Government Executive - Authors - Kimberly Reeves

Officials praise Texas' progress on emergency system

Kimberly Reeves — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Joined here by local and federal officials, the Republican governor said those communication capabilities are critical along the Texas-Mexico border, as well as in emergency situations such as last summer's Panhandle grass fires and the mass evacuations out of Houston during Hurricane Rita.

The Texas Radio Coalition, chaired by Austin's Chief Information Officer Peter Collins, has been working with the state's 24 regional government councils over the last year to meet new communication standards.

"The end goal is for all law enforcement, firefighters, emergency medical services, and other critical-incident personnel to be able to respond anywhere in Texas and successfully communicate on their radios when they get there," Collins said. "Because of disparate frequency bands and radio system backbone technologies across the state, responders often cannot directly talk with one another."

Technology is not the only issue. Collins said one significant barrier is culture. First responders, typically separated by operations as well as technology, must learn to communicate with each other as a common emergency response team, he said.

Achieving a Level 4 in radio interoperability means that transmissions are being successfully rerouted across the state. Even though agencies have different equipment on different frequencies, many now can communicate. In some areas, including in Austin where emergency responders have been combined in one operational center, the radio interoperability has reached a Level 6.

Observers say that, ultimately, the long-term goal of Texas will be a Level 6 rating, most likely through common translator software that will allow easy coding and decoding of transmissions.

Steve McCraw, who heads the Texas Homeland Security Department, said the state's new interoperability capabilities have significantly improved communication -- especially along the Texas-Mexico border, where communication "dead zones" still existed in some counties.

Since 2003, the federal government has devoted $2 billion to radio interoperability grants. Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson, who was on hand for the announcement, praised Texas for its vision to bridge technological differences among emergency responders.

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Lawmakers told manpower is key for effective border security

Kimberly Reeves — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Criminals who want to cross the border into the United States are not stupid, said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a labor group that represents U.S. Border Patrol workers. If the United States had announced, with great fanfare, that border agents would be massed along the Arizona border, then those looking for safe passage will turn to other states, Bonner said.

"If we think smugglers are stupid enough to flow through Arizona where we're beefing up our presence ... Well, I can tell you that they're not that stupid," Bonner said. "Some of the folks in the administration may be, but I can assure you the criminals are not."

Bonner, whose group represents border-security guards, had a receptive audience. Rep. Silvestre Reyes held up a large blank piece of cardboard and said the Bush administration's plan for homeland security was as blank as that cardboard when it came to protecting the country.

"We have a president, running for re-election, who said his No. 1 priority was keeping us safe as a nation and then comes in and insults the country by saying, 'I'm going to fund less than 50 percent of the attribution rate of the U.S. Border Patrol,'" said Reyes, a former Border Patrol agent. "That is scandalous as far as I'm concerned."

Bonner said technology was key to the enforcement effort along the border. New equipment in the federal budget includes millions of sensors and low-light infrared cameras. It provides extra eyes and ears, but it does not replace agents, Bonner said.

"The administration, in its budget request, has touted technology as a replacement for boots on the border, but it's agents, not technology, that goes out and apprehend," Bonner said. "This is not a high-tech military game of tag where we go out and say, 'Tag, you're it. Go back home.' By and large, we're out there apprehending them ourselves."

Rep. Gene Green, who represents the Ship Channel in Houston, said border and port security must be in place to maintain strong border control. In other testimony, Port of Houston Managing Director Wade Battles agreed, saying the port had devoted $100 million to new equipment to upgrade its security.

Battles estimated about 10 percent of all cargo is screened. The need for security must be balanced with the need to keep cargo flowing, Battles said. And while technology was a significant component to meet that end, Battles agreed that personnel were the key answer when it came down to how to get the job done.

"We have new tools and equipment that are being deployed, but we have a critical need for additional officers and personnel, especially if we're going to try to push our borders offshore," Battles said. "We need to make sure all of our first responders, have the personnel and tools they need to succeed."

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Intelligence panelist calls for more aid, better oversight

Kimberly Reeves — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Too much media attention has focused on the so-called 9/11 Commission proposal to create a Cabinet-level position for an intelligence czar, former Navy Secretary John Lehman, told a luncheon crowd of the nonpartisan Dallas Friday Group. "I don't like to use the word 'czar,'" he quipped. "I think we know how the czars ended up."

The creation of a national intelligence coordinator means nothing if that person cannot streamline the current intelligence-gathering process, Lehman said. The bigger problem is how agencies communicate among themselves and how Congress oversees intelligence, he added.

Lehman said too little progress has been made on the homeland security front, citing that as the major reason he and fellow commissioners are using their own money to crisscross the country over the next 18 months. The commission must "hold congressional feet to the fire," he said.

Lehman's concern is not who runs the intelligence community as much as it is how the dissemination of intelligence can be streamlined.

The intelligence community is filled with good competent people, but many of those people are "locked in amber," Lehman said. He criticized the intelligence community's inability to communicate across agencies, with lines of command that go back as far as Watergate and serve no useful purpose other than defining turf.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge reports to 88 committees and subcommittees in Congress, an impossible task, Lehman said. He said too many lawmakers want access to Ridge in order to get security contracts for back rather than to address the systemic reform of intelligence, Lehman said.

"That's what homeland security has become, just another big revenue-sharing pork barrel," he said, adding that homeland security oversight should be limited to one committee each in the House and Senate for better communication.

One arm of the intelligence community knew that young Arabs were attending U.S. flight schools, Lehman said, while another arm knew that the al Qaeda terrorist network was willing to use airplanes as weapons.

Lehman made a whirlwind tour of Houston and Dallas last week. He said the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission should be implemented and not gather dust on a shelf like the Warren Commission report after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas.

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