Broadband guardians

To help protect American soil against terrorist attacks, officials say, the country needs a high-speed computerized network that is reliable and secure, and lets systems at all levels of government communicate with one another and work together.

But before the government begins building one from scratch, the National Guard would like to talk about a broadband network that it already operates. Called GuardNet XXI, the network links 2,700 armories and other facilities around the country, allowing real-time, interactive Web-based communications.

GuardNet XXI, experts say, is a prime example of an existing technology that the Bush administration and Congress should not overlook as they rush to create a new Department of Homeland Security. For example, President Bush's National Strategy for Homeland Security, unveiled on July 16, calls for a seamless communications system for responders at the federal, state, and local levels.

The National Guard says its network could fill the bill. GuardNet XXI is a shared, dual-use mechanism that bridges the military and the civilian sectors, just as the National Guard itself does. "It offers us readiness training and, beyond that, command-and-control capabilities," said Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Rees, vice chief of the National Guard Bureau.

In addition, he said, it can be used for training and informing civilian "first responders" to emergencies. For instance, after the anthrax scare arose last fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked the Guard to help broadcast programs about the deadly substance.

The National Guard also uses the network to connect 315 classrooms that are a part of its nationwide Distributive Training Technology Project, or DTTP. The Guard wants to grow that to 489 distance-learning classrooms, and to have a facility within 50 miles of each member of the Reserves. The Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the White House Office of Homeland Security have talked with the National Guard about using the technology. "It would appear they have an interest in it," Rees said of the executive branch officials.

GuardNet XXI operates on a broadband network that was developed by a not-for-profit entity called the Community Learning and Information Network, or CLIN. Launched under a slightly different name in 1991 as a $500,000 project of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, CLIN initially received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Today, the National Guard is the primary user of CLIN's technology.

"The new Cabinet secretary [of homeland security] has to have at the forefront of his mind that a national communications system already exists," said Jeffrey H. Joseph, CEO of CLIN.

Rees said there is widespread interest in connecting the nation's governors through the existing Guard network. Moreover, FEMA is looking at developing a wireless capability for first responders, said a Guard spokeswoman. Test projects under way are evaluating GuardNet XXI's backbone against the needs of first responders, to determine whether emergency workers' systems will be able to communicate with one another. Rees said a national standard would have to be developed to guarantee "interoperability," meaning the ability of separate systems to work together.

Without interoperability, "you're going to have big pockets of antiquity," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Clarence "Mac" McKnight Jr., the chairman of CLIN. He said the "worst situation is the last mile" of the network's wiring, which connects first responders to the appropriate node of the network.

In order for the network to play a larger role in homeland security efforts, Rees said, "the administration and Congress need to have a common vision that this is the system" in which additional investments should be made.

Meanwhile, the National Guard wants to know how it fits as an organization into the Bush administration's larger plans for homeland defense. A looming question is what will be the Guard's role in the Defense Department's new Northern Command, which begins operations in October and will have the duty of protecting American soil. A private-sector source speculated that the No. 2 spot in the command might go to a National Guard official. Asked last month at a congressional hearing about the role of the National Guard in homeland security, White House Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge said the Guard would work with the Northern Command.

Rees predicted that the National Guard would "play a major role" in the Northern Command because of the Guard's intricate ties to states and to domestic responders, but said that the "exact relationship remains to be seen."

This raises a funding question that could harm the Guard's ability to respond quickly to emergencies, according to Joseph. Currently, the Guard receives so-called Title X funds to pay for its federal functions, such as sending soldiers overseas, while it also gets Title XXXII funds, given directly to states for relief after hurricanes, floods, and other disasters. Placing the Guard under the Northern Command could limit it to Title X funds only, making transfers of emergency assistance to states more difficult, Joseph said.

The picture is also clouded by the impending departure on September 1 of the current head of the National Guard, Clinton appointee Gen. Russ Davis. So far, President Bush has not proposed a successor. If no one were named, Rees, who has worked for years on communications systems, automatically would step into the role.

In the meantime, CLIN has been telling Capitol Hill that more money is needed if GuardNet XXI is to become the information-sharing and training network that the government needs for homeland security. As a 501(c)(4)organization, CLIN has the right to lobby Congress. CLIN argues, for example, that GuardNet XXI and the Guard's DTTP classrooms should be designated "national assets." CLIN also notes that the Guard has requested a fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriation of $72 million to help realize the goal of expanding the DTTP.

Congressional support has long been vital to the CLIN program, which over the years has received a total of $300 million in federal appropriations.

Joseph hatched the idea for CLIN when he was a senior official at the chamber, and then started working with McKnight, who had retired as the director of the Command, Control and Communications at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joseph, who for years was a commentator for ESPN, is seen as the better communicator of the two partners. McKnight is the communications-technology expert and was twice featured on the cover of Government Executive magazine (a National Journal Group publication) in the 1980s. While serving in the military, McKnight was involved in oversight of secret government locations such as the one where Vice President Cheney stayed after the September 11 attacks.

When CLIN came up with the idea for a high-speed network, people "thought we were from Mars," said Joseph, but "we knew we were at the ground floor of the information revolution on how content and networks were going to work together." CLIN developed regional models and was "the first working model of the information superhighway," according to Joseph.

An initiative by then-Sen. Al Gore, D-Tenn., and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to promote high-performance computing led to the funding from the Pentagon through DARPA.

In 1996, MCI got a contract to set up seven regional hubs, in Arkansas, California, Iowa, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wyoming, which GuardNet XXI still uses. States have played an essential part of the process from the beginning, often finding creative ways to come up with their own matching funds for projects. Several key members of Congress, including Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., were early champions of CLIN and have numerous projects in their states.

Early on, some states had mixed experiences and CLIN was losing control, Joseph said. For instance, in 1993, a presentation in Silicon Valley met with a cool reception. The message was, "We don't need guys from Washington to tell us what to do," Joseph said. In 1998, Joseph and McKnight took their project national to get around state idiosyncrasies, and joined forces with the National Guard.

In fiscal 2002, funding for the Guard program dropped to $31.5 million, to be shared with Iowa to support the state's separate broadband network. On July 16, the Senate Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee approved a significant increase in fiscal 2003 for DTTP and for a less advanced Guard computer network, and urged that the two networks be merged.

Meanwhile, the CLIN team is thinking well beyond the National Guard to broader commercial applications of its content-delivery system. It recently garnered two patents for its "digital vending" network technology and has more pending. CLIN had its own software development team in Utah, which helped develop a meter for tracking the use of a network to access content. They also are working on customized educational material.

"We knew from day one that this Internet revolution would be easier said than done," Joseph said. "While it's a solution for the National Guard, for CLIN it was a learning experience and an economic symposium in determining how content and networks could become commercially viable."