Scanners go silent: Columbia police use new digital frequency
By: CHRIS MOORMAN
cmoorman@c-dh.net
Those who listen to emergency radio scanners might have noticed only static emanating from the Columbia police channel.
The Columbia Police Department finalized a process to switch from an analog frequency to an encrypted digital frequency over a week ago, Chief Tim Potts said.
The process began a year ago when the Federal Communications Commission told the CPD it would have to switch to a narrow band transmission. The FCC regulates and licenses individual radio frequencies for all entities seeking to broadcast using the public airwaves.
There are a finite number of analog frequencies. By switching to a digital scanner system, there are more options available for transmitting.
Potts said the encryption key the department is using is unbreakable. The new system is beneficial, Potts said, because criminals can no longer listen in on police chatter with scanners or even scanner apps on smart phones.
“There’s not a scanner on the market that would pick up what we were transmitting,” he said. “We have the capability to encrypt it now, and the ease of technology to do it.
“With the encryption we can protect our communications. In years past, a lot of criminals would keep scanners in their cars. We would run into them, and they had scanners. This makes our job easier for what we do and that’s catching bad guys.”
The ability to communicate between officers without criminals listening in is a major reason why many police departments across the country have switched to digitally encrypted scanners.
In the past, officers would talk to one another on cell phones if they needed to pass along critical information that could not be transmitted publicly. Or they wouldn’t say anything at all, which is not a viable option for law enforcement, Potts said.
“We have our reasons for being private,” he said. “It would be kind of crazy not to use that option. We try to be open as best we can, but when we’re doing investigations we need to keep things private.”
There is no federal law or state law that requires law enforcement to allow citizens and news organizations access to the transmissions.
That doesn’t mean police departments should automatically move toward less transparency when dealing with the public, said Deborah Fisher, the executive director for the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.
“Police scanners have been a really critical tool for news media to find out about crime, public safety issues, traffic accidents, natural disasters and fires,” she said. ” … I remember when the floods happened in 2008 in Nashville. The scanners were invaluable.”
While understanding the need for police to transmit information without alerting criminals, Fisher said there needs to be a way for the public to have access to what’s going out over the scanners and still give officers the ability to do their jobs efficiently.
“The police have had secret communication when they needed it,” Fisher said. “They have always had ways. I would hope the police department could navigate through open channels rather than shutting the public out of it. … It has public good associated with it.”
Potts said citizens can still access the department’s transmissions, just not in real time.
“Our electronic messages are public records just like incident reports,” Potts said. “If people want to hear what we’ve said, they can ask for the transmission once the case has been adjudicated.”
The Maury County Sheriff’s Department still uses an analog frequency. Attempts to reach the department were unsuccessful.
The Columbia Fire Department will be implementing a new digital frequency, but it will still transmit its analog signal. The fire department will be making the switch to digital in a couple weeks, once everyone is trained, said Assistant Fire Chief Tim Holt.
“We are going digital,” Holt said. “We will have a patch that will transmit on analog. You won’t hear us on the scanners, though. The reason for the patch is for mutual aid. We can communicate with other emergency crews and departments. If we didn’t have the patch, we would have to get a second radio.”
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Scanners go silent: Columbia police use new digital frequency | Columbia Daily Herald
Per the Columbia Daily Herald:
By: CHRIS MOORMAN
cmoorman@c-dh.net
