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Another example of texting’s life-saving potential
By WDavidStephenson | May 1, 2008
The latest example of texting’s potential in emergencies is this news item about a teen who was home because of illness when two intruders entered her house. She texted her mom, who then alerted 911 and drove home (not too smart on mom’s part to physically challenge the perps instead of waiting for cops, but parental instincts can trump common sense. Fortunately, they were both OK).
Here’s the deal with texting in emergencies or observing a potential crime or terrorist attack in the making: as with its techno-cousin, sending a camera phone picture from the scene (as the teen did on a MBTA bus that led to the arrest of an alleged groper): because it can be done silently, and without calling attention to yourself, you can tip off authorities without focusing attention on yourself.
Nice job!
Technorati tags: homeland security antiterrorism police crime networked homeland security camera phone cellphone location-based services geo-spatial web web 2.0 homeland security 2.0 wireless sms texting
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