[Infowarrior] - NYPD wants tech to disrupt wireless communications

[Richard Forno]

NYPD wants tech to disrupt wireless communications
RAW STORY
Published: Thursday January 8, 2009

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/NYPD_wants_tech_to_disrupt_wireless_0108.html

In a Thursday testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland  
Security and Governmental Affairs, New York City Police Commissioner  
Raymond Kelly revealed that his department is seeking technology that  
can disrupt cell phone and other wireless communications in the event  
of a crisis.

Kelly also said that in such events as a mass casualty attack on  
American soil, the media can pose a threat by revealing key police  
tactics, which could be relayed to said attackers.

Later in his testimony, Kelly revealed that the New York harbor is  
vulnerable to attack. He also emphasized his wish to see wiretap  
warrant requests to the FISA court expedited.

This movement by the department comes on the heels of the "relative  
simplicity of this attack" in Mumbai, where "10 people with basic  
weapons" managed to wreak bloody havoc in the city for three days,  
Kelly said.

"Public-private interactions are crucial and must be developed before  
an incident occurs," Charles Allen, intelligence chief at the  
Department of Homeland Security, told the Senate committee. "Target  
knowledge was paramount to the effectiveness of the attack" in Mumbai.

Allen emphasized that shopping malls should have evacuation plans.

A deceptively-simple tool, the cell phone, was also put to deadly  
effect by the Mumbai attackers, Kelly reminded.

Transcripts of intercepted telephone calls showed that the militants  
used the mobile devices to keep up to date on law enforcement's  
advances and to receive encouragement for their bloody rampage.

"When lives are at stake, law enforcement needs to find ways to  
disrupt cell phones and other communications in a pinpointed way  
against terrorists who are using them," he suggested.

"I think what we take away from this is a very sober thought that soft  
targets can create, for political effect, exactly what extremists  
want," Allen added.

He recalled alleged links between Lashkar-e-Taiba and Al-Qaeda,  
warning that "informal linkages go back between Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e- 
Taiba, and that should give us something to worry about as well."

With wire reports.