Watchdogs: Terrorists, Telephones and Tolls

A pack of government and private watchdogs have separately set their oversight eyes on America's telecommunications industries. They are concerned about everything from how terrorist cyber attacks might ravage the country and our post-9/11 failures to improve emergency communications to cell phone companies potentially charging excessive fees.

This week, the non-governmental Bipartisan Policy Center ran a "war game" in Washington, D.C., to consider how the federal government could react to a cyber attack.

In January, 2003, the "Slammer" computer worm crippled Bank of America ATMs, Continental Airlines, and Seattle's 911 network.

In August, 2008, Russia's "first strike" in its invasion of the neighboring country of Georgia launched massive cyber attacks on Georgia's government Web sites and Internet communications.

And last month, Chinese computer hackers stole data from Google and 30 other major international companies.

BPC's war game focused on revealing how our leaders could react to a successful cyber attack. Its role-playing participants included former high-profile executives from the White House, CIA, Homeland Security, Congress and the Justice Department. The cost of the war game run at a D.C. hotel was shared by BPC, private and academic donors.

Michael V. Hayden, former CIA director and the chief architect of the war game simulation, told The Washington Post: "We were trying to tee up specific issues that would be digestible so they would become the building blocks of a broader, more comprehensive cyber strategy."

All the analyses of BPC's war game have not yet been published, but what appears to have emerged from the simulation is a sense of confusion about not only what our leaders might do, but what they might legally be able to do as they respond to a cyber warfare emergency.

Problems in responding to terrorist attacks and other emergencies are not confined to White House policy, command and control levels. The chaos of 9/11 revealed our first responders -- police, firemen, and EMS personnel on the street -- struggle to communicate with each other.

Now, the Center for Public Integrity -- working with the Center for Investigative Reporting -- has found that though more than $4.3 billion federal dollars were spent between 2004 and 2008 to improve "interoperability" among first responders nationwide -- more than any other Department of Homeland Security program -- Motorola and other contractors may well have benefited more than our first responders, and much of the money has been poorly managed.

Even without any dubious purchases, the problem seems to be that most of the money has been spent on hardware, while planning and organization -- less tangible changes -- are lagging far behind.

Of more "private" concern to Americans, the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week sent letters to 24 telecommunication companies seeking information on allegations of "traffic pumping schemes." The Committee is investigating whether current cell phone rate structures might create incentives for companies to charge excessive rates for completing calls.