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June 10, 2011 3:01 PM

Bloomy: Free Up Bandwidth For First Responders

BY JOSEPH STRAW

Mayor Bloomberg is urging Washington to move first response communications into the 21st Century, nearly a decade after old systems failed on 9/11.

Hizzoner backs a Senate bill that would reserve a block of radio spectrum for responders and set standards so they can talk and share data across different systems.

With the added bandwidth responders could call up maps, floor plans, and even live video feeds to speed rescues and evacuations, Bloomberg  wrote in a  letter to lawmakers.

Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) has cosponsored a companion bill that awaits House committee consideration.

Since 9/11 the New York Fire Department has added capacity to ensure signals reach firefighters inside buildings, even during heavy usage.

Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, has called the issue a “no brainer” and government’s biggest failure since the attacks.

The bill, which would place the network under government control, passed 21-4 in committee. Budget hawks want to auction spectrum to private industry for paid use by public safety agencies.

jstraw@nydailynews.com

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June 9, 2011 6:30 PM

Yemen Bad, U.S. Intel Good, WH Vet Says

BY JOSEPH STRAW

The U.S. must ensure that popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa don’t succeed only to have radical ideologues seize power, former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones said this week.
 
The U.S. needs to  “understand what’s going on under the waves in terms of trying to destabilize Egypt and turn it into another Pakistan, which a country like Yemen may become,” said Jones, adding ominously that it may “already be too late” to pull Yemen back from the precipice.
 
“Yemen is going to be a problem. It’s so chaotic that I don’t want to speculate how it’s going to come out,“ Jones said. “…This is going to be time where countries like Saudi Arabia and other countries are going to have to step up to the plate and do some of the things that traditionally we’ve done.”
 
The largely lawless Arab state was already a haven for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula when an attack last week severely wounded Yemeni President and half-hearted U.S. ally Ali Abdullah Saleh, sending him into effective exile in Saudi Arabia.
 
With Saleh’s government on the ropes, the U.S. has stepped up its air campaign against AQAP and allied rebels, The New York Times reported.
 
The former Marine Corps commandant, who retired form the Obama White House in October, pointed to 1970s Iran as a worst-case scenario. “They sure got a different kind of government, and 30 years later we’re still dealing with that situation,” Jones said at a conference held by Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.
 

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June 8, 2011 6:45 PM

9/11 First Responder Radio Bill Clears Committee

BY JOSEPH STRAW

The coming 10th anniversary of 9/11 may finally compel Congress to pass legislation devoting open radio spectrum to the nation’s first responders.
 
The Senate Science, Commerce and Transportation Committee, which oversees the nation’s radio frequency spectrum, Wednesday passed the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act, symbolically designated bill S. 911.
 
The legislation would allocate 10 MHz of open radio spectrum for first responders nationwide, and would require standards to guarantee that different agencies and jurisdictions with different radio systems can communicate.
 
Rep. Pete King (R-Nassau), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has cosponsored a companion House bill now in committee. He commended the Senate committee and urged leadership of the House Energy and Commerce committee to pass his bill so that final legislation can be passed by both houses and signed into law by Sept. 11.
 
Sen. Kristin Gillbrand (R-N.Y.) also welcomed the vote, calling it “a critical step in the effort to arm our first responders with the technology and resources they need to save lives.”
 
The 9/11 Commission found that an overwhelmed New York City Fire Department radio system may have compounded losses that day. Isolated firefighters climbing a stairwell in the World Trade Center’s north tower were mostly unaware the other tower had collapsed, and some may not have heard commanders' orders to evacuate on their radios.
 
Many U.S. police and fire agencies use radio systems licensed to operate in small, separated bands of radio frequency spectrum. They cannot handle the high-traffic generated by major events, nor can responders talk to other agencies with radios restricted to other bands.
 

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May 26, 2011 12:13 PM

Report: Decade-old War on Terror a "Stalemate"

By JOSEPH STRAW

A D.C. security thinktank has followed up Osama Bin Laden’s killing with a downer of a report on the U.S.-led fight against terror 10 years after 9/11.

The civilized world isn’t losing in its struggle against Al Qaeda and its allies, but it isn’t winning, either, according to the annual “Are We Winning?” report from the American Security Project.

“Regardless of the news headlines, the reality is that there is only one word to describe the ‘war on terror’ based on empirical data: stalemate,” wrote author Bernard I. Finel.

“Indeed, more than ever it is becoming clear that the best the United States can achieve is to reduce the threat of terrorism to a persistent nuisance that we accept as a fact of life,” the report states.

It cites pluses: evisceration of Core Al Qaeda leadership by Navy SEALs and CIA Predator drones alike, and improved international cooperation in counterterrorism.

Minuses include a continued increase in Islamist  terrorist incidents -- which ASP counted outside the war zones of Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and the Palestinian territories -- tracking consistently upward from 182 in 2004 to 849 last year.

ASP also cited an uptick in both anti-Islamic sentiment in the U.S. and growth in self-radicalization stateside, evidenced by cases like that of Times Square bomber Faisal Shahazad.

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