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We recognize, and I know that's not hyperbole, the bravery to say simply putting on that
shield and your troops going out there every single day putting their
lives the line.
We're also giving the resources to finally deploy a wireless nationwide public safety network .
Building this kind of network was going to prevent the kind of communications failures that
happened on 9/11 firefighters and police couldn't talk to each other and
5 years later in Katrina same lesson was pounded home again in a literal and
a figurative sense. So now instead of operating outdated radios on different
bandwidths and frequencies, you're gonna have the option of using a fully interoperable
nationwide network that's gonna allow you the latest technology and best . . . and best
possibility of coordinating your capabilities
You're gonna be able do things you should have been able to a decade ago.
You know in Maryland ah... we uh... and is, particularly in Baltimore
uh... we pride ourselves on being the place that without a Federal
Government the back us up, with our Nation's Capital burned to the ground
we hung strong and and defended the Star Spangled Banner and America's liberty.
So, in Maryland we've been doing homeland security since 1814.
And given our proximity to the Nation's Capital we've always felt a very personal
responsibility and imperative to be leaders in homeland security and that's
why for the last 10 years, since those uh... uh... tragic attacks we have
been driving to achieve 12 goals in our State. Number one 10 years ago, number one today
is interoperable communications both in terms of radio communications as well as
our ability to communicate information over broadband to the field.
Already to-date we have regional interoperability solutions on an
interim basis for 23 of our 26 jurisdictions regionally across 4 or 5 regions
with final regional at last count is coming online by the end of the year.
But, there's so much more to do and that is why I am so excited
uh... by President Obama's, not only by his vision, but by his action plan by
the commitment that he's made to actually deliver this result 10 years after
the attacks of September 11th of having interoperable communications and
broadband for all our first responders .
Interoperability is not only critical for the coordination, communication,
cooperation necessary to attack the public safety threat, it's essential to
protect of public safety force .