Ummm, what about the rest of us? Large scale emergency preparations in the USA fell to the wayside long ago. Maybe the new satellite messaging features just starting to roll out would help, although I doubt they have been tested at scale with tens of millions of people trying to use them at the same time.
In this case the officials are being issued phones. Some companies issue phones to employees. If your job is critical during a catastrophic event then your company should issue you a satellite phone. Perhaps corporations could get bulk discounts. Each neighborhood's CERT team should maybe invest in at least one phone to text others.
Of course if they are planning for a full scale nuclear exchange then those options may be useless when the different layers of the atmosphere are charged. HAM radio operators or even CB radios may be more useful for local communications. Long distance would require a courier and a lot of bottle caps. I have no idea what they are actually planning for. Perhaps EMP floated in on a few balloons that takes out power continent wide? Overload of the power grid? [1] Halting all petroleum imports and re-shuffling the locally produced fuel transport networks? Go 100% green in 2024?
The article said:
> The devices are part of a series of new security measures being offered to senators by the Senate Sergeant at Arms, who took over shortly after the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
I assume they figure that the next insurrection may involve the loss of cellular communications, which is reasonable to expect from a decent coup attempt. The authorities might plan on jamming cell phones themselves, want to deprive the insurgents that communication channel.
They had every opportunity to improve the situation by having the nation guard present. They were offered and declined. That small contingency of capitol police would have be overwhelmed by a Walmart super-sale stampede and it was not fair to make them absorb the known incoming riot. That is why it does not surprise me that the police let many of the rioters in without resistance on one side of the building. Those that resisted were easily overwhelmed. If anything I feel bad for those cops that were put in harms way. The incident was avoidable or at very least the national guard could have quickly asserted control. It was also not cool making the national guard members sleep in a cold parking garage. Most guard members were not dressed for sleeping in a garage in 20-30F weather.
I would assume that the circumstances around the deployment of National Guard are being looked at, also. The article didn't comment on this, they were talking about satellite phones. And satellite phones would still be useful in situations, such as what happened January 6, even if the national guard were present.
Maybe it would be useful for a minute to the congressional folks on the upper floors. I would be surprised if either satellite or plain cellular would work at all in the hallway effectively a tunnel they were escorted to. Maybe cellular-over-wifi would work. Adding to this every office in the capitol building has a hard wired multi-line desk speaker phone.
All logistical communications would be by UHF trunked and P25 encrypted 2-way radios by capitol police assuming they were on the tactical channels. Their radios can also operate point-to-point without the need for a repeater. Politicians would be instructed to end their call and "Come this way".
Where cellphones would have been useful is if everyone started recording video and put their phones in shirt or pants pockets to act like body cameras.
I assume the security folks wanted to make them (the representatives) more secure in general, including having better communications, based on a review of January 6, and in some scenarios satellite phones would be useful. Like if they had to be evacuated, etc. Do you disagree?
I still think the phones are for something else entirely.
So the phone may have been prompted by January 6, but were not necessarily intended for January 6 scenarios. For example, I assume these phones might come in handy if hackers or saboteurs took out or jammed the cell phone network while terrorists somewhere set off a tactical nuke, etc. It seems remiss not to have the infrastructure set up before hand. Senators using police radios may not be as secure as having communications prepared for them in advance, even if not perfect. Just in case.
Is that what you meant when you said that you thought the phones were for something else?
Several people were seriously injured in the January 6 incident/riot/insurrection. 138 police officers were officially injured in the line of duty on that day and they caused 2.7 million dollars in damages.
There are multiple death’s associated with the event though only the single death of a rioter by gunshot wound is a direct result of physical conflict. Still that’s far more than just some broken windows.
If the public wanted security and sustainability it should have acted less like a drunk in a whore house.
Creating a robust, well-tested emergency satellite comms system that nobody uses day to day costs a lot of money to develop and maintain…and nobody wants to pay for that.
I assume it would be relatively straightforward to onboard another part of government assuming existing awards, based on my experience with US government contracting.
https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/586ca912-a43c-d9a3-fbd...
Not really. The preparations have shifted a little. It seems the government doesn't want to really encourage individuals to prepare the same way it did during the cold War, and to a certain point many individuals wouldn't care to anyways. I'd imagine a lot of that is to increase the reliance in the government and limit the number of people who have the resources to radicalize.
The government still stockpiles emergency response medications and has plans to distribute them. FEMA has all sorts of resources including COWs (cell on wheels) for communication. But really, communications are secondary for ordinary citizens. You'll still have emergency services who can communicate, hams (including RACE), and stuff like that. They're more worried about food, water, shelter, meds, and order.
On the personal side, we can just look at early covid. People were freaking out and panick buying. It wasn't a big deal for my family. We were raised to have about 2-4 weeks worth of food on hand and just rotate your stock as you buy new stuff. Whether it's a pandemic, storm, production issue, or attack, it's pretty good advice. It can even help if you lose your income suddenly.
After all in many emergencies the people you want to talk are local and likely don't have a sat phone.
Most cities have radio nets where they go over emergency plans for whatever earthquake/storm/fire emergencies are relevant. Often they help out with local events like bike/horse/marathon races that go outside the bounds of cell reception.
Like, who are you going to call. Their phones are not working either.
You will have to fight for your country. / s