Rockefeller: Nationwide Wireless Network Needed for First Responders in Event of Attacks, Disaster
The State Journal 07/02/11
Rockefeller was joined at the West Virginia Summit on Homeland Security by Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., on Wednesday used the occasion of the fourth annual West Virginia Summit on Homeland Security to urge Congress to enact the proposed Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act.
The new law would create a nationwide, interoperable wireless network for first responders in disaster response and terror attacks.
“What the world calls for, what the country calls for, is a fully integrated national broadband,” Rockefeller said at a news conference near the end of the first day of the two-day conference.
Rockefeller said the act would allow the government to acquire unused parts of the telecommunications spectrum that are now held by private companies.
Emergency communications was one focus of the conference, with others being critical infrastructure needs and cyber security.
Rockefeller called cyber warfare “the largest threat to this nation’s security.”
Rockefeller was joined at the news conference by Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano said the two-day security conference brings together a large group of security people who can learn from one another. She said Americans need to be “alert but not alarmed” in matters of national security.
She dismissed idea that some security measures, such as full-body scanners at airports, have gone too far.
“Those are directly related to threats that we have had and what we have received,” she said, listing the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber and the explosive parcels from Yemen as examples.
After the news conference, Rockefeller addressed the concerns over airport security.
“There are a lot of horror stories. A lot of them are untrue,” he said. Those that are true resulted from steps taken in response to threats, he said.
The summit continues Thursday, June 2. Participants include first responders, school officials, scientists, health experts, private sector security experts and government officials.
