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“An
Agenda For Real National Security:
PRIORITY ONE” by Don
Schellhardt
In my last column, I called current attempts to control other
nations an inadequate substitute for efforts to address our own national
vulnerabilities. As
for how to address these vulnerabilities, a core agenda for real
national security should include, in order of priority:
(1) shielding vital
civilian electronics equipment against an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse)
attack, as referenced in the last 2 articles in this column
… (2)
displacing imported oil with clean, domestically available energy
alternatives …
and (3) re-aligning
military forces, including a shift of more forces to East Asia, formation
of additional alliances and completion of a “light shield” Ballistic
Missile Defense, aka “Star Wars”.
In this column, I address PRIORITY ONE:
EMP. It
is known that most civilian electronics equipment can be shielded
through a simple, airtight sheath of copper around or below the
equipment’s surface area.
This need not be prohibitively expensive.
It is also known that EMP from a high-altitude nuclear burst
can reach 50,000 volts per meter.
To deal with an EMP attack that involves multiple nuclear bursts
-- and/or with a
more focused, non-nuclear EMP attack at much closer range
-- it seems
prudent to require enough shielding to protect vital civilian electronics
equipment from an electromagnetic surge of up to 100,000 volts per meter.
Reasonable people can differ regarding what civilian electronics
equipment is truly “vital” enough to require EMP shielding.
Computerized bank records, for example, might be “vital” to one
person but not to another.
However, almost everyone’s “short list” of vital civilian
electronics equipment is likely to include emergency communications
equipment used by police departments, fire departments, Emergency Medical
Teams and Amateur Radio Service operators.
The same “short list” is also likely to include electronics
equipment that is necessary for the maintenance of life and/or public
health and safety: for
example, backup generators (and related connections) in hospitals, air
traffic control towers, aircraft control and guidance equipment,
electronic ignitions used to start up police cars and fire trucks, pumps,
pipelines, powerlines, powerplants and reactor safety controls.
In 1986, Nick Leggett, Judith Leggett and I filed with the FCC a
Petition For Notice Of Inquiry on mandatory EMP shielding of selected
equipment. This
Petition led to public comments in Docket RM-5528, but the Petition was
ultimately denied, first by FCC staff and then, upon appeal, by the 5 FCC
Commissioners.
After =====================SUPPLEMENT======================== DON SCHELLHARDT,
ESQUIRE (203) 756-7310 or (203) 757-1790 Representative
Fred Upton, Chairman Representative
Edward Markey, Ranking Minority Member Subcommittee
On Telecommunications And The Internet Committee
on Energy And Commerce RE:
June 11 Hearings On Spectrum Needs Of
-- Including
Possible Effects Of ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) While
the record remains open for your Subcommittee’s June 11 Hearings, the
undersigned individuals submit the enclosed Written Testimony.
We respectfully request that you include this Written Testimony in
the record. I
am a Government Relations attorney, with over 25 years of experience.
Nickolaus Leggett is a public policy analyst, technical writer and
inventor. The
two of us are co-authors of the Petition For Rulemaking in FCC Docket
RM-10330. Our Petition
seeks FCC action to guard vital civilian electronics equipment against the
harmful effects of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP).
It was denied by FCC staff a year ago, after a public comment
period, and our appeal to the 5 Commissioners has been sitting in limbo
since then. We
urge the Subcommittee to adopt legislation which:
(a) requires immediate EMP shielding of civilian electronics
equipment used by the nation’s 1st responders (police, fire,
hospitals, etc.); (b) also
requires that equipment of this nature must be field repairable;
and (c) directs the FCC to consider action on a broader equipment
upgrade mandate within 1 year. Respectfully, Don
Schellhardt, Esquire Nickolaus
E. Leggett N3NL WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF DON SCHELLHARDT, ESQUIRE, AND NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT N3NL, CO-PETITIONERS IN FCC DOCKET RM-10330, ON SPECTRUM NEEDS OF THE NATION’S 1st RESPONDERS PRESENTED TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET FOR SUBCOMMITTEE HEARINGS ON TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION OF THE WITNESSES
1 OUR PETITION FOR RULEMAKING ON
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP)
3 NATIONAL LEADERS WHO HAVE ALREADY BEEN
APPRISED OF OUR EFFORTS TO REQUIRE
SELECTIVE EMP SHIELDING
8 FCC DOCKET
RM-10412: NICK LEGGETT’S PETITION FOR RULEMAKING ON
FIELD REPAIRABILITY OF CERTAIN EMERGENCY
COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT
10 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION …
11 The
FCC’s Docket On Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)
11
Articles On EMP In THE 21st CENTURY POPULIST 12
The FCC’s Docket On Field Repairability Of Equipment
13 ACTIONS WE ASK THIS SUBCOMMITTEE TO TAKE
14 EMP
Shielding Of Emergency Communications
Equipment
14
Field Repairability Of Emergency
Communications Equipment
16
EMP Shielding And Field Repairability For Other Equipment
16 POINTS OF
CONTACT
17
Our names are DON SCHELLHARDT, ESQUIRE and NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT.
While we are both perhaps best known for our work in advocating the recently
established Low Power FM Radio Service, and other media diversity goals of THE Rulemaking, on
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), in FCC Docket RM-10330.
DON SCHELLHARDT, ESQUIRE is a Government Relations attorney, with over 25 years
of experience in public policy advocacy.
He holds a B.A. in Government and
English from on
representing abused children, and 5 years as a populist communications
lawyer. (No, this is
not a contradiction in terms.)
His experience also includes 20 years as a Washington-based
energy lawyer, working with both legislation and regulations that affected
both energy and the environment. Don’s
employers have included: ·
THE co-founded,
led for 2 years and still serves as its attorney ·
SELF-EMPLOYMENT as a
GUARDIAN AD LITEM FOR CHILDREN in ·
THE AMERICAN
[NATURAL] GAS ASSOCIATION, where he served
for 6 years as Director of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs …
for 2 years as Director of State, Local and Coalition Relations
… and
for 4 years as Special Counsel and Executive Assistant to the Vice
President, Government Relations ·
THE was a GS-15 Policy Advisor on increasing energy efficiency as a
mitigation response to global warming ·
THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN
RESEARCH COMMITTEE, where he served as a Legislative Analyst on energy, environment and defense
And ·
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
MATTHEW J. RINALDO, R-NJ (retired),
a former Ranking Minority Member of this very Subcommittee
DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Two
NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT is a technical writer, public policy analyst
and inventor.
Nick holds 2 patents, as well as non-commercial FCC licenses and non-commercial
FAA flight licenses. He
has been an active participant in the Amateur Radio Service for over 40 years, with personal “call letters” of N3NL.
Joined by his wife, Judith Fielder Leggett, who holds a B.S. in
Agriculture from the the award-winning
scientific papers on maintaining life and civilization in extremely hostile
environments. Subjects
for the Leggetts’ prize-winning papers have included
growing crops in protected areas on the moon
… maintaining food
supply and other
necessities of life in a space ship or space station
… and
establishing successful
mining colonies on asteroids.
Like Don Schellhardt, Nick earned a B.A. in Government at Wesleyan University
(where the two met, as fraternity brothers in the Kappa Alpha Society). He also earned
an M.A. in Political Science from
Nick’s employers have included GTE TELENET and INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY (IR&T), a distinguished Virginia “think tank”. IR&T,
founded by Dr. Theodore Taylor, was ahead of its times in the 1970’s,
when the firm did
pioneering work on the possible use of nuclear weapons by terrorists. DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Three FCC DOCKET RM-10330: OUR PETITION FOR RULEMAKING ON ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP)
Our Petition For Rulemaking seeks FCC action to guard vital
civilian electronics
equipment against the harmful effects of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP).
An EMP is an artificially produced wave of electromagnetic energy which does not
harm human beings or other living things, so far as we can tell, but will devastate
any unshielded electronics equipment in its path.
Vulnerable equipment includes (but is hardly limited to) radios, TV
sets, computers,
aircraft and electronic ignitions used for starting motor vehicles.
An EMP can be generated in at least 3 different ways:
·
(A)
Through the explosion of a nuclear or thermonuclear weapon
(A-bomb or H-bomb) at a high altitude, in which case much
of the nuclear or thermonuclear energy is converted into intense
electromagnetic energy (equal to as much as 50,000 volts per meter
on the ground), with damage on a regional or even nationwide scale;
Or ·
(B)
Through a specially designed “E-bomb”, designed to
“explode”
in a non-nuclear but still disabling electromagnetic burst, with damage limited to a fairly contained “target area”, such as an office complex or a city block;
Or ·
(C)
Through a ground-based EMP generator, which can be either
stationary or mobile, designed to knock out small but vital targets, such as an air traffic control tower or Stock Exchange DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Four
An EMP attack of the first
type could be launched against us by any nation which
possesses both: (1) a
missile capable of reaching, or rather exploding at a high altitude
over, of being
delivered by that missile.
While the list of such nations obviously includes the People’s
Republic of China and the
former Soviet Union, it also includes can reportedly
reach Some observers
have speculated that reach the
rest of the from atomic
bombs to hydrogen bombs, by 2006 or shortly thereafter.
Further, within the next 5 to 10 years, the list of potential
nuclear EMP attackers
could grow to include the
intercontinental missiles),
As for the second type of potential EMP attack, at present only
the United States is known
to have developed sophisticated “E-bomb” weapons.
However, the technology
for sophisticated “E-bombs” is probably within reach for former
Also, there can be unsophisticated “E-bombs” as well:
less efficient and less focused, but
still sufficient to crash airplanes or drive oil tankers out of control. DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Five
Karlo Copp, a defense analyst
in Australia, has estimated that producing a “crude”
E-bomb would require only “1940’s technology” and cost only a few thousand
dollars. If these
estimates are true, unsophisticated E-bombs would appear to be
well within the reach of many nations
and/or terrorist groups.
To read Mr. Kopp’s article, “Electromagnetic Bomb:
A Weapon Of Electronic
Mass Destruction”, go to:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/ebomb.html
As for the third type of potential attack, through using an EMP generator, it
is known that the
effectiveness
of EMP shielding for military equipment.
We do not know who else might have
built EMP generators, nor do we know whether any might have leaked into the black
market from the former but have not
been able to verify, reports of hand-held EMP weapons.
When we first became aware of EMP, and of the year was
1985. At that
time, only the first type of EMP
attack appeared to be feasible and
only a few nations appeared to have the means for it.
Nevertheless, seeing “on
the horizon” the probable proliferation of nuclear warheads and nuclear missiles, as
well as the possible development of non-nuclear EMP options, we decided we had
to act. DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Six
Therefore, in 1986 --
17 years
ago
-- we filed a
Petition with the FCC, requesting a
Notice Of Inquiry on EMP and consideration of a possible FCC mandate for
countermeasures to protect vital civilian electronics equipment.
Our Petition
was Docketed as RM-5528 and public comments were sought.
In 1987, our Petition was denied by the FCC’s staff.
We filed a Petition For
Reconsideration, which led quickly to a review by the 5 FCC Commissioners, who voted to
deny our Petition also. In
their respective decisions, both the FCC staff and the
full Commission stressed their expectations that the Defense Department and
the private sector would soon be solving this problem through their own efforts,
without the need to draw in the FCC.
14 years later --
in the aftermath of the time had
come to raise the issue with the FCC yet again.
Noting that none of the progress
expected by the FCC in 1987 had actually been made, with respect to EMP shielding
of civilian electronics
equipment, we proceeded to file our Petition on
This time, we filed a Petition For Rulemaking,
rather than a Petition For Notice Of
Inquiry, and included within our filing
-- as a starting
point for discussion
-- the actual
text of a detailed proposed rule.
Our Petition was Docketed as
RM-10330 and public comments were solicited.
DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Seven
We are proud to report that one of the supportive Written Comments
came from Dr.
William A. Radasky, who has worked for both the and private
industry, authoring in the process more than 250 technical papers on EMP.
Currently, Dr. Radasky chairs the IES SC 77C Subcommittee of the International
Electrotechnical Commission, headquartered in
As in 1987, the Petition was denied by the FCC’s staff.
This time, however,
instead of predicting that forces outside of the FCC would solve the problem on
their own, the FCC’s staff justified the denial on the basis of laissez-faire economic philosophy.
In spite of the continuing statutory mandates, in the
Communications Act of 1934, for the FCC to protect “the public
interest” and also to guard “national security”, the survivability of civilian
electronics equipment was viewed by
FCC staff as purely the concern of equipment makers and their customers
-- even though
neither has yet shown the slightest degree of concern with the
national security and public safety implications of their transactions.
Another difference has also become apparent.
In 1987, our appeal of the FCC staff’s
decision was reviewed by the full Commission within a few months. This time, our
Petition For Reconsideration has sat in limbo for more than a year, with no
indication so far that the full Commission will ever
review it.
The time has come for the DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Eight NATIONAL LEADERS WHO HAVE ALREADY BEEN APPRISED OF OUR EFFORTS TO REQUIRE SELECTIVE EMP SHIELDING
When we filed our June 24, 2002 Petition For Reconsideration, in
response to the FCC staff’s
denial of our Petition For Rulemaking,
we made a point of making sure that
copies of the Petition For Reconsideration were sent to 24 key officials
in all 3 Branches
of the Federal Government.
We wanted to be certain that these national leaders will never be
able to say that they had not been warned of our nation’s extreme vulnerability to EMP -- and of the availability of reasonable countermeasures, if
choose to pursue them.
Copies of our June 24, 2002 Petition For Reconsideration were sent
to 14 Congressional
legislators: ·
Senator Tom Daschle,
D-SD, then Senate
Majority Leader ·
Senator Trent Lott,
R-MS, then Senate Minority
Leader ·
Representative Dennis
Hastert, R-IN, Speaker of the House ·
Representative
Richard Armey, R-TX, House Majority Leader ·
Representative
Richard Gephardt, D-MO, then House
Minority Leader ·
Senator Ernest
Hollings, D-SC, then Commerce
Committee Chairman ·
Senator John McCain,
R-AZ, then Commerce Committee Ranking Minority Member ·
Senator Ted Stevens,
R-AK, then Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman DON SCHELLHARDT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Nine ·
Representative W.J.
“Billy” Tauzin, R-LA, Energy & Commerce Committee
Chairman ·
Representative John
Dingell, D-MI, Energy & Commerce Committee Ranking Minority Leader ·
Representative
Michael G. Oxley, R-OH, then Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman ·
Representative Ed
Markey, D-MA, Telecommunications Subcommittee Ranking Minority Member ·
Senator Pat Roberts,
R-KS, then Emerging Threats
& Capabilities Subcommittee Ranking Minority Member
[and advocate of government action on EMP shielding] ·
Representative
“Mac” Thornberry, R-TX [advocate
of government action
on EMP shielding]
Copies of our June
24, 2002 Petition For Reconsideration were also sent to 6 Executive
Branch leaders: ·
President George W.
Bush, Commander-In-Chief ·
Donald Rumsfeld,
Secretary of Defense ·
Christine Todd
Whitman, then Administrator of ·
·
Jane F. Garvey,
Chair, Federal Aviation Administration ·
Carol J. Carmody,
Vice Chair, National Transportation Safety Board
Copies of the Petition were also sent to each the 4 Commissioners
who were then serving
at the FCC: ·
Michael Powell, FCC
Chairman ·
Kathleen Abernathy,
FCC Commissioner ·
Michael J. Copps, FCC
Commissioner ·
Kevin Martin, FCC
Commissioner DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Ten FCC DOCKET RM-10412: NICK LEGGETT’S PETITION FOR
RULEMAKING ON FIELD REPAIRABILITY OF CERTAIN EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT
As we have mentioned above, our Petition For Rulemaking, which
became FCC Docket
RM-10330, was filed on personal
response to the events of
On his own initiative, Nickolaus Leggett filed an additional
Petition For Rulemaking.
Submitted to the FCC on at least in
part, by the man-made disaster at the
Drawing upon his 4 decades and more as a “ham”, Nick noted that
all Amateur Radio
equipment was once “field repairable”:
that is, capable of being fixed, if
necessary, by Amateur Radio operators on their own, “in the field”.
Now, he reported to
the FCC, most Amateur Radio equipment is designed to be taken back to the
store, shipped to a central facility for repair and returned to the customer
several weeks later.
If the store and/or the interstate shipper and/or the local highway
and/or the local airport and/or the central repair facility are out of operation,
temporarily or otherwise --
due to anything from a massive earthquake to terrorist
hydrogen bombs --
then damaged Amateur Radio equipment is also automatically
out of operation, perhaps “for the duration”. DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Eleven
In his Petition For Rulemaking, Nick asked the FCC to require that
some or all Amateur
Radio equipment must be made “field repairable”.
The Petition was Docketed as
RM-10412 and public comments were sought.
88 Written Comments and 20 months later, the RM-10412 Petition has
yet to be approved or
denied, by either the FCC’s staff or the full Commission.
It sits in limbo,
awaiting a Commission decision that may never come. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
… (1) THE FCC’S DOCKET ON ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP). We commend to
the Subcommittee’s attention all of
the 33 documents filed, pro and con, in
FCC Docket RM-10330 --
including our For Rulemaking
… the
supportive by Dr. William
A. Radasky, an EMP technical expert who serves as Chairman of the
Geneva-based International Electrotechnical Commission’s Subcommittee on
protection of
electronics equipment ( Petition For
Reconsideration, directed to the 5 Commissioners on the full Federal Communications
Commission, of the FCC staff’s denial
of our Petition For Rulemaking. DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Twelve
The RM-10330 Docket File
can be found on the FCC’s Electronic Comments Filings System
(ECFS).
To review the entire Docket File for RM-10330: (a)
Go to the FCC’s
Home Page at www.fcc.gov (b)
At the top of the
page, click on “E-Filing” (c)
When a new page
appears, scroll down and click on either “Main” or “Alternate”
after the words “Electronic Comments Filing System (ECFS)” (d)
When a new page
appears, go to the upper right hand corner and click on “Search For Filed Comments” (e)
When a new page
appears, find the box, in the upper lefthand corner
of the Form, that says: “Docket
File” (f) Type
in: RM-10330 (g) Then
go to the bottom of the Form and click on:
“Retrieve Document
File” (h)
When a new page
appears (which may take a minute or more), you Will see all of the documents filed in this Docket, set forth in reverse chronological order (that is, with the most recent filings first) (i)
Scroll down the
list and click on whichever documents you choose to read (2)
ARTICLES
ON EMP IN DON SCHELLHARDT’S 21st
CENTURY POPULIST COLUMN. The
Subcommittee may also wish to read either or both of 2 1-page
articles on Electromagnetic Pulse in Don Schellhardt’s 21st
CENTURY POPULIST Internet
column. THE
21st CENTURY POPULIST is
one of 2 Internet columns that
are written monthly by Don Schellhardt.
THE 21st CENTURY
POPULIST concerns politics in general.
Don’s other column, AMENDMENT
ONE, concerns issues of media regulation and expression.
DON SCHELLHARDT And NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT Spectrum Needs Of 1st Responders Page Thirteen
To find the 2 articles in question: (a)
Go to www.wilw.com,
the Web Site for WILW RADIO (run by WILLIAM C. WALKER of
or to
http://scorpius.spaceports.com/~wkjce/Don/
,
a corner
of the Web Site for
WKJCE GLBT RADIO (run by
JOANNE
LYNN BENJAMIN and JULIE SPENCER of
(b)
Click on THE
21st CENTURY POPULIST (c) |