More than a decade after its creation, agencies of the Homeland Security Department still are not able to effectively communicate with each other. A bill now awaiting the president’s signature would require DHS to create a strategy for interoperable communications.
Since its formation in 2003, the Homeland Security Department (DHS) has awarded $18.5 billion in grants to state and local governments to help them improve emergency communications so that first responders can talk with each other and share information. During that time the department has spent $430 million on its own communications equipment, infrastructure and maintenance.
Yet DHS components still are not able to effectively communicate with each other and its 22 component agencies remain a patchwork rather than a network.
Congress last month sent President Obama a bill that could help solve this problem. The DHS Interoperable Communications Act would make the department’s undersecretary for management responsible for seeing that all component agencies are—figuratively and literally—on the same channel. A plan for achieving this goal would be required, including milestones and deadlines for enabling common voice, data and video communications.
Public safety radio systems have grown ad hoc over the past 80 years, with little coordination or thought given to interoperability. The need for different agencies to be able to communicate with each other during an emergency was tragically illustrated in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the same incidents that spurred creation of DHS. A federal effort is underway to create a national first responder network, but the Government Accountability Office in 2012 reported that this remains “a distant goal.” This is not surprising, given that DHS has been unable to achieve this goal within a single department.
This failure was documented in a 2012 inspector general’s report, which found that although DHS had a goal of interoperable communications throughout the department, it did not provide effective oversight and the goal has never been a priority.
The problem is not a lack available technology, but a lack of communication by department management. Eighteen interoperable federal radio channels have been identified across government, including a common channel for DHS. In an examination by the IG, all of 479 radios tested were capable of interoperability. Yet only 1 of the 479 radio users could use the specified common channel. And only 20 percent of 382 radios examined had all the correct program settings for the common channel.
The IG recommended that DHS “create a structure with the necessary authority to ensure that the components achieve interoperability.” DHS demurred, saying it “believes it has already established a structure with the necessary authority…” In May of this year, however, a follow-up report from the IG found “corrective actions still needed.”
Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-NJ) introduced a bill in 2014 that would create the recommended structure in DHS, but it failed to make it through Congress. This year’s bill had more success and was sent to the president June 24.
It will be interesting to see if DHS can finally get itself organized to the point that agencies will be able to communicate with each other in an emergency. This would be a big step in turning the department from a patchwork to a network.