Northeast Kansas law enforcement agencies move to encrypt radio broadcasts
- Thread starter wbloss
- Start date
As was stated before, you can thank the FBI for this. There is a big push on to enforce their new standard to protect personal identifying information against identity theft. It's still more or less a huge unfunded mandate, but it is what it is. Going to see a lot more doing it very soon.
nd5y
Member
Zero.
nd5y
Member
Encryption has nothing to do with a scanner being obsolete.
Johnson County South County Sheriff Disp talkgroup is not encrypted or only partially encrypted atm.
Lyon County gone? Haven't heard them in weeks... anybody have any info? Or I am missing something.... ???
Nothing from Emporia PD, Lyon County SO at all... I assume they went encrypted... But it's not noted in the database as DE..
Nothing from Emporia PD, Lyon County SO at all... I assume they went encrypted... But it's not noted in the database as DE..
Last edited:
Found the answer on Broadcastify:
On July 8, 2024 Lyon County Law Enforment Talk Groups will be encrypted and will no longer be broadcast on this feed. Encryption is being implemented due to regulations by the FBI and KHP. All other Talk Groups will continue to be available without encryption.
This feed includes
FEED NOTES
PLEASE NOTEOn July 8, 2024 Lyon County Law Enforment Talk Groups will be encrypted and will no longer be broadcast on this feed. Encryption is being implemented due to regulations by the FBI and KHP. All other Talk Groups will continue to be available without encryption.
This feed includes
- Emporia Fire Dispatch
- Emporia (District 4) Fire Ground
- Lyon County Fire Dispatch
- Americus (District 8) Fire Ground
- Allen / Admire (District 2) Fire Ground
- Hartford / Neosho Rapids (District 5) Fire Ground
- Reading Benefit (District 7) / Miller (District 3) Fire Ground
- Olpe (District 1) Fire Ground
- Lyon County Law Enforcement (LYSO / Emporia PD / ESU PD) (Not hearing them... was this line added in error?)
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Stupidfatkid
Member
You have to love silly statements like the one below when the same county posts to the internet full name, age, charges, residential city, and photograph of every person booked into their jail. This is the same county that states "It is essential to safeguard the privacy and security of our community members in the digital age". Keep in mind everyone arrested/booked is technically innocent until proven guilty. No issue putting arrestees' information out in "public view".
"Under the revised policy, criminal history records, social security numbers, and addresses are classified as criminal justice information protected from public view. This crucial security measure addresses the increasing incidents of personal information breaches and identity thefts affecting Kansas communities. It is essential to safeguard the privacy and security of our community members in the digital age.
"Under the revised policy, criminal history records, social security numbers, and addresses are classified as criminal justice information protected from public view. This crucial security measure addresses the increasing incidents of personal information breaches and identity thefts affecting Kansas communities. It is essential to safeguard the privacy and security of our community members in the digital age.
firefive76
Member
Arrestee information is public. What is not public is their address, social security number, and date of birth.
Heh! Wait until you find out how much information many state DMVs sell.
If it was left up to them, most of these agencies would not encrypt. It is basically an unfunded mandate coming down from the FBI Criminal Justice Information System Unit requiring law enforcement to encrypt- using AES- all CJIS derived information.
lfkliveaudit
Newbie
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2018
- Messages
- 2
News - As of Oct. 15, all police scanner traffic in Douglas County will be encrypted and unavailable to public and news outlets
www2.ljworld.com
Another Northeast Kansas law enforcement agency / county moving to encryption.
Considering selling my off my WS1040, WS1080, not much point when primary use was to monitor PD / KU, KTA etc , no ambulance and fire chaser. Thanks federal mandate, FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Security Policy!
R.I.P Douglas County Kansas Live Audio Feeds
As of Oct. 15, all police scanner traffic in Douglas County will be encrypted and unavailable to public and news outlets
The days of police business being aired over a “scanner” are nearing their end as Douglas County law enforcement agencies move to a system of fully encrypted radio communication to comply with a federal mandate. This means that the public, including news outlets, will not be able to hear over a...
www2.ljworld.com
Another Northeast Kansas law enforcement agency / county moving to encryption.
Considering selling my off my WS1040, WS1080, not much point when primary use was to monitor PD / KU, KTA etc , no ambulance and fire chaser. Thanks federal mandate, FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Security Policy!
R.I.P Douglas County Kansas Live Audio Feeds
Last edited:
AB5ID
Member
Behind the paywall:
Credit: Lawrence Journal-World
As of Oct. 15, all police scanner traffic in Douglas County will be encrypted and unavailable to public and news outlets
Public Safety
OCT 1, 2024 - 10:00AM
KIM CALLAHAN
kcallahan@ljworld.com
The Emergency Communications Center is pictured on Nov. 3, 2023, on the second floor of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.
The days of police business being aired over a “scanner” are nearing their end as Douglas County law enforcement agencies move to a system of fully encrypted radio communication to comply with a federal mandate.
This means that the public, including news outlets, will not be able to hear over a police scanner communications between law enforcement and emergency dispatch regarding incidents such as car chases, shootings and other matters. Fire and medical radio traffic will not be encrypted, however.
Douglas County Sheriff Jay Armbrister acknowledged that the encryption necessarily reduced public transparency about certain aspects of law enforcement, and he noted that it was a federal mandate, not a local choice, but he expected that it would ultimately make law enforcement safer and more effective.
The change, to go into effect Oct. 15, will apply to the four agencies whose calls go through the county’s dispatch system: the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the police departments in Lawrence, Eudora and Baldwin City.
The move to encryption is to comply with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Security Policy, Armbrister said. That policy went into effect nearly two years ago, in December 2022, and required local and state agencies to gain the capabilities — namely, buying encryption-capable radios — to protect personal information that’s transmitted over the air.
Each officer or deputy has a portable radio and a patrol car radio, and all of those have had to be upgraded or replaced to allow encryption. The jail also has multiple radios. Armbrister did not immediately provide the total number of radios, but he said the portable radios can cost $6,000 to $7,000 each.
“They are very expensive,” he said, partially explaining why it has taken nearly two years to acquire them all. Additionally, he said that law enforcement agencies across the country had been scrambling to acquire the radios, creating a backlog of orders.
Armbrister described the encryption system as an unfunded federal mandate. “They gave us exactly zero dollars to fulfill the mandate,” he said, but he nevertheless embraced facets of the change — principally, that it would allow law enforcement personnel to communicate more freely and thoroughly without having to worry that they are divulging personal details, as well as crime locations that he said, for safety reasons, shouldn’t be publicized in real time.
The information that the FBI has said needed protection includes names, birth dates, addresses, medical details and other identifying facts that law enforcement personnel share with each other about suspects, witnesses and victims while they are working a scene or executing a warrant.
Fire and medical radio traffic will not be encrypted because with those calls personal information is generally not communicated via the radio to comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, regulations.
The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services system is basically a database that’s available to the law enforcement community nationwide. Agencies can submit information to, and obtain information from, CJIS regarding criminal identities and histories, missing persons and a host of other data — an exchange that’s heavily relied upon by law enforcement.
Local agencies will be audited by the Kansas Highway Patrol to ensure compliance with the federal security policy, and agencies risk being fined or losing access to CJIS if they are not in compliance.
The Oct. 15 date was set locally, not by the FBI, which Armbrister said is, for now, giving agencies time to acquire encrypted radio devices before at some point setting a firm compliance deadline.
Other counties in Kansas have worked to recently encrypt law enforcement radio traffic, including most police agencies in Johnson County, Armbrister said.
As to the loss in transparency, Armbrister said he understood that the change was not ideal and that some people, particularly those who “think cops are up to no good,” would be upset by not being able to listen to the scanner.
His bigger concern was for people who had a personal stake in an incident — for example, people who live on a street where a bunch of police activity is occurring and they understandably want real-time information about it.
“I feel bad for those folks who want to just know if they need to worry about something that’s happening right where they’re at,” he said, acknowledging that such people differ from those who “just want to know what other people’s business is.”
Armbrister noted that the call log would still be available to the public on the sheriff’s website, and he said the office was working on ways to post more immediately to social media information that’s useful or important to the public.
As for the argument that business aired over the scanner is essentially government business and should not be encrypted, Armbrister said that’s “a fair point.”
“I’m not fighting anybody on that,” he told the Journal-World, but “I do see the pros from a law enforcement standpoint.”
Journal-World editor and publisher Chad Lawhorn expressed disappointment with the change.
“I’m disappointed that the federal government has put local law enforcement agencies in this situation,” he said. “A balancing act between personal privacy and public transparency is important, but clearly transparency will be short-changed. The public craves transparency, and big picture, I don’t think this will make law enforcement’s job easier.”
Lawhorn said that the Journal-World would continue to take seriously its responsibility to cover breaking news, “but we’re going to have to give a lot of thought about the best ways to do so.”
“I’m hopeful of talking with leaders in local law enforcement about how their agencies can make information more readily available now that the scanner won’t be a source of information,” he said.
The Lawrence Police Department supported the decision to move to the encrypted system now.
“We will continue our commitment to be open with our community through our detailed calls for service report,” Police Chief Rich Lockhart said in an email to the Journal-World. “With this change from the ECC (Emergency Communications Center), we are going to increase the release of our calls for service report from once to twice daily by the end of October. As always, we provide information on significant incidents through our social media outlets.”
As for the cost for LPD, the department said the radios it purchased in 2019 were already encryption capable, so the department didn’t have to purchase new ones to comply with the federal mandate.
Sgt. Drew Fennelly said the work to transition to encrypted channels is being done by in-house staff. He said he did not have a total count on radios, “but it’s in the hundreds.”
Tony Foster, director of Douglas County Emergency Communications, said that the change to encryption aligned with the accepted practice of protecting people’s personal information and that it was “prudent” that the agency follow all “accepted mandated practices from the federal government.”
Credit: Lawrence Journal-World
As of Oct. 15, all police scanner traffic in Douglas County will be encrypted and unavailable to public and news outlets
Public Safety
OCT 1, 2024 - 10:00AM
KIM CALLAHAN
kcallahan@ljworld.com
The Emergency Communications Center is pictured on Nov. 3, 2023, on the second floor of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.
The days of police business being aired over a “scanner” are nearing their end as Douglas County law enforcement agencies move to a system of fully encrypted radio communication to comply with a federal mandate.
This means that the public, including news outlets, will not be able to hear over a police scanner communications between law enforcement and emergency dispatch regarding incidents such as car chases, shootings and other matters. Fire and medical radio traffic will not be encrypted, however.
Douglas County Sheriff Jay Armbrister acknowledged that the encryption necessarily reduced public transparency about certain aspects of law enforcement, and he noted that it was a federal mandate, not a local choice, but he expected that it would ultimately make law enforcement safer and more effective.
The change, to go into effect Oct. 15, will apply to the four agencies whose calls go through the county’s dispatch system: the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the police departments in Lawrence, Eudora and Baldwin City.
The move to encryption is to comply with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Security Policy, Armbrister said. That policy went into effect nearly two years ago, in December 2022, and required local and state agencies to gain the capabilities — namely, buying encryption-capable radios — to protect personal information that’s transmitted over the air.
Each officer or deputy has a portable radio and a patrol car radio, and all of those have had to be upgraded or replaced to allow encryption. The jail also has multiple radios. Armbrister did not immediately provide the total number of radios, but he said the portable radios can cost $6,000 to $7,000 each.
“They are very expensive,” he said, partially explaining why it has taken nearly two years to acquire them all. Additionally, he said that law enforcement agencies across the country had been scrambling to acquire the radios, creating a backlog of orders.
Armbrister described the encryption system as an unfunded federal mandate. “They gave us exactly zero dollars to fulfill the mandate,” he said, but he nevertheless embraced facets of the change — principally, that it would allow law enforcement personnel to communicate more freely and thoroughly without having to worry that they are divulging personal details, as well as crime locations that he said, for safety reasons, shouldn’t be publicized in real time.
The information that the FBI has said needed protection includes names, birth dates, addresses, medical details and other identifying facts that law enforcement personnel share with each other about suspects, witnesses and victims while they are working a scene or executing a warrant.
Fire and medical radio traffic will not be encrypted because with those calls personal information is generally not communicated via the radio to comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, regulations.
The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services system is basically a database that’s available to the law enforcement community nationwide. Agencies can submit information to, and obtain information from, CJIS regarding criminal identities and histories, missing persons and a host of other data — an exchange that’s heavily relied upon by law enforcement.
Local agencies will be audited by the Kansas Highway Patrol to ensure compliance with the federal security policy, and agencies risk being fined or losing access to CJIS if they are not in compliance.
The Oct. 15 date was set locally, not by the FBI, which Armbrister said is, for now, giving agencies time to acquire encrypted radio devices before at some point setting a firm compliance deadline.
Other counties in Kansas have worked to recently encrypt law enforcement radio traffic, including most police agencies in Johnson County, Armbrister said.
As to the loss in transparency, Armbrister said he understood that the change was not ideal and that some people, particularly those who “think cops are up to no good,” would be upset by not being able to listen to the scanner.
His bigger concern was for people who had a personal stake in an incident — for example, people who live on a street where a bunch of police activity is occurring and they understandably want real-time information about it.
“I feel bad for those folks who want to just know if they need to worry about something that’s happening right where they’re at,” he said, acknowledging that such people differ from those who “just want to know what other people’s business is.”
Armbrister noted that the call log would still be available to the public on the sheriff’s website, and he said the office was working on ways to post more immediately to social media information that’s useful or important to the public.
As for the argument that business aired over the scanner is essentially government business and should not be encrypted, Armbrister said that’s “a fair point.”
“I’m not fighting anybody on that,” he told the Journal-World, but “I do see the pros from a law enforcement standpoint.”
Journal-World editor and publisher Chad Lawhorn expressed disappointment with the change.
“I’m disappointed that the federal government has put local law enforcement agencies in this situation,” he said. “A balancing act between personal privacy and public transparency is important, but clearly transparency will be short-changed. The public craves transparency, and big picture, I don’t think this will make law enforcement’s job easier.”
Lawhorn said that the Journal-World would continue to take seriously its responsibility to cover breaking news, “but we’re going to have to give a lot of thought about the best ways to do so.”
“I’m hopeful of talking with leaders in local law enforcement about how their agencies can make information more readily available now that the scanner won’t be a source of information,” he said.
The Lawrence Police Department supported the decision to move to the encrypted system now.
“We will continue our commitment to be open with our community through our detailed calls for service report,” Police Chief Rich Lockhart said in an email to the Journal-World. “With this change from the ECC (Emergency Communications Center), we are going to increase the release of our calls for service report from once to twice daily by the end of October. As always, we provide information on significant incidents through our social media outlets.”
As for the cost for LPD, the department said the radios it purchased in 2019 were already encryption capable, so the department didn’t have to purchase new ones to comply with the federal mandate.
Sgt. Drew Fennelly said the work to transition to encrypted channels is being done by in-house staff. He said he did not have a total count on radios, “but it’s in the hundreds.”
Tony Foster, director of Douglas County Emergency Communications, said that the change to encryption aligned with the accepted practice of protecting people’s personal information and that it was “prudent” that the agency follow all “accepted mandated practices from the federal government.”
lfkliveaudit
Newbie
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2018
- Messages
- 2
@ AB5ID thank you! My fault. I forgot that I have the LJW paywall blocked with UblockOrgin on my end, and that others may not know how to bypass it to read the news.
I'm getting my listening in before the Oct. 15, it's sure going to be missed, its like 85%+/- of the radio traffic here. I hear other some counties, traffic simulcast on Douglas County, and KHP, KTA, but it's unclear when those get garbled up too.
I'm getting my listening in before the Oct. 15, it's sure going to be missed, its like 85%+/- of the radio traffic here. I hear other some counties, traffic simulcast on Douglas County, and KHP, KTA, but it's unclear when those get garbled up too.
firefive76
Member
Franklin Co switched today
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