[FedCom] White House criticizes news media for "reporting [that] was based on listening to a police scanner"

[J Doe]

 Interesting that the USCG would pick 9/11 and an area where POTUS was
recently present to conduct this excercise.  Smells like a set-up to me, the
Government knew  their would be a lot of focus on this area especially by
the media.  CNN fell for the bait, hook line and sinker.  J






On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 3:05 PM, ed <bernies at netaxs.com> wrote:

> When the White House criticizes the news media for "reporting [that] was
> based
> on listening to a police scanner", it doesn't bode well for the future of
> unencrypted public-safety radio communications.
>
> Doubtless this incident will be used by government radio encryption
> proponents
> to push for more encryption of open, clear government radio communications.
>
> -bernieS
>
>
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091101740.html
>
> Radio Traffic Led to False Reports of Gunfire on Potomac
>
> Coast Guard Responds to 'Routine Exercise'
>
> (photo) Vice Adm. John Currier of the U.S. Coast Guard discusses the Friday
> morning training exercise on the Potomac that caused high alert in the
> metro area.
>
> By William Branigin, Debbi Wilgoren and Spencer S. Hsu
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Friday, September 11, 2009; 2:32 PM
>
> Radio traffic about a Coast Guard training exercise Friday led to erroneous
> television news reports that guardsmen had fired on a recreational boat in
> the
> Potomac River, near where President Obama was remembering the 9/11 attacks,
> a
> senior Coast Guard official said.
> This Story
>
>    *
>      Radio Traffic Led to False Reports of Gunfire on Potomac (video)
>    *
>      Statement by U.S. Coast Guard (pdf)
>
> The news reports generated "uncertainty," said Vice Adm. John Currier, the
> Coast
> Guard chief of staff, that prompted federal and D.C. officials to respond
> anxiously. D.C. police raced to the riverside, and the Federal Aviation
> Administration temporarily grounded planes at Reagan National Airport, .
>
> Currier told reporters outside Coast Guard headquarters in Washington that
> no
> local, state or federal agencies were notified of the training exercise
> because
> it was "routine" and "low-profile." He did not apologize for the incident,
> but
> said the Coast Guard would review its procedures to ensure that future
> training
> exercises would not spark similar alarm.
>
> "No shots were fired," Currier said. "There was no suspect vessel. There
> was no
> criminal activity. . . . This was a routine training exercise."
>
> He said that unspecified "members of the public" had "intercepted"
> clear-channel, unencrypted Coast Guard radio transmissions regarding the
> exercise and apparently concluded erroneously that a real interdiction of a
> suspect vessel was taking place on the Potomac, near Memorial Bridge. Not
> far
> from the river, President Obama attended a ceremony Friday morning at the
> Pentagon to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
>
> Currier said that although no shots were fired during the exercise, there
> was
> "verbalization of gunfire" in the radio transmissions.
>
> "Somebody said, 'Bang! Bang!' on the radio at an appropriate time in the
> training exercise when the actual interdiction of the boat would have taken
> place," he said.
>
> CNN, Fox and other media outlets cited police radio transmissions in which
> officers allegedly ordered shots fired. Television anchors and analysts
> speculated on-air as to whether the allegedly "suspicious vessel"
> confronted by
> the Coast Guard could be linked to the 9/11 anniversary.
>
> D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said that her agency received a flurry
> of
> media calls about the incident after it was broadcast on television and
> that
> police were able to confirm that the action was a training exercise, not a
> threatening situation. Hughes said she did not know whether local
> authorities
> had been told about the exercise before it happened.
>
> White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that it was "best not to
> second-guess" the Coast Guard's decision that it needed to conduct the
> exercise
> on such a sensitive date.
>
> "I tend not to question law enforcement trying to keep the nation safe," he
> told
> reporters. Gibbs said he did not believe the White House was notified about
> the
> exercise.
>
> He sharply criticized the news media for "reporting [that] was based on
> listening to a police scanner" and was not "verified" before being
> broadcast.
>
> "If anyone was unnecessarily alarmed based on erroneous reporting that
> denoted
> shots had been fired, I think everybody is apologetic of that," Gibbs said.
> This Story
>
> CNN anchor Kyra Phillips said on-air that a CNN employee in Washington
> called
> the Coast Guard about the scanner report, "and they said, 'We don't know
> what
> you're talking about.' " So we went forward with what we learned."
> Phillips,
> reporting in Atlanta, cited CNN employees in Washington for her
> information.
>
> In one transmission that CNN recorded and broadcast, a Coast Guard member
> can be
> heard saying, "Vessel, if you don't slow down, stop your vessel in an R
> zone,
> you will be fired upon." He was apparently referring to a restricted zone.
>
> Coast Guard Petty Officer Nick Cangemi said in an interview, "We use a
> frequency
> reserved for the Coast Guard and reserved for training."
>
> Currier said it was possible that Coast Guard personnel had reported shots
> fired
> on the radio as part of the exercise, but he stressed that protocol is to
> preface any such transmissions by announcing that they are part of a drill.
>
> Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said the
> agency's
> decision to suspend departing flights at nearby Reagan National Airport was
> "based on reports of activity on the Potomac." She said the pause began at
> 10:08
> a.m. Eastern time and lasted 22 minutes.
>
> "The tower stopped departures based on media reports . . . as a
> precaution," she
> said. "They just wanted to straighten that out first" before resuming
> takeoff
> operations to the north.
>
> The FAA said 17 flights were delayed. Spitaliere said the agency faulted
> neither
> the media nor the Coast Guard for the rapid response, saying, "I think it
> worked
> well."
>
> Currier, the Coast Guard chief of staff, said the agency would review its
> media
> operation following complaints from reporters that they were unable to get
> information from the Coast Guard public affairs office about what was
> taking
> place on the Potomac.
>
> The incident was "very instructive for us," he said. "We're going to look
> at how
> we engage the press." He added: "What you see here is a loop between press
> reports, the prominence of those press reports, uncertainty created by
> those
> press reports, and the fact that other agencies, due to that uncertainty,
> responded as they usually would."
>
> Although Currier defended the Coast Guard's decision not to notify other
> agencies of the training exercise, saying such notifications had not been
> issued
> for numerous such exercises in the past, not everyone in the federal
> bureaucracy
> was happy with the practice.
>
> "If it's in the footprint of the of the National Capital Region, you'd
> think
> they would let someone know," a senior military official in Washington
> said.
>
> Staff writers Christian Davenport and Scott Butterworth contributed to this
> report.
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