CERT

Most Ohio Emergency Management Agencies have opted to utilize EMA sponsored Community Emergency Response Team members instead of Amateur Radio Emergency Services, as we have been told, for a few reasons:

1. The ARRL does not enforce or encourage background checks for ARES members to work with local county agencies. Anyone that works an Emergency Operations Center or 911 center has the availability of viewing and being knowledgeable of information that they as a normal citizen would not be privileged to. An EOC has many things going on all at once and it would be easy for someone NOT authorized to that information to over hear it and to "pass it on" which would violate the security of the EOC.

2. A 911 center people working there may see or over hear someone's criminal, court or driving records being requested or read back to an officer in the field, which they are not authorized to read, hear or "pass on" to people outside of the 911 center.

3. Hospitals have similar criteria with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, another law that prohibits unauthorized persons from seeing, reading or hearing the patient information being passed or discussed.

No one, and most like you too, would not like someone unauthorized, to know all your personnel business. Background checks just helps to keeps the criminals out of the EOC's, 911 centers and hospitals where they could obtain and exploit any information they could gather.

No its not fool proof, nothing ever is, but it is a start that the agencies can fall back on if anything every did get rumorred from an event-that everyone in the EOC, 991 center or hospital DOC had at least passed a background check.

The ARRL is against it, so as amateur radio operators, most of us will not see the inside of an EOC, 911 center or hospital DOC, until the ARRL changes the way they think.

The other thought here is, if you are convicted of a Felony, you are not eligible to hold any classification of radio transmitting license amateur, business, FRS, GMRS, MURS etc. as that IS a question on the license application. So what is the ARRL's problem with background checks?

Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communications members have completed the CERT training including train the trainer to be an active part of an initial community response to a major emergency in the county. ARES Team members are also CERT members serving a dual role as communications with the CERT FRS radios and county issued radios using amateur radios as a back up to both of those systems.

Since 99% of our active members are already CERT members and they keep up with the needs of the local EMA's, we find no need to have secondary meetings every month taking up additional radio operators time and schedules.