Lawmakers Eye DC Emergency Comm Infrastructure Upgrades After Jan. 6
Some House Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee members signaled interest during a Tuesday virtual hearing in beefing up first responders’ communications infrastructure around the National Mall, the Capitol Building and other federal facilities in Washington, in response to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Other members cited the need for improving foreign language speakers’ access to wireless emergency alerts and other public safety communications platforms, and pressed Federal Emergency Management Agency Director-Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Antwane Johnson on how that entity has implemented fixes to prevent a repeat of the 2018 false missile alert in Hawaii (see 1801160054). The Tuesday hearing was a follow-up to an October one that highlighted communications issues first responders continue to face 20 years after the Sept. 11 attacks (see 2110070059).
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“It is imperative that we continue to harden our technology and ensure our communication networks are resilient from all hazards,” said Emergency Preparedness Chair Val Demings, D-Fla.: “Inappropriate use of the system has shown to be an issue with the IPAWS system, contributing to panic and confusion” as happened during the 2018 Hawaii false alarm. “FirstNet has been widely praised by first responders for its reliability in emergency situations,” but “outages” are still possible as happened during the Dec. 25, 2020, Nashville bombing (see 2102100056), she said.
Emergency Preparedness’ previous hearing showed the emergency communications “needs of rural communities across the country are often overlooked,” said ranking member Kat Cammack, R-Fla. Rural communities “face many of the same challenges as larger, more urban communities,” but they're "also faced with additional challenges brought on by lack of available resources and funding.” The “cost of updating their current radio system is made even more difficult when we consider that more often than not, available grant funding is tailored toward larger communities,” she said.
Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, got strong backing from FirstNet CEO Ed Parkinson for “more permanent” telecom infrastructure for first responders at the Capitol and National Mall in response to the insurrection, as a way to prepare for future incidents. It’s “something we absolutely need” because “without it there’s a constant threat” that public safety entities “would not be able to have the communications capabilities” they need to respond to future incidents, Parkinson said. Additional fiber capacity in those areas “certainly would be a welcome asset.” FirstNet faced a major stress test during and after the insurrection, as the entity’s network was the only one found to work continuously throughout and after the incident, he said.
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, raised concerns about the extent to which IPAWS can accommodate emergency alerts for non-English speakers, noting citizens in his Houston-based district speak 80 different languages. It can be a “challenge when you don’t understand a language” that’s being used to communicate important information “when something is going on,” Green said. He cited an incident when he was riding a bus in Mexico, and he wasn’t immediately able to understand the driver’s Spanish language message to riders that the vehicle was out of service and that the replacement wasn’t going to be able to accommodate all the passengers.
IPAWS can issue alerts in Spanish and has the capacity to provide messages in a range of other languages, FEMA's Johnson said. But, most officials at alerting agencies “don’t possess language capability to craft those messages.” FEMA is working with the ECHO Minnesota-Twin Cities Public TV partnership to develop standardized alert and warning messages in languages spoken by Hmong and Somali immigrants and refugees in Minnesota, he said. The agency is hoping to develop downstream technologies to provide “on-the-fly” translation capabilities, but there’s still “huge distrust” in those capabilities within the emergency management and public safety communities.
The Department of Homeland Security has “learned a number of lessons” from the “unfortunate” 2018 Hawaii false alarm incident and acted to ensure it doesn’t happen again, Johnson said in response to a question from Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J. Those fixes include “revamping” its Emergency Management Institute training for alert system operators and emergency management leadership, plus requiring all alerting authorities to participate in monthly “proficiency demonstrations” to show their aptitude for using IPAWS systems. FEMA is also giving private sector app developers recommendations for improving tools used by the public safety community, most of which the developers are implementing despite them being voluntary, Johnson said.
The DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency is working with other federal agencies on potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities in next-generation 911 technologies, its Executive Assistant Director-Emergency Communications Billy Bob Brown said in response to a question from Demings. CISA has been eyeing how the introduction of text, video and other image messages to public safety answering points via next-generation-911 could lead to the possible “introduction of malware” into those systems. “If malware is introduced from the beginning in an image, in a video, in a text” to a PSAP or other 911 call center, there’s always the potential of cyberthreats to those interconnected government systems, he said.