BY GARY MacNAMARA
If you haven’t experienced it yet, you will. Some day, somewhere, as your department responds to an incident, it will be there. Beyond the perimeters, past the emergency response teams and hazmat teams, past the media, the police officers, the firefighters, and the crowds. It just may change how you respond and how successful the outcome.
What is ita new threat, gang, or crime trend? No. A new weapon, explosive, or hazardous material? No. It is the cellular telephone.
 (1) Controlling the disruptions caused by the use of frequencies during a critical incident has proven quite difficult given current rules and regulations. (Photo courtesy of ETGI.) |
With the increase in the use of cellular telephones, from 33.8 million in 1995 to 270.3 million in 2008, according to the Cellular Telephone Industry Association, emergency responders now more than ever are going to confront their use while responding to an incident. This applies not only to telephones but also to all cellular devicessym cards, wireless cards, and the myriad other devices using our frequencies. What you may also discover is how ill-prepared and ill-equipped we are to properly address threats and to safely resolve incidents involving the use of these devices.
Cellular devices have changed all our lives in so many ways. Some changes have caused other changes, such as new laws created to prevent driver distraction. New technology always seems to create the need for change. Sometimes that change is easy; other times, the resistance seems too strong.
Emergency response personnel as much as anyone else understand change. We should, because we have to adapt to it constantly. Even a small change can cause responders to react with a great change. We not only have to adapt to the direct change, but we also must prepare and plan for the secondary change. Although most people adapted and welcomed the advances of the Internet, investigators had to change and adapt to the secondary change of the Internet. Policies, evidence handling, and the new criminal charges were just some of those secondary changes. Then, after preparing and planning for the secondary change, we have to convince others that they themselves must change to prevent themselves from becoming victims of crime, by protecting themselves and their money, as a result of the original change.
Some people fear change, worrying about the unknown. Others resist change, fearing it will disrupt established processes or rules. The events of February 12, 2002, on the campus of Fairfield University in Connecticut revealed what can happen when there is resistance to change. The incident began when a former student entered a classroom, claimed to have a bomb, and refused to let anyone leave. It ended almost eight hours later when the subject released the final hostage of the original 28 and surrendered.
As the hostage negotiator, conducting my first negotiation, I remembered my training, “Isolate to negotiate.” It always looks so easy in the movies: Police respond, cut the phone lines, and control all communications with the subject. This was different. Could 27 students and a professor, held in the classroom, possibly mean 28 cell phones were in the classroom? Although the negotiations wouldn’t initially answer that question, they gradually revealed that whether it was one or 27 cell phones in that classroom, cell phones were a disruption and a hazard to the safety of the students held in the room and to the safety of the hundreds of responders outside the room trying to help. The threat from remote activation of a secondary device to firefighters and police officers staged nearby, along with students calling radio stations and the hostage taker himself calling the media, led to difficulties in handling the incident.
My first thought was to not worry about it. Cell phones in the classroom should be no problem. Cellular phones have been around since the 1970s; there must be a way to deal with them to isolate the suspect. Sure, there are no wires to cut, but law enforcement technology must have changed with the new cellular technology. There has to be something we can do to isolate the cell phones.
Was I wrong? Well, not exactly. The technology has changed; the rules haven’t. In fact, it appears that just as the technology has changed to allow for smaller, better, and longer-lasting cellular telephones, so has the technology designed to disrupt it changed. Just don’t try to use it. It appears the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has found the change difficult to handle.
The operation of transmitters designed to jam or block wireless communications, commonly referred to as multiple frequency disruptors (MFDs), is a violation of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (see 47 U.S.C. Sections 301, 302a, 333). The overall rule makes sense; we can’t allow anyone to shut down cell service. These regulations, however, prohibit local and state emergency responders from the procurement, possession, and operation of MFDs under any circumstances. If you need to disrupt cell service to protect children on a school bus, disrupt frequencies for fear a suspicious package in a shopping mall might contain an explosive set to detonate with a cell phone, or have a suspected hazardous material and fear cellular detonation, you cannot do so. These regulations don’t allow emergency services any exceptions. And don’t think the FCC won’t enforce the rule; it will. If you use a disruptor at an incident, thwarting the criminals and saving the victims, you can be fined for it.
Incidents all over the country show how the lack of efficient, safe, and effective ways to deal with cellular telephones in a crisis leaves emergency responders searching for other, more extreme, and often less safe ways to address these threats. The sound of axes, chain saws, and hydraulic cutting tools permanently cutting a five-foot swath of fiber optic cable to disable cellular communication is one such example from a real-life incident.
It is clear that the threats and risks to emergency responders during the response to more traditional crimes and incidents have been elevated because of the greater reliability on cellular communications, including school violence incidents and hazmat responses. The use of cellular equipment to detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) is as well-documented as the more common use for cellular communication.
And the threat is not just on the local level. Terrorists have used and can use radio communications and devices such as cell phones to coordinate attacks that terrorize the world. These have included hostage situations/takeovers (Mumbai, India, for example) and deadly attacks on public transportation (Madrid train bombings and London subway attacks, for example). Additional threats include the remote detonation of strategically placed improvised explosive devices (a suspicious package near a critical infrastructure or even a school bus).
Are there means to help emergency responders better prepare for some of the issues cellular devices create at critical incidents? Yes, according to Kevin Otto of Enforcement Technology Group Inc. (ETGI), a long-time partner and supporter of emergency responders: MFDs can be a solution. MFDs are designed to provide a managed, controlled, and directed area of disruption, allowing frequency containment at an incident. Fire trucks, barrier tape, and other perimeter controls can contain the crowds but not the frequencies.
A contained incident is the first step toward a safe, effective resolution. Uncontained incidents tend to expand, often affecting a larger area with potentially more victims for a longer period of time. The threat of activation of primary or secondary devices, or unintentional ignition by nonintrinsically safe radios and cellular phones, can enlarge a hot zone to unmanageable proportions. And, unlike more drastic steps responders often take to cut cell serviceincluding shutting down towers, which cuts service to a wide, uncontrolled areaMFDs only affect the transmission of wireless devices in the immediate area and can allow service to be immediately restored. Communications using devices that are connected to networks through wires such as landline telephones and public telephones, as well as computers with wired Internet connections, are not affected. And MFDs are designed to not interfere with the 434 MHz Public Safety Communications Frequency Band.
Some say that allowing emergency responders to use MFDs will result in the unregulated and expanded use by private entities and civilians, but they are already in use at some restaurants and movie theaters by owners who obtain them to restrict annoying phone calls. In October 2008, a Canadian police agency located an MFD in a vehicle occupied by a Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang supporter. “It’s ridiculous,” says Otto. “You can buy a disruptor on eBay®, but emergency responders are forbidden.”
Some also argue that disrupting the ability to use a cell phone during an emergency will limit others from making calls to provide further information to responders. MFDs are a tool for emergency responders. Every incident requires proper assessment to determine which tools will be successful for circumstances that present themselves. Having those tools available at an incident will help in the successful and safe outcome of an incident while limiting the amount of time service is disrupted.
Some even argue that MFD use should be limited to federal agencies responding to an incident. By nature, critical incidents are unpredictable and random, and initial response is almost always from state and local emergency responders, who are on-scene within minutes of the initial incident. Quick deployment and use of an MFD, after scene assessment, is essential for limiting expansion of an incident to cause more property damage and loss of life through remote activation. The incident commander must have the resources to accomplish this task at his disposal on-scene, to use as needed. To not have them will cause unnecessary and costly delays, leading to potentially more injury and loss of life.
What can emergency responders do? We can respond to these incidents and complain when we don’t have the proper tools, or we can listen to the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “We change, whether we like it or not.”
In early 2009, Fairfield (CT) Fire Department Assistant Chief Christopher Tracy, representing the fire service; Kevin Otto, providing technological insight; and I, representing law enforcement, began discussion and ultimately met with members of Senator (I-CT) Joseph Lieberman’s staff to discuss how to put forth legislation modifying these outdated regulations. The change appears to be starting, as a 2009 article written by Spencer S. Hsu in the Washington Post quoted a Lieberman spokeswoman as saying that the senator, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, plans to introduce legislation that would give law enforcement agencies “the tools they need to selectively jam” communications in the event of a terrorist attack.
It appears that change is coming, but it is not here yet. There are those, mostly in the communications sector, who fear this change. They believe it’s not needed, it’s too drastic, or that emergency responders are overexaggerating the problem. All of us in the emergency services need to actively push our legislators to support future legislation. Legislators need to hear from us; they need to know of incidents that could have been helped with such tools.
There are plenty of examples of how quickly change comes after a tragedy. Hopefully, this change will be different. Hopefully, this change will occur before the tragedy, providing a great example of how things really can change when emergency services, elected officials, and the private sector come together for public safety.
To support a change allowing emergency services to use MFDs or to share an incident where a disruptor would have been useful, send an E-mail to changetherule@sbcglobal.net.
GARY MacNAMARA is chairman of the Connecticut Department of Homeland Security Region 1 Training Committee and instructs on crisis response and school violence. He is the deputy chief of police in Fairfield, Connecticut, overseeing the Field Services Division. He has also served as a hostage negotiator and team commander. He has a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from the University of New Haven and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.
