The chairwoman of the FCC wants to add a new EAS alert code for missing and endangered persons. She said this is particularly important to help missing Native and indigenous women.
A press release from the commission said adding such a code to the Emergency Alert System would help law enforcement provide alerts “to galvanize public attention to missing native and indigenous persons, as well as other groups, and build on efforts to collect comprehensive data on these cases.”
Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said, “Law enforcement agencies successfully use AMBER Alerts on TV and radio to help mobilize public attention and recover abducted children. But we do not have a similar code in the Emergency Alert System dedicated to sounding the alarm over other missing and endangered persons, particularly the thousands of missing native and indigenous women who have disappeared from their homes never to be seen again.”
She is working with Sen. Ben Ray Luján on the issue. The FCC quoted him saying that violence against Native people is a crisis. “The federal government must take more decisive action to properly notify their loved ones and locate these individuals to keep families together.”
Details are to be posted tomorrow and Rosenworcel plans to call for a vote on it at the FCC’s March meeting. A “yes” vote would open a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on creating an “MEP” alert code for missing and endangered persons who do not meet the criteria for an AMBER Alert. The FCC said the proposal would also ask questions about the relationship of this potential new alerting category with the Wireless Emergency Alert system, which does not use such event codes.
