While watching television all of us have been exposed from time-to-time to a test of the "Emergency Broadcast System" and the blah, blah, blah that comes behind it, which preempts whatever program, live or pre-recorded that you were watching, but this type of warning has been augmented to sync to our modern times with our "Wireless Emergency Alerts" which come straight to our cell phones, with messages alerting us of possibly imminent weather emergencies. On the surface, this appears to be a great public service and to a certain degree it is, because the weather alert is both timely sent and of pertinence, but like many things, there is a much darker side.
For instance, according to the nws.noaa.gov/com website the: "WEA use radio technology to broadcast the alert from cell towers to mobile devices in the area of the threat." This means that no matter what your phone area code is, whoever has a cell phone in that area that is capable of receiving such a message will receive it; although most phones do have an option buried deep inside of allowing the user to opt-out of this type of public service announcement. However, there is something distinct implied behind this type of power and authority that although the government has the power and the authorization to co-opt cell towers in order to provide this type of emergency alert, who is to say that in situations of public unrest, that the government might not see fir to commandeered cell phone towers, internet service providers and the like to either control or to disrupt communications by mobile and other devices.
The bottom line is a government that is big enough, powerful enough, and invasive enough to provide you with all sorts of information under the guise that it is there to protect you, is the exact same governmental power that can be abused in such a way as to take your civil liberties and freedom away from you. It would be no stretch of the imagination, to foresee a time when through the guise of an "emergency" that our government would implement its capability to herd certain designated segments of its population away from their homes, which are secured to the individual through our Fourth Amendment rights, to a designated area within a particular community, which would thereby place our citizenry into a very vulnerable position, rife with the possibilities of exploitation or worse.
As a matter of course, our government understands the value of having a fearful population, because a population that lives in a constant fear, is always easily susceptible to complying with rules and regulations that are in theory based around their safety, but in actuality effectively shackles their freedoms and liberties, as a trade-off for what they believe to be, security, but is instead built around an illusion of it.
While I have the utmost admiration for those people and government facilities that wisely and prudently provide us with true emergency aid, not everyone that speaks of having our best interests in mind, is, in fact, the earthly representation of the good shepherd.