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America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response
Answers to some common questions:
The Origin of the Amber PlanThe AMBER Plan was created in 1996 as a powerful legacy to 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, a bright little girl who was kidnapped and brutally murdered while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas.
The tragedy shocked and outraged the entire community. Residents contacted radio stations in the Dallas area and suggested they broadcast special “alerts” over the airwaves so that they could help prevent such incidents in the future.
In response to the community’s concern for the safety of local children, the Dallas/Fort Worth Association of Radio Managers teamed up with local law-enforcement agencies in northern Texas and developed this innovative early warning system to help find abducted children. Statistics show that, when abducted, a child’s greatest enemy is time.
In April, 2003, President Bush signed the Amber Alert legislation making it a national program. While the Amber Alert system is now mandated across the country, some states are still trying to implement the procedures necessary in bringing the alerts to the public. Hampered by outdated Emergency Broadcast guidelines and different activation criteria in each state, the system needs a fair amount of fine-tuning to be optimally effective. Code Amber is on the cutting edge with the technology helping to make that a reality.
CodeAmber.org went live on August 23rd, 2002. Since that time we have grown rapidly as you can see by the statistics in the top right hand column. The number of Web and Desktop tickers are real time counters but we update the number of tickers served on the first of each month.
To help defray the server and administrative expense associated with providing the CodeAmber ticker we are accepting donations through PayPal. Every little bit helps and donations of $25 or more will be recognized with an entry on our "Friends" page along with a link to your site if you like.
Please read our Ticker Activation Policy: We receive AMBER Alerts from many states and many from local authorities. In the case where there is a state plan and a state agency responsible for the activation, we always check with the state before activating the Code Amber system. If a state has a regional plan, we activate on the request of the local law enforcement agency. We have had several requests from local authorities to activate our system before they receive approval from their state agency. If the state approves the Alert (we always confirm with the state), then we activate. If the state does not approve the activation of the AMBER Alert, we do not activate our system.
In a situation where an Amber Alert is active and there are no new details or information on the case for five days, we remove the Alert from the Code Amber Ticker and move it to our Active Alerts page. If new information on the case warrants, we will reactivate the ticker for these Amber Alerts.
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Law Enforcement Agencies:
Please contact us regarding how to get your Alerts into the CodeAmber system. Please click here.
Code Amber is provided as a free public service by BigHits.com, Inc.
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