The CISA critical infrastructure letters are a courtesy request letter. If people abuse its purpose, local officials do not need to extend any courtesy and can deny access.
The CISA letter is only for "providing emergency communications sustainment and restoration support to critical communications infrastructure facilities."
It is NOT a general purpose, ignore anything or go anywhere letter.
Do NOT abuse the courtesy or no one will extend the courtesy.
They are so open ended, they are really useless. Not sure why they didn't issue this with a company affiliation, etc to nail it down to say credentials that the person may have with them.
Back in my Broadcast Engineering days, I would get passes issued by the local LE such as the SF Police department or as a "Registered Disaster Service Worker" issued by the State of California. Each of these would have my name, photo etc. These were respected and got me through numerous police lines in the past.
Proper planning prevents piss poor performance.
“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
When someone does the after-action report, that will need to be a topic then. Right now, we've need to work with what we've got.
Disaster Service Workers are different - see this link for information on DSWs, which are typically Government employees that have had special training and swearing-in. They are not (necessarily) telecom workers but telecom workers may be DSWs.
Information on current status of DSWs in CA during this emergency: https://www.caloes.ca.gov/cal-oes-divisions/administrative-services/disaster-service-worker-volunteer-program
We've been told to make sure we have company ID (which has a photo,
albeit an old one) and a business card on us as well as the letter(s).