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10 Va. J.L. & Tech. 1 (2005)

handle is hein.journals/vjolt10 and id is 1 raw text is: VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF LAW & TECHNOLOGY WINTER 2005 UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA VOL. 10, No. 1 An Island of Chaos Surrounded by a Sea of Confusion: The E911 Wireless Device Location Initiative DARREN HANDLERt ABSTRACT In most circumstances, dialing 911 from a wireless phone does not give the caller's exact location. While this may not pose an insurmountable problem when one is able to communicate additional location information such as a street location, a problem becomes evident when one is lost in a snow storm on a road, fleeing an assailant where location is constantly changing rather than fixed, or offshore in a watercraft where the lack of physically identifying factors prevent location identification. Addressing the ability of emergency first-responders to pinpoint a wireless caller's location is a system known as the Enhanced 911 (E911) Wireless Device Location Initiative. E911 is an ambitious and arguably much-needed national safety net for locating wireless callers via satellite global positioning or cellular tower triangulation technologies on a local, state, and national level. Quite simply, the ability to locate an individual's wireless call for help is a challenging but necessary capability, especially when operating within an antiquated analog infrastructure that is over-taxed by an ever- increasing digital world. This article explores the federal and state issues which plague full implementation of wireless E911 and suggestions by key stakeholders on how best to confront deployment roadblocks. In addition, this article seeks to inform and persuade the public and private sectors of the necessity of such a system, in addition to the benefits such a network would provide to aid in combating some of today's asymmetric terrorist threats that are at the forefront of our nation's national security. 0 2005 Virginia Journal of Law & Technology Association, at http://www.vjolt.net. Use paragraph numbers for pinpoint citations. T Third-year law student at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland, OH.