Pueblo Police to Encrypt Radios

[GilpinGuy]

If I hear a bunch of sirens rolling into my neighborhood, I want to be able to know what is occuring and whether I need to take action to safeguard my family and property. Reverse 911 and other "alert" systems always operating behind the power curve in terms of timely information. This applies to LE actions and other emergencies, like forest fires.

This is what I'm thinking. Sirens are rare up here, and when I hear one the scanner goes on immediately if it wasn't on already.

My guess is that many more citizens benefit from non-encrypted comms than criminals. But the lawful citizen isn't represented adequately.

Just like guns. A homeowner defends himself during a break in and its on the back pages and no big deal, if it's reported at all. A thug shoots a kid in a drive by and it's front page news.

[Ronin13]

You're right. I don't work as in LE, so my opinion is obviously worth less than someone who does. Regardless of whether I have any knowledge or experience, of any sort, that could shed information on the debate - even if that experience and knowledge comes from working with hundreds of departments around the world, authoring numerous papers on the subject, or testifying in front of FCC about such matters.



By your same argument, citizens should not have access to anything that could pose a threat to officer safety. Right?

Officer safety is a critical topic, but so are the rights of the People to have transparency in their government. There is a balance to be struck (in this argument), but that balance, currently, comes at a rather stiff financial and operational penalty. When someone comes out and just screams "Officer Safety" I know they are doing from a place of concern - but it cannot be used as a catch-all to render moot the peoples rights. Those same rights that officers are supposed to be working so hard to protect.

My argument didn't once curtail anyone's "rights." However, I didn't realize that everyone had the right to listen in on police radios... must have been sick on that day of HS civics class. You never addressed my comment about transparency and FOIA requests. Since LE agencies are accountable to the public, if you wanted to get a copy of radio traffic for a certain event, that request could certainly be made. The agency I work for records several channels, including our patrol and jail channels, and these recordings are available upon request. I find that to be a fair amount of transparency. But if you have a differing opinion I would love to hear it and why. You seem to know quite a bit about radio technology, which I find fascinating, but my understanding of it is pretty limited at best. I R can use the radio, that's about it :P

Would it matter if the radio broadcast was rebroadcast unedited to the public, but delayed, say 24 to 48 hours?

This satisfies both lawful sides. Keeps officers safe realtime, and the public gets full access to police comms.

I agree with this.

If I hear a bunch of sirens rolling into my neighborhood, I want to be able to know what is occuring and whether I need to take action to safeguard my family and property. Reverse 911 and other "alert" systems always operating behind the power curve in terms of timely information. This applies to LE actions and other emergencies, like forest fires.

Unfortunately this is the world we live in. I know they're upgrading the CODERED alert system in and around the metro area, and it's starting to catch up. You have to realize that a lot of these upgrades cost a lot, and local .govs don't really have the funding for it. It's a difficult proposition- how to protect the public as well as protecting ourselves in the same action.

I don't think some people realize the scale of DTRS (Colorado's trunked comm system). A quick look shows DTRS currently has ~3,400 unique talk groups and ~300 towers. It also averages abound 9M 'calls' a month. That is one of the largest in the country.

Encryption requires installation of additional software and/or hardware in radios and dispatch consoles - every single radio/console involved in the encrypted comms requires an upgrade. Additionally the encryption keys need to be managed and changed frequently.

Also, the various 'scanner apps' typically delay their re-transmissions over the Internet by 5-10 minutes. Further, many of them do not include SWAT and 'sensitive' channels.

I didn't know for sure if all of the scanner apps were delayed- good info. I'm fine with this. Also, not every critical incident utilizes tactical comms (like SWAT channels). We had a shooting a couple months back that was on our Channel 1, they just cleared all non-critical traffic and used that channel instead of getting everyone involved to switch to TAC. While I support encryption of LE radio systems, I also recognize that there are probably costs involve that make it prohibitive. The only point I'd emphasize with some of the scanner apps was a story I heard from a counterpart with Broward County S.O. in FL who stated that they had a barricaded subject listening in on a scanner app and when he surrendered they asked what changed his mind, he replied "Because I heard on the scanner you were gonna gas me out." That was following a discussion on the radio to deploy CS.