Post-9/11 DOJ Tech Project Dying After 10 Years?

gManZboy writes "A secure, interoperable radio network that the Department of Justice has been working on for more than a decade and that has cost the agency $356 million may be headed for failure, according to a new report by the agency's inspector general. Called for in the wake of 9/11, the Integrated Wireless Network (IWS) project has already been repeatedly scaled back. Today, the Department of Justice continues to rely on several separate land mobile radio systems, some of which are unreliable, obsolete, and fail to interoperate with one another. Agents often have to swap radios, share channels, or refer to a book of radio frequencies and manually switch between those frequencies to stay online. Radios remain insecure, as much of the current equipment fails to meet encryption requirements. Much of the agency's equipment is more than 15 years old and is no longer even supported by the manufacturer."

Comments

The point was to employ contractors

[Gothmolly]

The point was NOT to create a secure, interoperable radio network. The purpose of the plan was to create legions of (somehow) "successful" project managers and government hangers-on with quasi-governmental authority, and pump money into those organizations in return for future favors. Whether or not it produced anything was irrelevant. Around 9/11 there's so much fearmongering that nobody will say no.

Re:The point was to employ contractors

[Anonymous Coward]

By and large, the 'public' doesn't have access to police communications; you must hang out with a different class of people. And which burglars DO you know? They aren't the ones doing most of crime in most of the cities where it's smash and grab.

Oh, and guardians of freedom, the press? Give me a break. $356M is a lot of money to me, but to those who perpetrated the largest transfer of wealth in history, that would be Bush/Cheney Inc., $356M is mice nutz, and the press did everything but crawl in bed with the bastards. We don't have a Congress, much less a 4th estate, that qualifies, in general, as guardians of freedom.

Hey, send some of whatever you're smokin' to my hood, and I'll see if I can pass it out to all the police scanner wielding guardians of freedom I meet up with after they've attributed the latest National Intelligence Assessment to sources who can't be named.

BTW I worked on a partnership/proposal with Northrop Grumman to deliver hardware for the secure, private 1st responder network that was supposed to blanket Manhattan with a 2.4 Ghz Wifi based mobile communications network. 'We' came, we spoke, we left... I've spoken w/ people in several technical camps who believe that the biggest impediment are entrenched contractors, like Motorola, but I'm convinced that only satellite based system makes any sense, anyway. Because in the event of a large scale disaster, there's no way to ensure the integrity of enough of the infrastructure so that the communications load would be reliable. On top of which, you'd still have to have the means by which each of the various groups would be able to take turns speaking without stepping on each other... who's gonna lead/follow or get out of the way?

There's no AWAC in the sky or central command, and there's no way to practice for the 'big one.' So it's no surprise there's been -0.0- progress on this Applepeye-in-the-Sky project. Besides, if we wait long enough, the Chinese will implement a system that we can buy from Walmart.

Re:The point was to employ contractors

[timeOday]

The purpose of the plan was to create legions of (somehow) "successful" project managers and government hangers-on with quasi-governmental authority, and pump money into those organizations in return for future favors.

In that case, the project failed, because it was originally planned at $5BN, and only 1/15th of that was spent on it. And of that, according to the article, "Much of the funding for IWN at the time went instead to maintain creaky legacy systems."

In other words, they backed down from the plan, and fell back on supporting the status quo. Which is kind of sad, but maybe it wasn't worth $5BN and we should be glad support was withdrawn.

Surprised?

[ks*nut]

And how is this any different than any of the programs that followed 9/11? TSA is trampling roughshod over travelers' rights, the Department of Homeland Security is a bloated farce, and the individual's basic rights under the Constitution have been eroded. To say nothing of the years of rendition flights, wars, and torture. I'm certainly glad that we're the "good guys." I wonder what the "bad guys" have been up to.

Opt for both.

[khasim]

For day to day police operations, the system should be able to handle unencrypted traffic.

Because adding encryption means an additional layer that can go wrong and thus necessitates a 2nd channel for the support people to use to try to fix the primary (encrypted) channel.

And have encryption an option for the times when you REALLY need it. And have frequent tests of it to make sure that everyone knows how to enable it.

But I'm more in agreement with the GP post. This wasn't really about a working radio system. It was about moving public money to private businesses. The WTC attack and the fear were just the excuses used. IF a working product was delivered ... wow! If not, at least your buddies collected their share of the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in this project.

Re:Is it sad

[Pharmboy]

And if you add that dollar to the $1.33 for Solyndra, and the dollars for all the other failures, pretty soon you have enough money for a nice bottle of Scotch for every man, woman and child, which is a good thing because this pissing away my money is definitely driving me to drinking.

Re:This just in! Government wastes nearly a half b

[artor3]

And you think they want to go away? Of course not. They try their best, and still occasionally fail. But when the government does the same, we're supposed to view it as this evil thing that needs to be torn down.

People who want the government to shrivel up and die hold it to an impossibly high standard, all so that they have a pretense to bring it down.

Ham Radio

[thephydes]

Thank God for Ham Radio - all volunteers, most likely all patriots in time of great need, all providing gear of various levels of sophistication at no cost to the public.