[Scan-DC] Tech Daily Dose: January 2011 Archives

[Kenneth Fowler]

http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2011/01/?sms_ss=gmail&at_xt=4d3ab26034e8fe48%2C0


More than 10 years after 9/11, the U.S. Capitol Police still conducts
its daily operations on an analog, non-encrypted radio network that
can be effortlessly and legally monitored with a cheap police scanner.

For years, officers, management, and labor representatives have asked
Congress to upgrade the system, parts of which were built when Thomas
P. “Tip” O’Neil was the Speaker of the House.  It is so old that
replacement radios are hard to come by and repairing them is difficult
because many of the parts are no longer made.

This morning,  anyone listening in with a scanner would have heard
units responding to a “10-100”—the code for a potential hazardous
material incident or suspicious package—at the Capitol South Metro
Station.  They could have monitored routine responses to door alarms,
requests for assistance,  and redeployments around the Capitol
grounds. They would have heard an officer performing a routine
explosives sweep on the exterior of the Cannon House Office Building.

One channel, which has no encryption, is designated for use by the
department’s protective details.  Officers are careful to avoid using
the names of those they’re protecting, but the use of the channel to
alert others about the movements of the speaker of the House, majority
and minority leaders, and top whips from both chambers is itself a
gaping hole in a Swiss cheese of a system.  And alerts announcing each
vote on the Hill are broadcast on all channels.

When dignitaries, including the president and vice president, visit
the Capitol, listeners can track their movements, too, although the
officers are generally careful not to associate a charge's name with a
particular security detail.

As the police have expanded their protective perimeter, deploying
officers and barricades in a widening circle around the Capitol
complex, the officers manning those posts have begun using a sixth
digital channel that is often unencrypted.

The Capitol Police radio system is one of the only remaining federal
law-enforcement communications networks in Washington to have lagged
behind the rush to upgrade to a digital, more easily encrypted
standard.

Congress has spent tens of millions of dollars to install high-tech
vehicle-interdiction barriers; place chemical and biological sensors
around the grounds; train new K-9 officers; upgrade police cars; and
add protective, anti-blast coating to the windows of the Capitol
building. The police agency, which now fields 1,800 officers, even has
counterintelligence analysts.

“After the 1998 Capitol Hill shooting and September 11th tragedies,
the U.S. Capitol has struggled to become a fortress while still
remaining open to Americans as a Democratic institution,” said Ron
Bonjean, a former aide to several Republican leaders.  “Back then, we
only had a few officers at each public entrance.   Now we have a
highly secure complex with a visitor’s center meant to process the
public while keeping the unwanted at bay.”

An upgrade for the radio system has been in the works for five years,
but progress has been slow. The agency began to spec out a new system
in 2007 and 2008; Congress included money to speed up the project in
its $5.1 billion legislative-services budgets for 2010 and 2011.
President Obama added $71 million in his 2009 emergency war
supplemental and an additional $16 million for 2011.  Budget delays
have stalled some aspects of the upgrade, congressional officials
said, but it is on track to become operational by 2012.

Motorola, which has done work for many federal agencies, is building
the new radio system. When it's complete, dispatchers operating from
two sites (one located off-campus for emergencies) will have 13
encrypted digital channels that officers inside or near the Capitol
buildings will be able to access.

“I am concerned that we do not have what we need to have here. The
institution of the Congress is as important as the institution of the
presidency or the institution of the Supreme Court,” Rep. Dan Lungren,
then the ranking member of the House Administration subcommittee on
Capitol security, said at a 2008 hearing on the radio system.

“We are experiencing failures on a regular basis,” Capitol Police
Chief Phillip T. Morse testified at the hearing.  Radios were failing
and there were dead spots inside the 47 acre Capitol complex, which
contains numerous deep tunnels and rooms that radio signals can’t
penetrate. Interoperability—the ability of one police agency to
communicate with another—has been a constant challenge.

The chief of Washington's Metropolitan Police Department, Cathy
Lanier, testified that although Capitol Police radios could be patched
into her department’s more sophisticated systems, the cost would be
the loss of encryption. In 2003, the MPD went all-digital, and
regularly encrypts channels it uses for investigations, surveillance,
and presidential motorcades.

Lanier has reportedly argued in favor of encrypting the entire MPD
system.  The City of Alexandria has proposed providing officers
throughout the area with a common encryption “key,” which, depending
upon the dispatch systems used, would allow officers and agencies to
talk with each other but not be heard by the public.

The Capitol Police Command Center includes "full-time liaison
officers" from other agencies to help "facilitate emergency
communications and general operational awareness," according to a
Department of Homeland Security memo analyzing interoperability.

Full‐time liaison officers are202 assigned to the USCP Command Center
by the U.S. Supreme Court Police and the Metropolitan Police203
Department to facilitate emergency communications and general
operational awareness.to facilitate emergency communications and
general operational awareness.Alan Henney, who publishes a regional
scanner-hobbyist newsletter,  has noted that numerous police-radio
systems have become inaccessible to the public, which he says reduces
accountability. The ability to hear police officers respond to calls
has been an effective check on powers, he argues.  “I’ve heard few
examples of systems being monitored for malicious purposes,” Henney
said. “I’ve never heard of any of them being used for terrorism.”

For years, federal law-enforcement agencies communicated on radios
using virtually no encryption.  Henney remembers when the Secret
Service gradually upgraded and began encrypting its radios during the
1990s, although the encryption often failed. "We could hear what the
motorcade route was going to be," he said.

The Capitol Police monitor several new federal interoperability
frequencies and participate on a daily interoperability roll call on a
channel designated as “DC IO 1.”  Those channels tie together agencies
as diverse as the CIA’s perimeter guards and the DHS national
operations center.  They and others are used during major events, like
State of the Union addresses and National Special Security Events.
They have never been tested during a major emergency.

The Capitol Police did not respond to e-mails seeking comment.