AMBER Alert linked to Web

The nation's AMBER Alert system will be connected to the Web starting today, a major technological boost that users say should make it easier for the system to thwart child abductions by transmitting messages over pagers, cell phones and BlackBerrys.

"The tag line on all this is, 'We'll all be looking for you,' " said Chris Warner, president of E2C, the Scottsdale, Ariz., company that has engineered AMBER Alert's Web portal. "This unbelievable technology is going to make that possible."

Until now, AMBER Alerts have been based on radio technology, meaning that messages have depended on the nation's old and sometimes unreliable emergency alert system to notify citizens of natural disasters and other civil emergencies.

The new Web-based system can process and transmit emergency information more quickly and to a wider variety of devices. It comes with software that pinpoints the location of an abduction and sends out emergency messages targeted to that locale.

AMBER Alert managers in 11 states will have access to the new portal, Warner said. Use of the system is expected to expand to the 49 states that have statewide AMBER Alert systems. Hawaii has no statewide system but has several local alert networks. Utah is not one of the 11 states.

Targeted messages could help overcome one of the current system's weaknesses — a scattershot technology that sends emergency messages beyond the area where they are most relevant.

"If there's an abduction in Kansas and the message goes right away to Maryland, that can be counterproductive," said John Rabun, a former police officer and chief operating officer of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "It desensitizes people to the alerts."

The Web portal plan is expected to be announced in Seattle at a meeting of the National Governor's Association.

AMBER Alerts are named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old abducted and killed in 1996 in Arlington, Texas. To aid in her search, local police commandeered the area's emergency broadcast system, posting descriptions on radio and television.

Since then, the system has attempted to get messages out through several different radio methods, including interactive highway signs. It has succeeded in recovering 137 abducted children since 1998, according to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.