Do streaming feeds do more harm than good? Flagscanner.com

[APSN556]

I want to clear the air to all who venture to the flagscanner site. Recently, a viewer asked the below question. Our official response is followed.

So, I know this information is free and all to the public, but couldn't the argument be made that now criminals are going to be able to use this as a tool to help them continue their activities? I am not talking about big stuff. I am thinking more of students in their dorm rooms can listen to this while they smoke pot and know when an officer is coming to their place of residence. Same thing could be said for the city.

As for the argument that anyone can go get a scanner, I agree, but how many do? This just makes it easier now because someone can just stream. Plus, this would make it easier for people to know codes, again making them more aware if the police would be coming after them, and to some extent how long they have to get away.

My reply:

Thanks for writing!

When I started this site, I shared the same concerns you do. In fact I put off doing the whole project entirely for 2 years until a dear friend of mine who happens to be a Police Officer with the city of Flagstaff told me it would actually be a good thing.

My main drive behind this whole thing is to hopefully make the citizens of Flagstaff more fully comprehend just what exactly our brave men and women do on a day to day basis. Our tax dollars are not going towards people who simply wear a badge and pull others over for speeding all day. I want this site to not only be a pleasurable pastime for those who are curious, but also as an insight to what the real job description is of the Police fire and EMS workers... To save lives.

 

[ICP963]

Good reply Chad. Having been a scanner listener for over 30 years I have run across many people that do not understand the concept of why someone would listen to scanner calls. Personally, I feel that all of our congress critters chould sit down and listen to some of the feeds for a few hours and just see how busy our firefightrs and police officers really are. Then I would ask that they sit down and listen to the Border Patrol for a few days. You want to talk about a very dedicated and understaffed agency there. I turly am amazed they do as much as they do with as little as our government gives them to work with.

Streaming is nothing more than a scanner on a party line. I am currently streaming 5 feeds myself.

I want to clear the air to all who venture to the flagscanner site. Recently, a viewer asked the below question. Our official response is followed.

So, I know this information is free and all to the public, but couldn't the argument be made that now criminals are going to be able to use this as a tool to help them continue their activities? I am not talking about big stuff. I am thinking more of students in their dorm rooms can listen to this while they smoke pot and know when an officer is coming to their place of residence. Same thing could be said for the city.

As for the argument that anyone can go get a scanner, I agree, but how many do? This just makes it easier now because someone can just stream. Plus, this would make it easier for people to know codes, again making them more aware if the police would be coming after them, and to some extent how long they have to get away.

My reply:

Thanks for writing!

When I started this site, I shared the same concerns you do. In fact I put off doing the whole project entirely for 2 years until a dear friend of mine who happens to be a Police Officer with the city of Flagstaff told me it would actually be a good thing.

My main drive behind this whole thing is to hopefully make the citizens of Flagstaff more fully comprehend just what exactly our brave men and women do on a day to day basis. Our tax dollars are not going towards people who simply wear a badge and pull others over for speeding all day. I want this site to not only be a pleasurable pastime for those who are curious, but also as an insight to what the real job description is of the Police fire and EMS workers... To save lives.

 

[disp10]

Kids in college dorm rooms smoking dope are usually in no condition to be decoding police radio jargon. They are way too busy trying to find another bag of Cheetos, playing Guitar Hero, and generally wasting their parents hard-earned money under the guise of getting a "higher education". Higher=yes. Education=no.

 

[cratliff]

Kids in college dorm rooms smoking dope are usually in no condition to be decoding police radio jargon. They are way too busy trying to find another bag of Cheetos, playing Guitar Hero, and generally wasting their parents hard-earned money under the guise of getting a "higher education". Higher=yes. Education=no.

Exactly. Also, the chances of actually hearing the call that the officer is receiving to come to THAT dorm room, or whatever it may be isnt really that big. I am not worried about it.

 

[bonus1331]

Kids in college dorm rooms smoking dope are usually in no condition to be decoding police radio jargon. They are way too busy trying to find another bag of Cheetos, playing Guitar Hero, and generally wasting their parents hard-earned money under the guise of getting a "higher education". Higher=yes. Education=no.

So you must have a Masters?

That's all college is good for in your opinion?

Guess you won't need to have a college fund for your kids...

 

[jasonpeoria911]

Not to mention that 95% of the time, it is the Dorm Resident assistants that investigate the drug use or drinking. Officers are normally called after a RA does the drug search themselves. Plus it's kind of hard to hide a pot smell LOL.

Jason

 

[SCPD]

You want to talk about a very dedicated and understaffed agency there. I Tully am amazed they do as much as they do with as little as our government gives them to work with.

I would add the federal natural resource agencies as well, i.e. the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Most state fish/wildlife agencies could be added as well. These agencies are often called "the thin green line." All the federal agencies I cited deal with illegal immigration effects in some areas of the country as well, the Cleveland National Forest in southern California, the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, Organ Pipe National Monument, and Big Bend National Park quickly come to mind.

I worked for the U.S. Forest Service on one of the top 5 recreation use Ranger Districts in the National Forest System and was the field supervisor of all the front country recreation operations. I was appalled with the facilities, storage and workshops mainly, that I found when I arrived. Old house trailers not anchored to the ground with roof leaks and access for Hantavirus carrying deer mice. Other storage space in the converted attic of a CCC constructed vehicle garage with steel I-beams at about a 5 foot height that we had to cover with foam and hang pink flagging from. A shop where the circuit breakers would trip if someone used a router an the table saw at the same time. The whole facility without a bathroom and not being able to even afford a porta potty. A vehicle fleet inadequate for hauling project site materials, supplemented with flat bed trailers picked up at junk yards, and vehicles where moving rocks and logs was very challenging to say the least. We should have had a flat bed truck with a lift gate and a boom attached, but there was no way we could afford one. Then you talk about the acreage each employee had to cover and combine that with only having 4 law enforcement officers on 2 million acres.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has the lowest employee/land area ratio in the nation. They have even fewer law enforcement officers, some of whom are assigned to several widely spread Refuges at the same time. Combine that with somewhat unclear policies, remoteness, a lack of good radio systems and the picture is not pretty.

Yes, the line is thin for most federal agencies whose duties include large areas of undeveloped land that have to be patrolled and maintained. As a very astute Regional Forester told a group of recreation managers in the Forest Service at a Regional meeting "they keep telling us that we have to do more with less, but the trouble with that logic is pretty soon you are expected to do everything with nothing."

My wife did a ride along with me one day at the beginning of a major snow storm when I had to close a major recreation area, involving:

-- sweeping roads to get people out, closing two exterior gates and opening up seven interior gates, which required getting center gate posts out/in of storage in scattered restroom chases and returning/placing post hole caps to that storage. If double swinging gate center posts are not covered in the summer you are faced with digging the holes out in order to place the center post and if covers are not in place during the winter you have a solid ice mass in the hole in the spring.

--during these sweeps I would often have to contact visitors in the dark, alone, and not armed. Some of these were not exactly your upstanding cooperative citizens. I had radio contact with the sheriff dispatcher and one Mammoth Lakes P.D. officer on the night shift.

-- removing service road pipe barriers from a dozen service roads that weighed about 60 pounds for each post, minimum two posts per road and placing those in storage and retrieving post hole caps to place for the winter.

-- erecting winter recreation signage, two of which had 14 foot 4 x 4 wooden posts with a sign made of a full sheet of 3/4" plywood mounted on them and placed on exterior gates with hose clamps, by myself.

All of the above had to be done by me alone as I was the only year long employee in front country recreation (when everyone is gone the boss has to do it all!). I had to accomplish this when a major storm hit and before the snow became too deep to drive around in. So this was usually done in high winds with a snowfall of 2-4" per hour. This had to be done this way so people could continue to drive into the area as long as possible in the fall, and to prepare for the area to become the second busiest cross country ski area in California until the next May. I had three areas like this to close and was the only one available to do this. Sometimes, in order to beat the storm's snowfall accumulation, I would work for 10-12 hours until 4 or 5 in the morning. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night at home when somehow the start of a major snowstorm would wake me up and I would go out and accomplish these tasks until noon or later. The dispatcher would always have a comment to make when they would go in service at 7 a.m. and I would call in with "Inyo, Recreation 21 in service, I have been in service since 0045." Sometimes they would reply, "does anyone know how hard you work?" My reply would usually be "just you and me."

I'm retired now and my wife tells the story of that day to people quite often, amazed at how much work I had to do under the circumstances I did. Her conclusion was to say "now I truly know why I was a Forest Service 'widow' all those years!"

Sorry to hijack this thread. There are thousands of federal employees who work under similar or worse conditions. Look at the exteme danger Border Patol officers face in remote country. We all have to put up with the stereotypes of the "bureaucrat" shoved in our face on a daily basis, while getting very infrequent credit.

 

[garikfox]

Good reply Chad. Having been a scanner listener for over 30 years I have run across many people that do not understand the concept of why someone would listen to scanner calls. Personally, I feel that all of our congress critters chould sit down and listen to some of the feeds for a few hours and just see how busy our firefightrs and police officers really are. Then I would ask that they sit down and listen to the Border Patrol for a few days. You want to talk about a very dedicated and understaffed agency there. I turly am amazed they do as much as they do with as little as our government gives them to work with.

Streaming is nothing more than a scanner on a party line. I am currently streaming 5 feeds myself.

Hey there, No offense BUT your feed on Simul-D, Is about as bad as %^&$, lol

No offense, but it's bad, Sorry I had to tell ya, Ya cant hear it at all. When ya can its a digital mess ! You also have MASS buffer issues.