The Amber Alert system is sweeping the nation. After movements in states throughout the country to institute the child-abduction prevention system and calls from members of the House of Representatives and Senate for a national warning, President George W. Bush got in on the action yesterday, announcing his support for the system and promoting greater federal involvement.

The system, created in Texas after the abduction and subsequent killing of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman, uses the Emergency Broadcast System and already existing highway alert signs to inform residents in areas surrounding the location of a child’s abduction. Massachusetts’ House of Representatives delegation called on Acting Governor Jane Swift to speed up the state’s own development of the system in early August, and Swift herself has made several pushes for the system recently, according to the Associated Press. America Online also announced Tuesday that it will begin sending Amber Alerts to its 26 million customers, according to the Associated Press.

The Amber Alert system is an attempted quick fix for a problem without an easy solution. Its recent popularity is a staggering political overreaction to recent highly publicized child abductions.

While its ability to transmit information quickly, easily and without cost are its main positives, those characteristics could also lead to abuse. Its use could cause unnecessary panic and hysteria and could be disruptive to peoples’ everyday lives.

But even relatively infrequent use could also lead to unnatural public acclimation to the Emergency Broadcast System’s warning calls. Amber Alerts could soon go the way of children’s milk carton pictures — a normal occurrence to be ignored. And because they will be used infrequently, they will not prevent a significant number of child abductions — the benefits of protecting a few children are far outweighed by its costs to public emergency awareness.

Access to the system could cause yet more problems. Because it will be used selectively and infrequently and because decisions to use it will be made quickly, well-connected children of influential parents will be more likely to receive the urgent emergency treatment the system warrants. The system is too easy to use unfairly, particularly because it will only be used in special situations.

Though politicians’ desires to run with the pack on the Amber Alert system does seem to give it some credibility, America’s civil servants should use the time and resources more wisely to more effectively stop more child abductions while still preserving the Emergency Alert System.