I feel like a little background information is necessary.
Back on June 2015, I founded the @LACoScan Twitter account; one of the three accounts that were featured on the program. January of 2017, I relocated to the east coast, and handed the account over to Jay, the individual who was featured on the program. Since my former account, the account I created, was discussed on this forum, I thought perhaps it might be helpful to share what my thoughts were when I dove into the Twitter universe.
The idea of creating a Twitter account for the sharing of scanner information was certainly not original. In fact, it was after discovering several other accounts, that I decided to open my own. My focus here is on Los Angeles, but similar accounts can be found for just about every city and in every state. This is especially true for large metropolitan areas.
When I opened the account, I decided my focus would be on events that could be considered "newsworthy". Several of the other accounts blasted out whatever it was they heard; I decided to keep to the following general list:
Pursuits
Brush fires
Large commercial building fires
Shootings
Officer involved shootings
Anything unusual, which was a catchall for something like a plane crash, for example.
At the same time, I decided I would always omit tactical information. For example, the locations of officers, a sniper on a roof, etc. None of that would hit Twitter through my account.
So those were my thoughts going into Twitter, and I kept to those throughout the entire time I had the account.
Marcotor pointed out that the account currently posts verbatim calls. Fair point! But at the same time, this very site directs to links that provide real-time audio. Sites such as YouTube host after-the-fact videos of broadcast feeds after a major incident (the Las Vegas shooting certainly comes to mind). To say nothing of the fact that with the plethora of information available here, and on hundreds of other sites, in addition to how-to videos posted on YouTube, a complete novice can purchase their own scanner and be up and running pretty quickly. For those reasons, I think the focus on Twitter is a bit disingenuous. Should discretion be used? Absolutely! But to their other point of "LE in LA County to go full boat encryption", I personally don't think an agency needs much prodding to go encrypted. This is especially true (in my own opinion) if the agency is already upgrading their system and/or has the ability to go encrypted. Motorola is certainly using that as a selling point, with their focus being on "terrorism", and criminality in general. In fact, the rollout really began in LA when ICIS started expanding their user network, and suddenly agencies such as Covina, Pomona, Pasadena, and others flipped the switch. And, I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but it won't be too long before LA County, and LA City follow suit. Who knows how that will ultimately play out, but the systems are going into place.
Which brings me to my next point regarding encryption. Again, in my own personal opinion, this issue has not been fully vetted with regards to the legality of encrypting radio traffic. This is because a case has not made its way through the entire court system. Currently, as we all know, numerous agencies encrypt their radio transmissions. And as many others point out, there could be a constitutional argument to be made against it. But since a good chunk of major metropolitan areas have yet to go encrypted (Los Angeles, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, etc), I don't think the issue has been fully tested in the court systems yet. It is my belief that once major cities become off-limits to the local media, we will begin to see such cases play out, and the courts to begin issuing rulings on the subject.
That's my two cents. Everyone have a nice afternoon.
