Does anyone want to go before the Gwinnett County commission with me?

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rapidcharger

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I would like to go before the board of commissioners and make it known that I do not support the encryption of the police dispatch. (And apparently now some of the FD traffic is encrypted from what I've been told)

Is there anyone here who wants to join me? Please send me a PM and we'll figure out a date.
 

N8IAA

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I would like to go before the board of commissioners and make it known that I do not support the encryption of the police dispatch. (And apparently now some of the FD traffic is encrypted from what I've been told)

Is there anyone here who wants to join me? Please send me a PM and we'll figure out a date.

The FD traffic that is encrypted is between the squads and the hospitals. I was told this a few years ago when I visited Station 24.
Larry
 

rapidcharger

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Oh well I guess nobody wants to get off their duff and go let the folks thought bought this race-to-waste radio system that the lack of transparency and accountability bothers them.

I will assume that the police are not being secretive for any other reason that simply, it bothers no one. Not even the world's largest discussion board for scanner listeners who can no longer use their scanner for monitoring police.

Now maybe the lack of responses in my inbox (grand total of zero) means that people are too busy. Seeing as how no date was picked, thats a bit of a stretch but if that is the case, if I were to set up a PAC and asked for donations so that we can influence the decision makers to do what we want, if anyone here is interested in donating, please send me a PM. This is not a solicitation, I'm just asking if people would prefer letting someone else do the lobbying for them. Please PM in now if so.
 

AZScanner

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Oh well I guess nobody wants to get off their duff and go let the folks thought bought this race-to-waste radio system that the lack of transparency and accountability bothers them.

I will assume that the police are not being secretive for any other reason that simply, it bothers no one. Not even the world's largest discussion board for scanner listeners who can no longer use their scanner for monitoring police.

Now maybe the lack of responses in my inbox (grand total of zero) means that people are too busy. Seeing as how no date was picked, thats a bit of a stretch but if that is the case, if I were to set up a PAC and asked for donations so that we can influence the decision makers to do what we want, if anyone here is interested in donating, please send me a PM. This is not a solicitation, I'm just asking if people would prefer letting someone else do the lobbying for them. Please PM in now if so.

Rapid, if I had the spare money right now to either donate to your PAC or go down there with you I would. I too am really bothered by agencies that throw the encryption switch just because. However, I think this is simply a sign of the times. More and more agencies are going to do this because, as you said, no one cares if they do. Even if every scanner owner in Gwinnett County showed up at the meeting to cry foul, they'd just be severely outnumbered by the uninformed general public who would side with the cops because "the possibility of a terrorist listening in to the cops as they try to elude capture and carry out their evil is really, really scary sounding." And that's all the cops would need to tell them for your pleas and mine to fall on deaf ears. It's a battle we cannot win.

I think the money and/or volunteer hours should be spent on modifying a program like DSD or DSD+ to accept an AES-256 encryption key so that hobbyists like us at least have a means to guess at what the key might be. It'd be better than nothing and far more effective than trying to fight city hall, literally. The encryption is here to stay and nothing we say or do is going to change that anytime soon.

-AZ
 

rapidcharger

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Even if every scanner owner in Gwinnett County showed up at the meeting to cry foul, they'd just be severely outnumbered by the uninformed general public who would side with the cops because "the possibility of a terrorist listening in to the cops as they try to elude capture and carry out their evil is really, really scary sounding." And that's all the cops would need to tell them for your pleas and mine to fall on deaf ears. It's a battle we cannot win.


That's an assumption that I no longer believe is true. It has never been proven and never will be proven. I can't even rally one single person to go with me, on the world's largest discussion board for scanner enthusiasts. Not even one!

The police may have a reason for keeping their activities secret but they don't get to say. They work for us.

It's crystal clear now why we have encryption. It is not for some BS reason that someone gives to a reporter for the hometown rag. It's because nobody, and I do mean NOBODY, including die hard scanner listerners will get off their butts and go to a meeting.

This is truly unbelievable.
I'm going to be editing my signature line to reflect the real reason we have encryption.

And for the record, I didn't listen to GCPD before they started hiding and I more than likely wouldn't start even if they stopped hiding. I was just going to go to speak out against it to stand in solidarity with the scanner listeners. But if nobody cares enough to go and speak up, then neither do I. I'm surely not doing it for myself and I'm not doing it for my health.

How incredibly, incredibly sad. We have the right to speak up and speak out and let our voices be heard but instead we voluntarily forfeit that right because we just don't care to use it. Of course there's an infinite supply of anonymous avatars on the Internet who are quick to complain about encryption and say how it violates their rights. Rights... They don't give a flying fork about their rights. If they did, they'd speak up.
 

7StoryMTN

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Getting Organized

Rapid Charger,

The links in your signatures are hilarious. I like what you have to say on this topic.

I think the first step for anyone wanting to challenge encrypition is getting organized. Finding others who are like minded is the first step (which you are doing here).

I think one would need to do a little research first. What happened in 2008 at commission meetings when they went encrypted? Was there any conversation or debate? Did they claim that criminals were getting away or that there was an officer safety issue because of scanners? Was there any empirical evidence presented that would support those claims ( doubt it). One could probably research the minutes of the 2008 meetings to find this info.

I wonder if any other county commissions have been defeated by the citizenry regarding encryption. That could be our model to follow. One quote I saw from attorney in an article online stated that encrypting the frequencies was a public records issue. You can't have gov official on public airwaves encrypted without at least giving the public the encryption key, the attorney said (even though one could go later and do a FOIA Request). Might be something to that.

There might not be that many folks that want to actually "speak" at a commission meeting but they might be willing to help in other ways (i.e. volunteering research time, or showing up at a meeting for moral support, etc).

In the end, maybe nobody in Gwinnett actually cares. We'll just let the police and politicians set the narrative and trust they'll give us the right info (fat chance).

What say you?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

-7StoryMTN
 
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