Pueblo Police to Encrypt Radios

[Eric P]

"..the traditional American principle of separating civilian and military authority." There is a difference between the .mil and the civilian police. While we, as a nation, have tended to confuse the two over the last 20 years - it doesn't mean the principal shouldn't be upheld. See the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act of 1807.

There have been tens of thousands of cases where people who listen to scanners have caught bad actors doing bad things. Those bad actors tend to be civil officials lying, stealing, and hurting others. When departments encrypt the public looses... "they who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".

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.

[asmo]

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.