I'm sorry you failed to see my point. In short, If we had strong opposition to support our hobby then I'm sure putting pressure on public safety agencies who want total encryption would benefit us all. But many of us have the "oh well" attitude and are not willing to defend their hobby. It was not meant to insult gun owners, I was stating that there are bigger fish to fry than scanner users. I think money spent on encryption would be better used to pay for more officers/deputies/troopers, or even fairly compensate the ones that are already hired, or even better, not lay them off.
I'm not in favor of full encryption so you don't need to convince me on that, I agree. Good luck trying to sway the PD who just spent all the money though. I'd be willing to write a letter if the issue came up locally but I would not honestly expect them to care.
You stated that you aren't accusing me, but you say YOU quite a lot. I don't report the stories, I shoot video and hand it over. Yes, one of my goals is money as with most people who work, anywhere. I don't know about you... but I have bills. I need to eat, a place to stay, and buy my girlfriend flowers once in awhile. If doing my job pisses off law enforcement then I'm sorry they feel that way, because I respect what they do. As long as I'm not breaking the law, opinions are just opinions and nothing more.
Replace "you" with "the media" and I apologize, I should have been more grammatically consistent. I don't know what YOU do on a day to day basis so I'm not referring to it in any specific manner.
Yes I have bills, I need to eat, etc, etc. What I'm saying is the police have compelling reasons to encrypt for their own safety. They are going to maximize safety for themselves so they can eat, pay bills, support families, etc. If you can't understand that there are in fact legitimate reasons for encryption, you are out to lunch.
I find it completely asinine that you think the media is ruining the hobby. If law enforcement officials are really saying that that news media is the main motivation for total encryption, then it's not being done for the right reasons, such as crime prevention. Personal perceptions should not have an effect on professional practices, as I learned while working in law enforcement myself in previous jobs. Also, if total encryption is being done because of the media, then why the heck would they give them radios? Therefore, I do not believe that you actually hear that from law enforcement one bit.
If you don't like what's on your local news, then don't watch it silly. I was always taught "if it hurts, don't do it."
First of all, I'm not calling you a liar so don't call me one. I don't know if its because of the job you do or just ignorance but I don't see what is so hard to understand about first responders not being happy about media getting in the way at incidents. I work in public safety, I deal with the police "brass" that make the decisions all the time, they constantly ***** about the media showing up based on scanner reports. Are you a first responder? Do you listen to your boss complain about the media doing fairly unsafe things daily? All to cover stories that are totally worthless.
Why give the media a monitor only radio? They are the biggest pains in the ass out there and won't shut up until they get one, that's why. Then maybe it will keep them in their holes at the office trying to figure out whats going on for a bit longer until the scene has been secured. I should not broad brush though, not all agencies do this. I was just thinking of Orlando giving a few radios to news outlets.
Most are not trained in how to act at an emergency scene and if they are, they usually put getting "the shot" before safety. Small sampling from my own short experience:
We had a news SUV park behind a police cruiser at a car vs tree at 3am, only 1 cruiser was on the scene to warn traffic at the time. Blocks out the lights and sets up his tripod on the road side of his vehicle. Mind you he turned all his vehicle lights off as well so it was pitch black. Another drunk came along and took out him, his equipment and both vehicles. Landed him in the hospital for 2wks luckily he's alive. I escaped by mere inches.
An entire film crew running into the back of a burning building at a fire scene. Not 20min later the building collapsed (they were already removed prior to that).
5 stringers completely blocking an ambulance's path down a country road with their vehicles parked side by side.
2 camera guys walking right into the line of potential SWAT fire at a hostage scene. They had to cross 2 lines of crime scene tape to accomplish that one.
Being yelled at by a stringer for standing in the way of his shot at a fatal accident.
The list goes on. I can think of 50+ cases of idiotic news media types showing up on scenes far before they were secure enough for us to feel comfortable not limiting traffic to the areas. Not all media types are bad but multiply my experience by 30 years and its easy to see why police chiefs are fed up with the media being stupid.
I don't have a problem with the media or the job they do, just STUPIDITY and when you take away their ability to scan, alot of the stupidity is delayed and the scene is usually a bit more under control.
I'm not saying I even agree with the people who encrypt because of the media but I'm telling you the vast majority of scanner bashing I hear from the "inside" results from what the media does with the info they hear on them.
