Lostngone
Power User
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Starting I would say somewhere in the early 90’s(maybe earlier) the move to encrypt police radio communications started. The claim has always been the criminals could use a scanner(radio receiver) to evade the police. I believe there were actual examples of that happening. With advancements in technology and the move to digital communications and the ease of encryption there has been a move by police forces to encrypt all traffic.
Our local police force in the beginning after going digital and encrypting radio traffic put all radio traffic except tactical radio communication on the Internet with a delay. I believe it was 30 minutes. I felt this was a good compromise between being open and transparent and not putting police officers lives at risk as well stopping criminals from using that information to evade the police. However that only lasted a short time before the police chief said they were going to stop doing that as well and claiming that with a simple smart phone the criminals were using that to evade the police(somehow even with the delay) however no examples were ever given of that actually occurring locally.
My question is, with the goal of being open and transparent and stopping abuse of power do you think police communications should be public domain/publicly accessible to listen to? With some limitations like a delay and limiting access to certain channels.
Right now our local police department is under scrutiny for excessive use of force. The police chief claims he wants to be transparent and open yet we still don’t even have police body cameras on all police here.
Our local police force in the beginning after going digital and encrypting radio traffic put all radio traffic except tactical radio communication on the Internet with a delay. I believe it was 30 minutes. I felt this was a good compromise between being open and transparent and not putting police officers lives at risk as well stopping criminals from using that information to evade the police. However that only lasted a short time before the police chief said they were going to stop doing that as well and claiming that with a simple smart phone the criminals were using that to evade the police(somehow even with the delay) however no examples were ever given of that actually occurring locally.
My question is, with the goal of being open and transparent and stopping abuse of power do you think police communications should be public domain/publicly accessible to listen to? With some limitations like a delay and limiting access to certain channels.
Right now our local police department is under scrutiny for excessive use of force. The police chief claims he wants to be transparent and open yet we still don’t even have police body cameras on all police here.