"Drug cartels have better communications than CBP's 'advanced' radio network"

[Hooligan]

"Drug cartels have better communications than CBP's 'advanced' radio network"

Drug cartels have better communications than CBP's 'advanced' radio network - Nextgov

My response is published below the article.

I'm all for CBP/DHS spending more money to secure my border against the hordes of invading cockroaches creeping across it, but I want that $$ to be allocated and spent wisely. Properly programming the existing radios, and ensuring that agents understand what channels they have & how to use them (for example, talk-around/simplex, 166.4625MHz & 155.475MHz) is a no/low-cost solution to *some* of the issues Rocafort seems to be whining about and saying that more $$$ is needed to fix.

 

[Gator596]

Good post at Nextgov! You are absolutely correct.

 

[K4OM]

Drug Cartels have ways of insuring that vendors live up to their promises about system performance.

 

[datainmotion]

And no bureacracy to deal with!
Also, trying to outspend these drug cartels would be pointless. As Hooligan intones, learn to effectively use what you already have!

 

[ecps92]

Good comments on Training, Training, Training.
They get annually [or maybe more] qualified at the Gun Range, how about on the Radio?
With at-least 20 Zones, it is tough to know what is where, w/o training.

And, yes, learn about T/A on each of the channels, bet it's there.

Drug cartels have better communications than CBP's 'advanced' radio network - Nextgov

My response is published below the article.

I'm all for CBP/DHS spending more money to secure my border against the hordes of invading cockroaches creeping across it, but I want that $$ to be allocated and spent wisely. Properly programming the existing radios, and ensuring that agents understand what channels they have & how to use them (for example, talk-around/simplex, 166.4625MHz & 155.475MHz) is a no/low-cost solution to *some* of the issues Rocafort seems to be whining about and saying that more $$$ is needed to fix.

 

[drdispatch]

Federal, state, local; it doesn't matter what level; it's all about training your people and making the most of what you got.

We had an incident just yesterday where detectives from a department on the east side of the state were trying to catch up with someone and were using their $5000 radio to talk to their dispatcher back home, asking for our assistance, and their dispatcher had to get our dispatcher on the phone, then our dispatcher had to call out to our units. So for an hour, there was this back-and-forth involving twice as many people and talkgroups as necessary, when all those detectives needed to do was switch to a statewide mutual aid talkgroup and talk to us directly. So they finally caught the person, 2 counties past us, and just 40 miles from the state line. That was mostly luck. They could have saved an hour or two, one or two hundred miles, and a whole lot of trouble (not to mention some taxpayer $$) had they used the fancy statewide P25 system in the manner in which it is best suited.

 

[SCPD]

This is an easy fix.... when I was growing up my grandfather would shoot a crow and hang it up at the end of his large cornfield. The other crows would see the hanging one and stay away and not damage his crop. If we pull our troops out of the middle east, it's an illegal war anyway but that's another story, place them on the border, establish our rules of engagement as "shoot to kill" for any invader, and leave the corpses where they fall the problem would be solved.

 

[russellmaher]

That's it exactly...

And no bureacracy to deal with!
Also, trying to outspend these drug cartels would be pointless. As Hooligan intones, learn to effectively use what you already have!

Way to go, sir!

There is no bureacracy for sure and the money the cartels have to spend is limitless.

That's why they're still in busines....they have a very good business plan.

Russell

 

[datainmotion]

...establish our rules of engagement as "shoot to kill" for any invader, and leave the corpses where they fall the problem would be solved.

We'd all like to believe that, but we can't apply our mindset South of the Border. It has been shown time and time again that the foot soldiers of the cartels have little regard for human life. Even non-cartel members have willingly carried out hits for as little as $400. Seeing a dead comrade strung up on a fence would have little or no effect on the intended targets, I'm afraid.