This is an important announcement then. This could render all my scanning equipment useless! How reliable is your source? I would imagine that unless it comes from the city radio shop then its nothing to worry about. PD and Fire can speculate all the want but I'm sure their radio shop has final say as they are probably the ones purchasing the equipment.
I'd say it is the Chief of Police that has the final say in these matters. And also possibly the Mayor who must explain to the people why they needed to spend this extra money for the addded encryption modules. I'd bet much of that stuff is hidden in the contracts but those should be public record of the public is paying for it. Understanding the terminology used in some of the contracts may be hard for the laymen but not impossible to figure out.
At least all the published cases I've read have said it was the Chief's decision. The radio shops work for the cities usually and only do what they are told. They usually don't have much say in what the Chief wants unless something is physically impossible.
Now the radio shop should know the details of the system and what it will contain but they do not necessarily need to know if everything will be encrypted or not. They just need to make sure the radios are programmed to be able to use it.
They have been saying the P25 system for St. Louis City, MO is to be fully encrypted. Some of it is but not a lot. Now there is a new date floating around that our system will be fully encrypted by years end. I think they said the same thing last year and it never happened. Perhaps they mean that all radios will be capable of it by years end but I'm not sure that means they will actually use it on a systemwide scale. If they do, oh well, I can't do anything about it and will find other things to monitor until everything government related goes the way of encryption.
I really think that is what our federal government is pushing for in my eyes.
They keep announcing these nationwide digital systems and you can bet they will make encryption mandatory on them at some point in time.