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Powell asks NSTAC Companies to Keep Nation Inside the Information Loop

Arlington, VA, April 17, 2002 - The Nation’s top diplomat told members of the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) that in order to stay ahead of this Nation’s allies and adversaries, the Nation’s telecommunications industry must be able to keep the country’s leaders “inside the information loop.”

As the concluding speaker at the NSTAC XXV Business Session held March 13 at the U.S. State Department’s Loy Henderson Auditorium, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell addressed over 200 conference attendees about the importance of state-of-the-art communications in his job and to the roles of thousands of diplomats serving around the world.

“Power to me now, as Secretary of State, is to be inside everybody else's information loop and decision loop,” said Secretary Powell, the highest-ranking Bush Administration official attending the NSTAC XXV conference. “I have to be able to move faster and decide quicker than my friends, allies, and potential adversaries around the world. I have to be able to move faster than all of my European colleagues, all of my Asian colleagues. I have to know information constantly coming in, constantly being updated, it has to be accurate.”

In order to meet his rapid-fire requirements around the world, Secretary Powell called on the Nation’s telecommunications industry leaders to make sure that he stays inside the information loop of the people he has to deal with. He said having the ability to talk to a foreign leader anywhere in the world instantaneously has become an essential part of his life. “I had called the President of Pakistan last Friday [March 8], to talk some business. And just as I was concluding I said, "I'm sorry to hear about the deaths that occurred in Karachi today". And he said, "What deaths?" I'm inside his information loop.”

The Secretary of State also indicated that this requirement to be “inside the loop” not be limited to him exclusively, but to all in the State Department. “All of them have to have that same ability to stay tight in my information loop so when I call them, they already know what I'm calling about, so that we are no longer sitting there ‘tap, tap, tap, teletyping,’” he said “We've got to have faster ways of getting the information out.”

Secretary Powell said some of the State Department’s technology needs are becoming more important with the President Bush’s national push to promote, establish and maintain homeland security. He said if the country is going to start checking everybody coming in for homeland security concerns, there needs to be a method of cross referencing information from all Federal agencies to ensure identities.

“Somebody shows up at a consular's office in Lisbon and says, 'I’m so-and-so,’” said Secretary Powell. “I've got to make sure that that consular officer -- that person who has been in the State Department one year -- can get onto a computer and access the entire system back here in the United States … to determine whether or not this is somebody we want to come into the country. That's the kind of goal we are marching to, and I need your help to show us how best to do that so that we can get the size pipes we need, the connectivity we need, the security we need, how to protect ourselves from exploitation.”

Secretary Powell also told of his personal experience following the September 11th attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. “I never felt more useless in my life than on the morning of the 11th of September,” said the Secretary, who was in Lima, Peru attending a conference with nations of the Organization of American States when notified of the attacks. For most of his seven-hour return flight, Powell said he couldn't talk to anybody.

“Phones [were] gone because of what happened here and what happened to the [communications] system here in Washington,” he said. “They couldn't get a phone line through. I was able to get some radio communications -- two radio spots on the way back -- but for most of that seven-hour period, I could not tell what was going on here in my Capital, and I'm the Secretary of State! Those are the kinds of challenges we face.”

The Secretary thanked the members of NSTAC for the work they are doing and encouraged them to continue their support because they are serving “a noble purpose” that is in the interest of the American people. He encouraged the NSTAC Principals to continue finding ways to provide better, faster ways of communicating so that the Nation’s elected and appointed leaders, diplomats and defense forces have “…everything they need to do the job that they need to do in the front line of diplomacy.

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