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Comment by coldpie | Hacker News Reader

> Seems like the phone alert system is being used to push public perceptions rather than public safety.

Yes, they absolutely are. Just a couple weeks ago, local law enforcement sent out an incredibly vague shelter-in-place active-shooter alert across the entire Twin Cities area for a situation in a suburb that was resolved about five minutes later[1]. Schools were locked down, buildings closed, etc. And wouldn't you know it, there's an election in two weeks where the Republicans, who the police unanimously endorse and campaign for, are running on a "crime is out of control" narrative! Crazy coincidence, that.

[1] The entirety of the message was, "Shelter in place - Homicide suspect at large described as 17 year old white male." No location specified, sent to the entire urban region. https://www.startribune.com/shelter-in-place-alert-about-hom...

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That shelter-in-place alert did not follow well-established practices that require more details in the content and more geographically limited alerts. The agency that sent this alert got an earful afterwards and presumably will update their training.

If you think this was an accident or result of poor training, I've got a Stone Arch Bridge to sell you. Law enforcement here is unsupervised and completely out of control and regularly interferes with elections.

What is your point - that the alerting agency is evil and wanted to disturb more people than necessary?

Substitute "wanted to influence the upcoming election by pushing a crime narrative" for "is evil," and yes.

I have no trouble perceiving the point that the problem is intentional vs unintentional misuse of a facility.

An honest mistake is an accident that isn't repeated, or if repeated, happens in a random manner rather than exhibiting any particular pattern (seems to express neither a conservative nor a liberal worldview, nor any other potential agenda, consistently).

If someone has a desire to do something like use some position or tool they happen to have access to for some purpose of their own rather than it's intended use, and lacks the integrity to avoid doing so on their own, that desire and that lack of integrity doesn't change or stop even if they get chastised for some misdeed. They still want to do things like that, and they still don't see what the problem is, and they still do the same things, merely trying to do a better job of camoflage and deniability.

FWIW, I live in Minneapolis and didn’t receive that alert (just confirmed that I have emergency alerts enabled in iOS).

I was in my car in St. Paul at the time when the message went out. I heard the alarm and assumed that it was an Amber alert. When I got to the next stop light I glanced at my phone and saw two messages. One telling me to shelter in place (why?) and the next saying that the suspect was apprehended.

This was completely useless and actually distracting considering that I was in heavy traffic at the time.

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