| How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message. The tone itself does not create a clear and present danger, but the subsequent message may. There's no notion of panic or stampede with this tone, it only communicates "hey, listen up, there's something that may be important for you to know about". I'm sure that many of those living in America on HN have been subject to EAS messages that were not of serious concern since it's used pretty liberally for even minor concerns like a tropical storm. It's also worth know about the Supreme Court case (Schenck v United States) that lead to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr's opinion that lead to this legal test, since the issue at hand in that case would most likely be protected by the 1st amendment today. Furthermore, Holmes eventually reversed his position in Abrams v United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... No reasonable person would look at any of the examples where a fine has been issued over use of the EAS signal and conclude that any of those artistic statements were even close to creating a clear and present danger. |
False alarms can create a danger because they condition people not to take an alarm seriously.
Even if people are pretty conscientious about treating alarms as if they are real, very few of them will continue doing so against peer pressure.