Claim: The Obama administration shut down the Amber Alert program because of the government shutdown.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Amber alert
text: and Miller have subsequently applied the concept to other emotional but ineffective legislation such as safe-haven laws and polygamy raids, and continue their work in developing the concept of "crime control theater" and on the AMBER Alert system. Griffin considers his findings preliminary, reporting his team examined only a portion of the Amber Alerts issued over the three-year period they focused on, so he recommends taking a closer look at the evaluation of the program and its intended purpose, instead of simply promoting the program. The 4 a.m. timing of a July 2013 New York child abduction alert sent through

title: Amber alert
text: Representatives adopted H.Res. 605 which encouraged communities nationwide to implement the AMBER Plan. In October 2001, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that had declined to be a part of the Amber Alert in February 1996, launched a campaign to have AMBER Alert systems established nationwide. In February 2002, the Federal Communications Commission officially endorsed the system. In 2002, several children were abducted in cases that drew national attention. One such case, the kidnapping and murder of Samantha Runnion, prompted California to establish an AMBER Alert system on July 24, 2002. According to Senator Dianne Feinstein, in its

title: Amber alert
text: the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in the United States in 2004 found that most issued alerts did not meet the Department of Justice's criteria. Fully 50% (117 alerts) were categorized by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as being "family abductions", very often a parent involved in a custody dispute. There were 48 alerts for children who had not been abducted at all, but were lost, ran away, involved in family misunderstandings (for example, two instances where the child was with grandparents), or as the result of hoaxes. Another 23 alerts were issued in cases where police did

title: Amber alert
text: immediately posted on the Internet for the general public to view. Following the automation of the AMBER Alert with ANS technology created by the Child Alert Foundation, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) expanded its role in 2002 to promote the AMBER Alert, although in 1996 now CEO of the NCMEC declined to come in and further assist the AMBER Alert when asked to by Bruce Seybert and Richard Hagerman and has since worked actively to see alerts distributed using the nation's existing emergency radio and TV response network. In October 2000, the United States House of

title: Amber alert
text: after the abducted girl Emilia Benavides in December 2017. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, of the children abducted and murdered by strangers, 75% are killed within the first three hours in the USA. Amber Alerts are designed to inform the general public quickly when a child has been kidnapped and is in danger so "the public [would be] additional eyes and ears of law enforcement". , the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that 657 children have been successfully recovered as a result of the existence of the AMBER Alert program. A Scripps Howard study of

title: Child Alert Foundation
text: which has since become the AMBER Alert. The original Amber Plan (1997) was a faxed based procedure where law enforcement agencies were required to prepare information for public distribution and then fax that information to a list of designated primary radio stations. This was a manual procedure and time-consuming process. The ACA system created by Child Alert is a totally automated procedure that was designed from the very beginning to exceed the original Amber Plan requirements. Rather than limit the alert to radio, CAF expanded coverage to include television and news organizations as well as other law enforcement agencies for

title: Amber alert
text: a pursuit by Canadian authorities usually follows. For incidents which do not meet AMBER Alert criteria, the United States Department of Justice developed the Child Abduction Response Teams (CART) program to assist local agencies. This program can be used in all missing children's cases with or without an AMBER alert. CART can also be used to help recover runaway children under the age of 18 and who are in danger. , 225 response teams have been trained in 43 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Canada. Amber Rene Hagerman (November 25, 1986 -- January 17, 1996) was a

title: Amber alert
text: signs. A similar bill was sponsored in the U.S. House of Representatives by Jennifer Dunn and Martin Frost. The bill passed the Senate unanimously within a week of its proposal. At an October 2002 conference on missing, exploited, and runaway children, President George W. Bush announced changes to the AMBER Alert system, including the development of a national standard for issuing AMBER Alerts. A similar bill passed the House several weeks later on a 390–24 vote. A related bill finally became law in April 2003. The alerts were offered digitally beginning in November 2002, when America Online began a service

title: Amber alert
text: allowing people sign up to receive notification via computer, pager, or cell phone. Users of the service enter their ZIP Code, thus allowing the alerts to be targeted to specific geographic regions. By 2005, all fifty states had operational programs and today the program operates across state and jurisdictional boundaries. , AMBER Alerts are automatically sent through the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) program. Canada's system began in December 2002, when Alberta launched the first province-wide system. At the time, Alberta Solicitor-General Heather Forsyth said "We anticipate an Amber Alert will only be issued once a year in Alberta. We hope

title: United States federal government shutdown of 2013
text: Reince Priebus and some Republican lawmakers, including Senator Ted Cruz, charged that some of the closures were unnecessary and overzealously enforced at the behest of the Obama administration. The National Park Service responded that it is legally mandated to protect national park lands and, in the absence of available staff to patrol, maintain and administer the areas, must close them to the public. The vast majority of the agency's staff were furloughed, leaving only a limited number of law enforcement rangers and firefighters on duty to protect life and property. A NPS press release said the shutdown of national parks

title: Amber alert
text: Amber alert An Amber alert (also AMBER alert) or a Child Abduction Emergency (SAME code: CAE) is a child abduction alert system. It originated in the United States in 1996. AMBER is officially a contrived acronym for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, but was named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996. Alternative regional alert names were once used; in Georgia, "Levi's Call" (in memory of Levi Frady); in Hawaii, "Maile Amber Alert" (in memory of Maile Gilbert); and Arkansas, "Morgan Nick Amber Alert" (in memory of Morgan Nick). In the United States, AMBER

title: United States federal government shutdown of 2013
text: (FEMA). These bills continued to be opposed by most congressional Democrats and ignored by the Senate in favor of passing one full continuing resolution. On October 11, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) developed a proposal to lift the debt ceiling and end the shutdown. Democrats in the Senate rejected this proposal because it would have locked sequestration budget cuts into law for the next six months. Democratic senators wanted to negotiate an end to sequestration before then. Analysts were concerned that the political gridlock would extend into mid-October, when Congress and the President must agree to raise the debt ceiling to

title: Amber alert
text: "Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act." Among the sections of the bill was one that would create a national sex offender registry. For the next two years, alerts were made manually to participating radio stations. In 1998, the Child Alert Foundation created the first fully automated Alert Notification System (ANS) to notify surrounding communities when a child was reported missing or abducted. Alerts were sent to radio stations as originally requested but included television stations, surrounding law enforcement agencies, newspapers and local support organizations. These alerts were sent all at once via pagers, faxes, emails, and cell phones with the information

title: Amber alert
text: the Wireless Emergency Alerts system raised concerns that many cellphone users will now disable WEA alerts. Advocates for missing children are concerned that the public is becoming desensitized to AMBER Alerts because of a large number of false alarms, where police issue an AMBER Alert without strictly adhering to the U.S. Department of Justice's activation guidelines. AMBER alerts are often displayed on electronic message signs. The Federal Highway Administration has instructed states to display AMBER alerts on highway signs sparingly, citing safety concerns from distracted drivers and the negative impacts of traffic congestion. Many states have policies in place that

title: Child abduction alert system
text: in 2006, it was issued for eight times. To issue an alert, five conditions must be met: AMBER Alert Netherlands is the nationwide alert system for endangered missing children and child abduction cases. With 3 million participants and participating organisations, it is the most successful citizen participation initiative in the Netherlands and a great example of effective crowdsourcing. AMBER Alert Netherlands was set up free of charge in 2008 by social enterprise Netpresenter, and the Dutch National police. The green light was given on 11 November 2008 by the Minister of Justice at the time, Hirsch Ballin. Today, AMBER Alert

title: Amber alert
text: first month California issued 13 AMBER alerts; 12 of the children were recovered safely and the remaining alert was found to be a misunderstanding. By September 2002, 26 states had established AMBER Alert systems that covered all or parts of the state. A bipartisan group of US Senators, led by Kay Bailey Hutchison and Dianne Feinstein, proposed legislation to name an AMBER Alert coordinator in the U.S. Justice Department who could help coordinate state efforts. The bill also provided $25 million in federal matching grants for states to establish AMBER Alert programs and necessary equipment purchases, such as electronic highway

title: National Blue Alert Act of 2013
text: Silver Alert, use a variety of means to notify people of an issue. AMBER Alerts announce missing or kidnapped children, while Silver Alerts announce missing senior citizens, especially those with dementia. AMBER Alerts are distributed via commercial radio stations, Internet radio, satellite radio, television stations, and cable TV by the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio (where they are termed "Child Abduction Emergency" or "Amber Alerts"). The alerts are also issued via e-mail, electronic traffic-condition signs, the LED billboards which are located outside of newer Walgreens locations, along with the LED/LCD signs of billboard companies such as Clear Channel

title: Amber alert
text: was announced that an AMBER Alert system would be set up in Ireland, In May 2012, the Child Rescue Ireland (CRI) Alert was officially introduced. Ireland's first AMBER alert was issued upon the disappearance of two boys, Eoghan (10) and Ruarí Chada (5). Since April 2015 an emergency child abduction alert system "AMBER Alert Slovakia" is also available in Slovak Republic. www.amberalert.sk In September 2007, Malaysia implemented the Nurin Alert. Based on the AMBER alert, it is named for a missing eight-year-old girl, Nurin Jazlin. In 2018, Ecuador's Department of Security introduced its own AMBER Alert called EMILIA Alert, named

title: Amber alert
text: the investigation into her murder, and touches on the effect her death has had on young children and parents everywhere. It was created to promote what was then a reopened investigation into her murder. Amber alert An Amber alert (also AMBER alert) or a Child Abduction Emergency (SAME code: CAE) is a child abduction alert system. It originated in the United States in 1996. AMBER is officially a contrived acronym for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, but was named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996. Alternative regional alert names were once used; in

title: Amber alert
text: not know the name of the allegedly abducted child, often as the result of misunderstandings by witnesses who reported an abduction. Seventy of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in 2004 (30%) were actually children taken by strangers or who were unlawfully travelling with adults other than their legal guardians. According to the 2014 Amber Alert Report, 186 Amber Alerts were issued in the US, involving 239 children. 60 (25%) were taken by strangers or people other than their legal guardians. Some outside scholars examining the system in depth disagree with the "official" results. A research team led by criminologist Timothy