< 8 Ready to rumble? party line for responders. Incident commanders on the scene can communicate with other emergency personnel across multiple agencies without having to route their communications through multiple dispatch headquarters. The MERA system also allows responders who come in from outside the county, such as the California Highway Patrol and firefighters with the California Department of Forestry, to get patched into the Marin system. “In essence,” says Cassingham, “this is the county’s 911 system. It’s radio communications between the [25] member agencies and their mutual aid partners. The system ensures interagency communications through a system of base radio and receiver sites that provide communications among the dispatch centers and mobile units throughout the county.” It was a gangbuster idea, but when the MERA ship went out on its initial cruise, things didn’t go smoothly. A wicked winter storm hit Marin on New Year’s weekend
< 9 Behind the Sun That’s not how they do it anymore. But we knew this! George Bush is living on another planet with his missile shield while he ignores these other things... We knew about this for years and we didn’t respond. I had a bill a few years ago to take money out of the missile shield and give it to the FBI for counterterrorism and I lost the vote. How far do we go to deal with the threat? A columnist in the ‘Wall Street Journal,’ Mark Helprin, suggests that we become, basically, an armed camp. Twenty aircraft carrier battle groups rather than 10, triple the number of Marines, vastly expand the infantry and air force. Become a garrison state. Is there much sentiment for that? Right now we’re dealing with finding the appropriate response to this act. It’s a global struggle. Having carrier groups may or may not be the way to smoke out this terror. My own thinking is that one of the biggest investments we have to make is in human intelligence. If somebody wants to walk into a public place with a bomb strapped on them, a carrier group doesn’t help. The other day... Wait a minute, one more thing. One reason we may need more physical presence around the world is that some of these moderate Muslim countries are going to need our protection against the extremist elements that are attacking them. Isn’t it also true that some of the Muslim countries struggling against extremists have brought it on themselves? Grinding poverty in these countries has fed the flames of Islamic militancy. Do we want to prop up a regime that is creating a breeding ground for terrorism, sending them weapons... 10 PACIFIC SUN SEPTEMBER 9 - SEPTEMBER 15, 2011
2006, causing not only $100 million in damage across the county, but also the MERA system to flounder. Emergency personnel who tried to use the $25 million radio system encountered frequent busy signals. “Police and fire calls in essence flooded the system,” says Cassingham, “and that bounced most of the [departments of pubic works] communications out of the system.” Part of the reason was that planners thought it would be another 10 years before the system would see such a heavy communications volume. “That was the incident that determined we needed something immediately in terms of procedures to make sure that didn’t happen again,” says Cassingham. After that 2006 storm, MERA developed a VHF frequency overlay that could serve as an emergency backup for the system. That safety net provided some insurance while the joint powers agency began a difficult process of seeking additional frequencies and receiving FCC approval to join those new frequencies to the MERA system.
MERA ended up adding five additional frequencies, which were completed at the end of 2010. “At this point, we can’t imagine a circumstance that would cause an overload to the system again,” says Cassingham, “but we now have [the VHF overlay] should that happen. The five frequencies cost the member agencies about $1.5 million, including the installation.” While that should provide some reassurance for Marin residents, the wider issue of interoperability on emergency responder frequencies across the nation may cause some concern. Cassingham says MERA currently is engaged in an assessment of future needs for the system. The present technology should be good for another six to eight years. It’s not too early to plan for the next generation radio system, given the complexity of the technology and the regulatory world, not to mention the political brawls taking place in Congress. “We’re looking at what everybody’s looking at: 700 mega-
hertz,” says Cassingham. In June, the Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill with the ominous identification of S.911. Last year, many people who follow communications policy in general and the FCC in particular, thought the federal agency was ready to auction what’s called the D-Block broadband spectrum to commercial operators. But publicsafety advocates applied enough lobbying pressure to halt the expected auction of the 700-megahertz D-Block spectrum. That led to S.911, sponsored by Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., and co-sponsored by ranking member Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas. The idea behind the bill focuses on giving 700 megahertz of D-Block to emergency responders to form a national interconnected network for state, county and city emergency responders. The value is estimated at about $10 billion. The bill proposes to recoup that cost by auctioning a spectrum reallocated from television broadcasters.
I didn’t say sending them weapons. I said making sure they aren’t attacked because they helped us. But you make a very good point. Clearly these governments would be stronger if they had some elements of social justice and democracy about them.
so that we don’t risk turning ourselves into a police state? I don’t see that coming. We’re faced with a set of challenges; we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. We have to root this out but we can’t give up our way of life.
interpretation of religion. However, having said that, there’s no doubt that people can recruit others to their cause if they have no life, if they have no hope. I’ve always believed that the way to be a world leader that is admired and respected and loved is to help people. I’m a big believer in the Peace Corps and micro-loans and helping people get on their feet. I certainly believe that for us to have an excellent foreign policy that doesn’t isolate us we can’t just say that all we’re going to do is hunt down terrorists. That’s why I’m going to have my hearings on the roots of terrorism. If it’s a twisted version of religion, that’s a worse problem than if it’s poverty because that’s a situation we can do something about.
Learning who the 19 terrorists were junks the old view that people who do this are psychotic or unbalanced. These people were focused and determined, just like any soldiers who give their lives for what they believe to be a higher cause. So to describe these terrorists as crazy may not be accurate, right? I agree. That’s why we have a tremendous job because we need to go back to the very basic reverence for human life. We have to turn to our religious leaders of all faiths where the basic message is not to hurt other people. That powerful message has to somehow get through. It won’t be easy. Robert Reich, Clinton’s former secretary of labor, said on NPR that Americans will willingly trade some of their freedom and privacy for more security. He spoke of universal ID cards with computer chips that must be used to access large buildings and airports, and ID cameras that match your face to the card. Are we headed that way? I hadn’t heard of that but we do need to know that travel by air is going to be quite different. On the larger question, my view is that if we give up our basic freedoms, they win. I still go back to the fact that the most important thing is to have human intelligence to penetrate these terrorist cells. I’m worried about people who may be already in this country and be planning some other thing. You’re reasonably certain that there are enough sane voices in Washington
It’s remarkable how America’s image has changed in the Middle East. In 1973 Nixon went to Egypt and was welcomed by cheering crowds. Now people there are of two minds. They love McDonald’s and Michael Jordan but there is a growing undercurrent of rage. We’re so rich and they’re so poor. Plus, the continued presence of American troops on Islamic holy soil in Saudi Arabia is a hateful situation to devout Muslims. It’s not just a few crazy terrorists who wish the military would go home; it’s an affront to their religion. The government of Saudi Arabia wants us there. We deal with governments; we don’t take public opinion polls. When the terrorists are gone, we’ll be gone. The government wants us there because they’re fearful of retribution, so we’re there. We have no choice but to deal with governments. If people are upset they need to take it up with their government, with the United Nations and elsewhere. The United States has immense wealth, immense conventional military power and uses an immensely disproportionate share of the earth’s natural resources. Some nations are desperately poor. Do we believe that this condition can continue indefinitely without danger to ourselves? Should we be thinking of this root cause of rage against us? I’ve never heard bin Laden say he hates us because we’re rich. Everything I’ve heard has been based on some fanatical
I’m interested to hear you say that because I get a sense that some people in Washington and elsewhere feel that this imbalance is just the way thing are: we’re rich, you’re poor, get used to it. If you dare to raise your heads up and make a fuss about it, we’ll just smack you back down. I wonder if that’s a feasible long-term policy. We can’t take care of every problem in the world. Let’s not overstate what we can do. But I think there are things we can do to help the world. I think we should. I think this would be a good time to do it. If we did this right, we would get people in the world to understand that while we do have problems in the world, they cannot be resolved by this kind of terrorism. If we were able to craft that message to the world, to get other countries to join us, that would be a good thing. Steve, you and I have known each other a long time; we’ve seen a lot of challenges confront this nation. This is an entirely different challenge; from totalitarianism to terrorism. We really have to come together; we can’t win if we’re divided. Email Jason at jwalsh@pacificsun.com. SEPTEMBER 9 - SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 PACIFIC SUN 10