Hawaii. Even just the name promises paradise, and rightly so. The islands and her people are magnificent, an example of how humanity can be a working partner with the power and beauty of nature.
Until politicians and the incompetent (but I repeat myself) turn a tool meant for good into a button for terrorizing.
The fake missile launch warning that terrorized Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents was the result, one way or the other, of the utter incompetence of liberal governance. News after the debacle is now also suggesting that there is something more to the “mistake” of the errant missile alert.
The House of Representative has indicated it will hold a hearing on the matter. And on Jan. 25, the Senate Commerce Committee will convened its own hearing, while the FCC proceeds with its investigation.
Reuters reported that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said FCC investigators were in Hawaii.
“‘This incident highlights the need for our alerting system to work properly and for alerts to convey accurate information to the public,’ Mr. Pai said. ‘We want to understand how this mistake occurred, why it took 38 minutes for the state of Hawaii to issue a correction alert, and what needs to be done to ensure that this does not happen again, in Hawaii or elsewhere.'”
That’s nice, and appropriate, yet we know already how this happened. A person decided to send the alert even though there was no reason for it. While the FCC has some jurisdiction, the Department of Homeland Security should also be investigating.
Considering terrorizing over a million Americans, and scaring at least one to death, is the dream attack of ISIS and our other Islamic enemies, one would think DHS would be interested in determining for itself the background and interests of the person responsible.
The psychological impact of the alert on Hawaiians and everyone on the islands, was and will remain life-changing. How do you recover from believing for 38 minutes that you and your loved ones were going to die in a nuclear holocaust?
The new DHS secretary did chime in about the situation: “Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Tuesday she would work with Sen. Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Democrat, to ensure that states have a uniform way to handle missile threats and alert systems. … ‘I’d like to work with you to ensure we’re providing specific instructions on what to do upon an alert,’ Nielsen said before the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Politico reported.
More talk about the technical aspect of the process is clearly necessary after the chaos, but the core problem here was the human element.
To this day, Americans have not been told any details about the individual who sent that alert, other than him being a man. Despite this person confirming a second fail-safe action to launch, the public narrative remains that this was simply “human error.”
Considering we are dealing with a federal bureaucracy with liberals who collude and conspire in an effort to harm the president and damage his administration, we cannot dismiss the possibility that this supposed error was deliberate. At the very least, the American people deserve the transparency so we have trust in what we’re told about the incident.
Bizarre talking points, however, have been the hallmark of this disaster. On the heels of Mr. Pai announcing they were also investigating why it took 38 minutes to correct the false report, we’ve learned Hawaii’s Gov. David Ige knew in two minutes that the alert was false, yet another 36 went by before he and the state issued the correction.
Why did it take so long? The governor explains it was because he didn’t know his Twitter password.
The Hawaii Start Advertiser reported, “Ige was asked about that delay when he met with reporters after his State of the State address today, and he said that ‘I was in the process of making calls to the leadership team both in Hawaii Emergency Management as well as others. …’ Ige added that ‘I have to confess that I don’t know my Twitter account log-ons and the passwords, so certainly that’s one of the changes that I’ve made. I’ve been putting that on my phone so that we can access the social media directly.’ It is common for staff members of political figures to maintain their social media accounts, and to post or tweet on their behalf.”
Yes, that is common. And yet think about what we’re being told — that the governor of Hawaii felt his only way to reach the public was through Twitter. I believe that as much as I believe that pushing the two buttons required for the alert was an “error.”
But there’s more. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency told the Chicago Tribune that trying to contact FEMA about “whether rescinding an alert was an appropriate use of the warning system,” also slowed the retraction down. “Another was writing the cancellation notice, since a retraction script was not kept on file.”
A retraction script. Got it.
At this point, no one involved has resigned or been fired. The person responsible has simply been reassigned. The national narrative continues to be about technology. Now, Hawaii assures us, it will take two people to make the decision to issue a missile warning.
Our nation’s top law enforcement agency, the FBI itself, is revealed to have a “secret society” intent on undermining the president and his government. Hawaiian and federal leadership continue to obfuscate on the details of the false missile alert. It’s time the Department of Justice steps in to make sure the American people get actual information instead of lies and cartoonish excuses.
• Tammy Bruce, author and Fox News contributor, is a radio talk show host.
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