expense. It is not for our benefit. Shades of 1984. Shudder! Bad

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Lenzabi's picture

And if not revolt, they may be getting ready for a major war with nuclear powered players like Russia and China. Cold War Part Deux anyone? Sounds like a Hellery of a plan.

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

and she's going to win that war too. Don't ask how, just KNOW in your Exceptional American heart of hearts that SHE will win that war with Russia and conquer the enemy once and for all! How can you people not see her inherent greatness and not be assured of victory?!

Snark, or not snark? You decide with your vote for Hellery! USA, USA, USA!!!!!

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Lenzabi's picture

Jill NOT Hill

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

I caught on when a Romanian hacker published proof that the DNC stole the primary. Swillery claimed "the Russians" did it, then, days later, she said that she would give a "military response" to a cyber attack. today NPR reported that Kerry was warning Russia to stop bombing Aleppo. I hear the clock ticking. Reagan's first act as president was to close VA psychiatric outpatient programs - without warning, the patients showed p and found the doors locked, not even a sign. I expect Clinton's first act as president will be to launch. I just pray that the Joint Chiefs will respond by producing a straightjacket.
Hillary Clinton for president - of the General James Scott fan club.

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On to Biden since 1973