Thanks to Rey for another well-written piece. His background gives him a special expertise in addressing this subject.
The recent assassination attempt on President Trump and the subsequent House and Senate Committee Hearings have, once again, brought home my clear understanding of government and bureaucracy incompetence, intentional deceit and fuckery. Two specific topics of discussion during the hearings about the US Secret Service (USSS) failures on July 13 centered around internet access (an inoperable USSS drone, even though the shooter was able to operate his own) and radio communications interoperability within Federal, State and local agencies in the command-and-control structure of this event. Not very versed on WiFi bandwith internet operations, I’ll simply say, there’s internet in Butler Pennsylvania. Heck, I bet you Myr’s truck has a hot spot connection he can use while traveling. The latter, command and control, I can speak (write) about with some experience.
For years now, the National Incident Management System, has been a mainstay in government and private endeavors. One of its components is the Incident Command System (ICS), a standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response, providing a common hierarchy within which responders from multiple agencies can be effective. ICS was initially developed to address problems of inter-agency responses to wildfires in California but is now a component where it has evolved into use in all-hazardous situations, ranging from active shootings to hazmat scenes. In addition, ICS has acted as a pattern for similar approaches in business and logistics. ICS consists of a standard management hierarchy (picture a military, Law Enforcement or business table of organization) and procedures for managing temporary incidents of any size. Established procedures create a form of temporary management hierarchies to control funds, personnel, facilities, equipment, and communications. ICS is a system designed to be used or applied at the onset of a planned event, from the time an incident occurs and runs until the requirement for management and operations no longer exist. It is designed to meet command and management challenges such as:
- It expands or contracts as needed.
- Allows personnel from a wide variety of agencies to meld rapidly into a common management structure with common terminology.
Provides logistical and administrative support to operational staff.
- Be cost effective by avoiding duplication of efforts.
- Provide a unified, centrally authorized emergency organization.
I wont bore you with more yada, yada explanations but think of a hurricane, tornado, train derailment, high-profile dignitary campaign speech (in/outdoors) a Steve Jobs address to the workforce masses, a major power outage. ICS is your go-to. Closer to you, think of your City/County Emergency Operations Center, where all community services gather under one roof to receive reports, make decisions, deploy resources and pass on pertinent information; a Command Post.
Now, all this brings me back to the radio communications interoperability nonsense, troubling and dishonest excuse that was (not) in place on July 13, as revealed by the Acting SS Director.
Minimally (at bare minimum), a temporary exchange of radios between agencies, specifically those that were unable to be, or better said, not allowed to be in the USSS command post (because we’re the SS and you don’t belong here), would have suffice. And for those of you who have that military background, where were the runners? You know, those designated runners that relayed battle information, via Jeep, horseback, feet, to the boss behind the lines in the command post.
It bothers me some the incompetence, uselessness, and failures displayed on that day, not to mention the secured venue and outlying unsecured visible threat points not mitigated and clearly missed or intentionally disregarded. And unfortunately, none of our elected committee members in the hearings delved in to such point of matter.
That is all. Talk amongst yourselves
