DHS opens national cybersecurity operations center: "The Homeland Security Department opened a new operations center today that integrates national cybersecurity and telecommunications monitoring systems and provides a new degree of situational awareness surrounding the nation’s communications, information technology and cyber infrastructure.

The new National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), combines two of DHS’ operational organizations: the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), which leads a public-private partnership focused on defending the nation’s cyber infrastructure; and the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications (NCC), the operational arm of the National Communications System."

Plain Talk Eases Police Radio Codes Off The Air: "Police radio can sound like an algebra class, with all those 10-4s and 187s.

But more and more departments are trying a radical approach: asking officers who need backup or want to report a robbery to do so in plain old English.

Late one night in 2005, a police officer on a dark highway in Independence, Mo., radioed in that he had just passed a State Highway Patrol officer's car on the side of a road with the door open."

Oversight Missing for Oregon's Emergency Radio Network: "A new report to lawmakers says Oregon lacks the necessary oversight on a $414 million project to build a massive emergency radio network.

The report from the Legislature's budget committee says those building the Oregon Wireless Interoperability Network don't have the staff and controls in place to adequately manage such a large-scale construction and technology project.

State officials running the project say everything is under control and on schedule."

Illinois MABAS shows true interoperability: "Communications is only one slice of the interoperability pie. In fact, although interoperable communication systems are an essential tool during an incident, preplanning strategies and tactics are crucial to safeguarding lives.

One of the most common ways to preplan incidents is through the National Incident Management System. The government argued that NIMS was needed to create interoperable common-operational pictures across different state and local agencies. And, many in public-safety stand behind it, like Leonard Carmichael Jr., a fire captain in Trenton, N.J. Carmichael said he strongly believes NIMS provides a systematic, proactive approach that can guide agencies at all levels of government to prevent, protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate the effects of incidents."

Lawmakers Acknowledge Need for General Funds to Build Public-Safety Network: "Congressional members of the House subcommittee on communications, technology and the Internet heard views from the public-safety community and commercial carriers on the best option for the 700 MHz D block spectrum Thursday, with several lawmakers noting general funds might be the only way to ensure buildout of a nationwide public-safety broadband network."

Baltimore Co. begins $57 million public safety radio network overhaul: "Baltimore County is upgrading their outdated public safety radio transmission network. And last week, Governor Martin O’Malley and County Executive Jim Smith hailed the construction of a new radio tower as the first step towards the $57 million project completion.

“This three-year project will further improve our first responders’ ability to communicate with each other, with relevant County agencies as well as with our partners at the state and throughout the region,” Smith said in a statement.

The new interoperable network will upgrade the existing analog network to digital, improving the ability to use encryption and secure transmission and increasing the radio network’s coverage area. Baltimore County Police and Fire Department use over 6,000 two-way radios, which will either be replaced, or be outfitted with enhanced software that accepts digital transmissions benefit from the enhanced network and they will work in conjunction with the Department of Public Works by folding the DPW channel frequency into the new public safety network"

U.S. and Mexico talk safety across the fence: "The United States and Mexico will establish a new cross-border communications network including voice, data and video channels to support their law enforcement and public safety agencies, officials announced.

The Homeland Security Department and the Secretariat of Public Security of Mexico will coordinate the installation and operation of the network, according to DHS. DHS, the State department and Mexican officials signed the agreement, which also provides for joint protection from radio interference and jamming.

The goal is to create an interoperable network that will be linked to federal, state, local and tribal safety networks for the purpose of public safety and law enforcement."

Public safety communications still a work in progress, Chertoff says: "Eight years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, there has been significant progress made toward improving first-responder communications, but there is still a lot of distance to cover, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff told public safety officials today.

Increased funding to state and local governments, advances in radio technology and the release of the Homeland Security Department’s National Emergency Communications Plan, which outlines a strategy to improve public safety communications throughout the nation, have all contributed to more effective communications among various jurisdictions, Chertoff said."

ELF Claims Responsibility For Radio Tower Sabotage: "An environmental extremist group has claimed responsibility for toppling two towers owned by a sports radio station near Snohomish. The Earth Liberation Front group took responsibility for the act on its Web site Friday. The towers were brought down with a trackhoe."

ELF Claims Responsibility For Radio Tower Sabotage - Seattle News Story - KIRO Seattle

ELF Claims Responsibility For Radio Tower Sabotage: "An environmental extremist group has claimed responsibility for toppling two towers owned by a sports radio station near Snohomish. The Earth Liberation Front group took responsibility for the act on its Web site Friday. The towers were brought down with a trackhoe."

Former DHS secretary Ridge discusses critical issues facing public safety: "What role do interoperable communications play?
That’s a really sensitive point with me there. I am very disappointed that one of the most important recommendations from the 9/11 Commission Report, sanctioned by Congress, before which I testified and around which many great recommendations were made … that the very high priority they gave to a public-safety interoperable communications systems continues to be ignored.

Right now, we have patchwork, a piecemeal of technologies. At the end of the day, what this country needs, what the first responders deserve, what citizens should demand is that there’s a public safety broadband interoperable communication system built. … I can’t imagine that there’s one first responder who disagrees with me."

More Support Required to Fill Emergency Communication Gaps: "Limitations in communications for first responders rushing to a large-scale disaster, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks or Hurricane Katrina, continue to linger due in part to delays in the establishment of a federal emergency communications center, which would provide assistance in overcoming those obstacles, congressional investigators said Monday.

Federal agencies have worked to help equip local first responders to react to catastrophic events that could overwhelm their communications capacities, but limitations in collaboration and monitoring threaten to minimize federal contributions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in a report titled 'Emergency Communications: Vulnerabilities Remain and Limited Collaboration and Monitoring Hamper Federal Efforts.'"

Proposed alerting system sounds promising | Commercial Mobile Alert Service: "While considerable focus has been put on the need for better communications within the first-responder community, communications with the public being served and protected also needs considerable attention. In an increasingly mobile society, traditional alerting tools like the emergency broadcast system may not get the message to the growing number of people who rely almost solely on a handheld device to stay in touch with the world."

US, Britain testing new ways to coordinate battlefield communications and track combat troops: "British military officials are testing new technologies that they say will make operations with the United States and other coalition partners more efficient and responsive to threats.

More important, British officials say, they will be able to give a better accounting of troop locations on the battlefield, making for quicker action and avoiding friendly-fire incidents.

Brig. David Cullen, commander of the British 12th Mechanized Regiment, said this week that closing gaps between British and American systems is critical, especially given the complex operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Combat units need to exchange critical information, such as the location of improvised explosive devices, those roadside bombs that have become the insurgent's weapon of choice."

First-responder Communications Remain Vulnerable: "It will take more than the spectrum freed up by the DTV transition to fix the nation’s fractured first-responder communication systems. In a report to a Senate Commerce subcommittee, the Government Accountability Office provided a list of vulnerabilities, including antiquated phone lines, incompatibility between jurisdictions and facilities that won’t hold up under natural disasters.



“Continuity of communications, capacity, and interoperability are the primary areas of vulnerability in emergency communications that persist in communities across the country,” the report, based on six case studies, stated. 
"

Schools Find Role in National Emergency Communications Plan: "A school district in Colorado launched a new two-way radio training program for all school staff on Monday, and became the first in the nation to formally align its school safety plans with the Department of Homeland Security's vision for interoperable radio communications to improve coordination among agencies responding to emergencies.

At the all-day inaugural training workshop, Pueblo County School District 70 (D70) school principals learned how to effectively use two-way radio communications according to the National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP) and the Incident Command System (ICS)."

Seybold's take: It's time for public safety to present a unified plan: "While the new administration was being formed, including the new FCC, it may have appeared that not much was happening in Washington D.C. with public-safety communications. But in reality a lot of positive things were taking place within the public-safety community and with commercial network operators."

California Planning Statewide Public Safety Interoperable Communications Network: "On Monday, California's Public Safety Radio Strategic Planning Committee (PSRSPC), that's composed of state emergency responders, held a public meeting to kick off the strategic planning process for a statewide interoperable communications network to connect emergency responders. California's goal is to build a statewide interoperable communications network over the next 10 years that allows PSRSPC members to communicate between themselves as well as with local, tribal and federal partners."

DHS Takes Step Forward on Interoperability: "The first pilot demonstrations of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Unified Incident Command and Decision Support (UICDS) system have been completed, Science Applications International Corporation, San Diego, Calif., an engineering and systems integration firm serving as prime contractor on the project, reported late last week.

The first test demo was held April 29 in coordination with Virginia Emergency Operations Center (VEOC) in Richmond, Va. A follow-up testing event took place in late May.

UICDS, an information architecture blueprint for managing and sharing incident information across state and local jurisdictional lines and with DHS and other federal agencies, is sponsored by the Science and Technology Directorate of the US Department of Homeland Security."

DHS Announces Sites for Multi-Band Radio Pilot: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate today announced the 14 lead organizations for the upcoming pilot phase of testing and evaluation (T&E) for the Multi-Band Radio project. The pilots comprise the final phase of a three-part T&E process that includes laboratory testing, short-term demonstrations, and pilot projects."