Amber Alert Website Down Because of Government Shutdown; Amber Alert System Still Running

The Amber Alert website is offline because of the government shutdown. The system is still operational, but the federal Amber Alert website only shows a white screen with the message: "Due to the lapse in federal funding, this Office of Justice Programs (OJP) website is unavailable," below a U.S. Department of Justice seal.

The media has been wrongly reporting that crucial information is not being disseminated about missing children. Amber Alerts are issued by local police, press and city governments. Amber Alerts are issued by jurisdictions to make information on child abductions public. Amber Alerts are still being issued throught tweets, news broadcasts, cell phone alerts and road signs.

The website for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which compiles the Department of Justice national Amber Alert information, is still up and running. There are currently no active Amber Alerts at this time.

The Amber Alert website normally displays information about current and outstanding Amber Alerts. It is not how the Amber Alerts are issued, which are handled on a a state-by-state basis.

The California Highway Patrol officials said that if there is an Amber Alert in the state, the media will be paged and Sacramento will still order messages to be posted on on freeway signs.

The state of California recently used the Amber Alert system to locate a San Diego County man who killed a friend and her child and kidnapped her daughter, the teenager Hannah Anderson. FBI agents shot the kidnapper in Idaho and retrieved the teen after their whereabouts were reported by some hikers who had seen the Amber Alert.