public safety

Smart Grid Privacy And Security Risks Loom For Agencies

By


The effort to modernize America’s electric grid is well underway, with nearly $8 billion in federal funding since 2009 and states across the country hastening to deploy everything from electronic smart meters for homes to regional sensors capable of detecting and responding to power outages.

But major privacy and security problems for the smart grid effort could be on the horizon and present a host of challenges to federal agencies, according to multiple smart grid technology and policy experts. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 4, 2011 at 10:30 AM

High Tech Van Gives Enforcement Agents Network Access From Just About Anywhere

By

While the White House and Congress squared-off last month on how best to solve the problems facing first responder communications, a team of IT experts at McLean, Va.-based MorganFranklin unveiled a new mobile communications vehicle that is already helping a major component of the Department of Homeland Security operate in places where IT infrastructure either does not reach or does not exist.

In an exclusive tour of the new Mobile Communications Vehicle, designed to custom specifications for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), the team at MorganFranklin showed Breaking Gov how they have integrated a wide variety of IT and communications systems to effectively expand the agency’s enterprise network to any geographic location in which it needs to operate – even those where there is little or no infrastructure in place. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 1, 2011 at 11:01 AM

Budget Crisis Threatens DHS Tech Innovation

By

If the fiscal 2012 Homeland Security Appropriations bill now under consideration in the Senate becomes law, it would slash research and development funding by 81%, effectively ending the Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate’s ability to innovate across a multitude of critical technology areas.

That’s the warning from Paul Benda, the newly-appointed Director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA). Keep reading →

 /  Published July 26, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Cyber Intelligence: Cyber Jihad

By

COMMENTARY:
The death of Osama bin Laden has brought new threats of retaliatory strikes–including threats in cyber space.

Al Qaeda has called upon lone-wolf terrorists to launch attacks against Britain and the West. Not only are they calling for traditional acts of terror but also for what they have termed a “cyber jihad.” Keep reading →

 /  Published July 25, 2011 at 10:01 AM

What’s Your Social Media Plan If Disaster Strikes?

By

Federal agencies are embracing social media as an increasingly common way to interact with the public. Yet, a critical consideration that is often overlooked by agency officials is how social media will be incorporated in disaster and emergency preparedness plans. If your agency hasn’t fully developed a social media plan for disaster preparedness scenarios, it’s time to add it to your priority “to do” list!

Information about practically everything – both factual and wildly inaccurate – now travels around the globe literally in minutes, through new communication tools – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, to name a few. In a natural or manmade disaster, if you don’t reach out to the public with the facts quickly, someone else will get there with rumor – and as we all know, misinformation can cause havoc, create panic, and potentially increase danger to those at risk who we want to protect. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 20, 2011 at 9:00 AM

Battle For Public Safety Airwaves Rages On A Decade After 9/11

By


The fight to obtain additional wireless communications spectrum capable of providing police, firemen and emergency managers with the same capabilities most 15 year-olds have on their smart phones has been ongoing since the attacks of September 11, 2001, when outdated radios prevented firefighters and police from communicating evacuation orders. Hundreds died because they could not hear those orders.

And while little has changed in the decade since then, the Obama Administration last month publicly announced its support to transfer a swath of wireless spectrum known as the D block to first responder agencies for the purpose of building a nationwide, interoperable wireless public safety network – a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 19, 2011 at 2:01 PM

McCain Proffers New Cyber Security Committee

By

On Capitol Hill, your committee is only as powerful as what it oversees. And with cybersecurity one of the biggest issues going nowadays, lawmakers are falling all over themselves to get a piece of that pie.

Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-AZ) made his play during today’s confirmation hearing for DoD’s new global strategic affairs chief Madelyn Creedon (as reported initially on Breaking Defense. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 19, 2011 at 2:00 PM

Cyber Intelligence: Well Beyond News of the World

By

COMMENTARY:
The phone hacking scandal in Britain has captured the attention of millions around the world and continues to expand rapidly, with implications now for Scotland Yard and no apparent end in sight.

One knowledgeable source we know said “The ripples that are just now hitting the shores in the U.S. are likely to turn into a tsunami.” Keep reading →

 /  Published July 18, 2011 at 12:00 PM

Battle For Public Safety Airwaves Rages On A Decade After 9/11

By

The fight to obtain additional wireless communications spectrum capable of providing police, firemen and emergency managers with the same capabilities most 15 year-olds have on their smart phones has been ongoing since the attacks of September 11, 2001, when outdated radios prevented firefighters and police from communicating evacuation orders. Hundreds died because they could not hear those orders.

And while little has changed in the decade since then, the Obama Administration last month publicly announced its support to transfer a swath of wireless spectrum known as the D block to first responder agencies for the purpose of building a nationwide, interoperable wireless public safety network – a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.

The decision puts the White House squarely at odds with a powerful faction of wireless companies that continue to pressure Congress for a public auction of the available spectrum. Those companies argue the spectrum is critical to American competitiveness in an increasingly wireless world and a sale would raise an estimated $28 billion that could be applied to deficit reduction. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 14, 2011 at 3:00 PM

Disaster Management: Lessons from the Japanese Nuclear Meltdown

By

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a plan for any kind of disaster. It starts with getting to the scene as quickly as possible.

So when an earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan and devastated parts of the country on March 11, NRC’s first two experts were on the ground in Japan within 48 hours, ready to help. Many more emergency responders followed them. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 13, 2011 at 1:00 PM
Page 3 of 41234