Capitol Police radios still not encrypted

More than 10 years after 9/11, the U.S. Capitol Police still conducts its daily operations on an analog, non-encrypted radio network that can be effortlessly and legally monitored with a cheap police scanner.

For years, officers, management, and labor representatives have asked Congress to upgrade the system, parts of which were built when Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neil was the Speaker of the House. It is so old that replacement radios are hard to come by and repairing them is difficult because many of the parts are no longer made.

This morning, anyone listening in with a scanner would have heard units responding to a "10-100"--the code for a potential hazardous material incident or suspicious package--at the Capitol South Metro Station. They could have monitored routine responses to door alarms, requests for assistance, and redeployments around the Capitol grounds. They would have heard an officer performing a routine explosives sweep on the exterior of the Cannon House Office Building.

One channel, which has no encryption, is designated for use by the department's protective details. Officers are careful to avoid using the names of those they're protecting, but the use of the channel to alert others about the movements of the speaker of the House, majority and minority leaders, and top whips from both chambers is itself a gaping hole in a Swiss cheese of a system. And alerts announcing each vote on the Hill are broadcast on all channels.

When dignitaries, including the president and vice president, visit the Capitol, listeners can track their movements, too, although the officers are generally careful not to associate a charge's name with a particular security detail.

As the police have expanded their protective perimeter, deploying officers and barricades in a widening circle around the Capitol complex, the officers manning those posts have begun using a sixth digital channel that is often unencrypted.

The Capitol Police radio system is one of the only remaining federal law-enforcement communications networks in Washington to have lagged behind the rush to upgrade to a digital, more easily encrypted standard.

Congress has spent tens of millions of dollars to install high-tech vehicle-interdiction barriers; place chemical and biological sensors around the grounds; train new K-9 officers; upgrade police cars; and add protective, anti-blast coating to the windows of the Capitol building. The police agency, which now fields 1,800 officers, even has counterintelligence analysts.

"After the 1998 Capitol Hill shooting and September 11th tragedies, the U.S. Capitol has struggled to become a fortress while still remaining open to Americans as a Democratic institution," said Ron Bonjean, a former aide to several Republican leaders. "Back then, we only had a few officers at each public entrance. Now we have a highly secure complex with a visitor's center meant to process the public while keeping the unwanted at bay."

An upgrade for the radio system has been in the works for five years, but progress has been slow. The agency began to spec out a new system in 2007 and 2008; Congress included money to speed up the project in its $5.1 billion legislative-services budgets for 2010 and 2011. President Obama added $71 million in his 2009 emergency war supplemental and an additional $16 million for 2011. Budget delays have stalled some aspects of the upgrade, congressional officials said, but it is on track to become operational by 2012.

Motorola, which has done work for many federal agencies, is building the new radio system. When it's complete, dispatchers operating from two sites (one located off-campus for emergencies) will have 13 encrypted digital channels that officers inside or near the Capitol buildings will be able to access.

"I am concerned that we do not have what we need to have here. The institution of the Congress is as important as the institution of the presidency or the institution of the Supreme Court," Rep. Dan Lungren, then the ranking member of the House Administration subcommittee on Capitol security, said at a 2008 hearing on the radio system.

"We are experiencing failures on a regular basis," Capitol Police Chief Phillip T. Morse testified at the hearing. Radios were failing and there were dead spots inside the 47 acre Capitol complex, which contains numerous deep tunnels and rooms that radio signals can't penetrate. Interoperability--the ability of one police agency to communicate with another--has been a constant challenge.

The chief of Washington's Metropolitan Police Department, Cathy Lanier, testified that although Capitol Police radios could be patched into her department's more sophisticated systems, the cost would be the loss of encryption. In 2003, the MPD went all-digital, and regularly encrypts channels it uses for investigations, surveillance, and presidential motorcades.