Illegal to use cellphones for dispatch?

[mikewazowski]

That's about all I got out of it as well.

The original thread that started this was about a local Police Service starting to use Blackberry's as part of their normal equipment. Hey, it's another tool for them much like MDT's.

The statement that it's illegal for police to use cellphones for dispatch and encryption must be registered is just nonsense. That was the original point (and title of this thread).

I think Roger has confused digital with encrypted.

 

[DaveNF2G]

In addition to my previous comments, I also agree wholeheartedly with Mike's observation about failure to listen to and comprehend the radio traffic. It makes many public safety "professionals" sound like the talkie version of Keystone Cops.

 

[n4voxgill]

It's in the book.....TITLE 47--TELECOMMUNICATION
COMMISSION (CONTINUED)
PART 90_PRIVATE LAND MOBILE RADIO SERVICES--Table of Contents
Subpart I_General Technical Standards
Sec. 90.212 Provisions relating to the use of scrambling devices and
digital voice modulation.

(a) Analog scrambling techniques may be employed at any station authorized the use of A3E, F3E, or G3E emission, subject to the provision of paragraph (d) of this section.
(b) The use of digital scrambling techniques or digital voice modulation requires the specific authorization of F1E or G1E emission, and these emissions will only be authorized subject to the provisions of paragraph (d) of this section.
(c) The transmission of any non-voice information or data under the authorization of F1E or G1E emission is prohibited. However, stations authorized the use of F1E or G1E emission may also be authorized F1D, F2D, G1D or G2D emission for non-voice communication purposes, pursuant to paragraph (k) of Sec. 90.207.
(d) Station identification shall be transmitted in the unscrambled analog mode (clear voice) or Morse code in accordance with the provisions of Sec. 90.425. All digital encoding and digital modulation shall be disabled during station identification.

[43 FR 54791, Nov. 22, 1978, as amended at 47 FR 15340, Apr. 9, 1982; 49 FR 48711, Dec. 14, 1984]

You can't post a law or rule that doesn't exist, so there is nothing about police using cell phones.

All forms of encryption are on file, in non-public files, with either the FCC . NTIA. or NSA.
No telling what the CIA and DoD are working on.

What is legal has absolutely nothing to do with whether you like encryption or not. You have no more right to listen in or radio as you would to tap their phone lines and listen to telephone calls.

 

[Al42]

Could be that what I said might be viewed by some as far fetched and maybe not. I'm not so insecure that I feel the need to prove anything but your welcome to disprove it if you chose.

The general rule is "you made the claim, you back it up or withdraw it" ... however ...

If you really really want to learn more try this link and look under Legal issues involving cryptography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography

Totally irrelevant to this discussion. Most of us know what cryptography is.

If the Canadian police are conducting normal operations in secrecy that should be of consern to everyone. If they are appionted to serve the people that wrote the laws then they are not above them.

And the law prohibiting them from keeping the public from hearing their radio transmissions is?

The Cellphone thing is more of a joke than anything but worth mentioning. I think the police are breaking the law
if they are conducting normal comunications from a fixed station to mobile units out and about.
A cellphone is not radio standards specifcation / type excepted radio device for certain police activitys and I think it's wrong to be using them.

The standards apply to the service. If they're using radios on frequencies licensed to the police, they have to use radios approved for use on those frequencies. If they're using cell phones, they have to use cell phones (radios) approved for that service. That has nothing to do with any law having to do with whether they can dispatch normal or non-normal jobs using approved cell phones on approved cell phone systems. There's no law they're breaking.

If true someone please tell me why billions of my tax money is being spent on new radio communictions when all they need to do is make use of commercial cell phones.

To begin with, because "all they need to do is make use of commercial cell phones" is incorrect. There are times when radio is appropriate, there are times when an MDT is appropriate and there are times when a phone is appropriate.

( commercial allotted frequencies come under some very differant regulations
than public safety does)

But as long as they're not using the phones to conspire to break the law, they're not breaking any law or violating any regulations.

Now let me explain about encription. Every type of code / encription method has to be regersterd by universal law.

Nonsense. To begin with, codes and cyphers aren't the same thing. My saying, over the radio, "change frequency to the channel we use for you know what" is a code. It doesn't have to be registered.

No one can send a coded message in a way that is not eccepted. (not to say they don't)

They do and they can - there's no law against coded messages. There's not even any law about coded messages.

To put it simple the digital noise heard over police radios is no big secreit. If it was there would be no scanner on the market that could decode the signal into audio. The real problem as I see it is that the police are finding ways around the law to make it harder for folks to hear them.

Around which law (specifically, not your annoyance with what they're doing).

If you dissagree with everything thing I have said please say to yourself do you really want your local police department conducting all operations in secrecy?

Do I really want the drug dealers knowing that the stake-out team is watching them? Uh, no, I don't think so. Do I really think 2 cops, discussing a suspect, should make their suspicions a matter of public record? So that the suspect can later sue them and cause my taxes to skyrocket? Uh, no thanks.

I do not, and that's what I thought the original post was all about.

prove me wrong if you feel the need

It's not a matter of proving you wrong, it's a matter of a) you don't know the difference between codes and cyphers, yet you apply the law about one to the other and b) you can't back up your assertions. It's not anyone else's job to prove your assertions wrong, it's your job to prove them correct.

 

[gcgrotz]

Some interesting posts.

I've been a volunteer firefighter in my town for 19 years and I've yet to be dispatched to a call where we can use our private vehicles as primary response vehicles.

Joe: This is a little off-topic, but.... FYI here in VA, especially the rural areas, guys respond all the time in their POV's. Most have red lights installed, some even on the roof. They are not allowed to speed but you should get out of their way just like any other emer vehicle. Some, especially chiefs and asst's, have radios in their POV. It can make sense, especially if there are only one or two members at the station, they don't have to wait for a crew response they can just roll.

As for your signature, all I can say is "...busted, down on Bourbon Street, set up, like a bowling pin..."

Everybody else: Back on topic, I personally don't like the idea of police conducting their routine business in secret. Like the FBI used to train their people, if you don't want everyone to hear it, don't say it on the radio. Police around here routinely use their Nextels, even though their dispatch is all-digital 800MHz, which the average dumb criminal could never figure out. For all the pro dispatchers out there - is there any documented case of a criminal using a scanner to avoid getting caught? The cases of scanner listeners helping police (or fire/rescue) far exceeds the opposite!

73

 

[newtoscanning]

sorry, delete post.

 

[Jay911]

YIKES! I wonder what their ISO rating is b/c of this? :roll:

What does the ISO rating have to do with alerting? I concede that I may not be familiar with ISO since I'm in Canada and we have a different organization here, but my impression was that the ISO rating is based on the performance of the fire department and its capabilities and resources.

My department uses alpha pagers and/or SMS messaging as part of its alerting system, and we have the highest IAO rating a volunteer department can get. Hence you might appreciate why I'm confused as to how simply using the above systems to augment alerting would affect your rating.

I have my sincere doubts that there is any law on the books anywhere that states it is illegal to use a cellphone for dispatch. There may be, as others have said, laws that prohibit broadcast-style transmissions on iDEN type systems, etc., but I highly doubt that this is what is the issue.

Many agencies I know will not rely on cellular phones or other public networks for emergency comms, dispatch or otherwise, simply because of the fact it's a public network. An emergency agency can't and shouldn't rely on a network for their comms that they don't have total control over. It would be irresponsible to say the least to rely strictly on SMS, for example, for alerting, when there's no guarantee that the SMS service will deliver the message immediately in priority, without fail every time.

In any case, I doubt that even the abovementioned restriction against using broadcast (one to many) mode on iDEN still exists, because there are many agencies and entities that have and use iDEN in a dispatch environment (police agencies in Ontario, transit in Alberta, to name two).

 

[hoser147]

Jay just to answer your first question, the way dispatching is done is considered one of the area's that ISO looks at while rating a Fire department. As for the rest of this mess its all yours Hoser

 

[Jay911]

Hm. Dispatching is assessed in Canadian IAO, but the criteria that would be looked at is the dispatch center's staffing, their level of training and/or the 'system' they use (i.e. IAED/MPDS or similar), and whether or not 9-1-1 is available/delivered from customers to dispatch. What kind of alerting the department uses would be, as far as I know, fairly far down the list, even if there at all.

I'm not naive enough to say that no department solely uses alpha paging/text messaging for dispatch, but an agency that uses it probably uses it as an augmentation to their regular dispatch functions, like my department does.

 

[hoser147]

Pretty much the same here in the US, its all lumped together as comms.

 

[N9JIG]

There might be some confusion on the "illegal to use Nextel for dispatch" issue. Under FCC regulations (can't find them right now but I know they are there), it is (or was?) unlawful for cellphone-like services to be set up in a "dispatch" configuration where they can be used for one-to-many communications. These devices were originally authorized as one-to-one communication devices and were not intended to compete with regular mobile radio services.

That is probably why Nextel had to buy out all those radio shops and set up "normal" trunking services. They couldn't just use their iDEN network to wipe out the two-way business because such use would have been against the regs.

It is not illegal for Nextel customers to dispatch using Nextels - it's just stupid.

If such a law was or is in effect in the USA then it is either long gone or Nextel is in violation, as they have for years offered "Group Call". It works pretty well, but we only use it as an alternative to our dispatch radio.

 

[zz0468]

Another incomprehensible and illiterate post by someone who doesn't like encryption.

*yawn*

Get over it. Encryption is coming soon to a law enforcement agency near you.

 

[DickH]

Long before cellphones, blackberrys or MDTs, calls of a sensitive nature were often heard over the air with the dispatcher stating something similar to: "311 Adam 10-21 (landline) dispatch for a call."

And long, long before that, our town had police boxes (like Gamewell fire alarm boxes) and dispatch would call a car and say, "call from a box", then on the completely secure telephone in the box he would get info. It was secure and reliable because we installed and maintained our own cables.

 

[loumaag]

And why people continue to post in a 2 year old thread is beyond me.

Closed.