The FCC at its agenda meeting Thurs. announced the creation of an...

structure.” James Dailey, deputy chief of the Enforcement Bureau and a 31-year FCC veteran, was named dir. of the new office. The office also will have responsibility for proceedings relating to the Emergency Alert System as well as the Commission’s Communications & Crisis Management Center and its Emergency Operations Center. FCC Comr. Copps said he hoped the action would give homeland security “the high priority it deserves at the Commission.” He said “I frankly worry that, as we as a nation move further away from 9/11, we have a tendency to let our guard down, to go back to business as usual.” He said organizational changes such as this one “can help in this effort -- or they can hurt.” It can help if “the priority remains heightened and the leadership is aggressive,” he said. It can hurt if the office “becomes just one more division among several in one bureau, or if the effort becomes one office’s job rather than every office’s job.” FCC Chief of Staff Marsha MacBride outlined the agency’s “action plan” for homeland security, including such things as: (1) Work with the Dept. of Homeland Security to promote the use of best practices developed by the Network Reliability & Interconnection Council and the Media Security & Reliability Council. (2) Develop a service restoration memo of understanding with N.Y.C. and promote it to other metropolitan areas. (3) Double participation by state and local 911 centers in the Telecom Service Priority program. (4) Help tribal groups develop critical communications infrastructure protection plan. (5) Convene a “stakeholders summit to address communications issues that confront individuals with disabilities during national emergencies.” (6) Work with the FBI to review CALEA compliance by telecom carriers. MacBride emphasized that the FCC was “just one component of a complex network of public and private partnerships” working to improve security and reliability of telecom infrastructure.