Lawsuit filed to fight encryption in AR.

[INDY72]

This is a first for me, to see that this is an actual reality.

Arkansas men file lawsuit over police encryption - KAIT-Jonesboro, AR-News, weather, sports

"LITTLE ROCK, AR (AP) - Two brothers have filed a lawsuit accusing the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock of violating state law by blocking access to police communications."

Not sure how far this will go, but there it is folks.

 

[mikepdx]

In this lengthy, but complete news story from the 4th:

Police defend muting radios | arkansasonnline.com

They make quite a unique excuse for the reason to encrypt everything:

"Little Rock police officials said they felt the need to encrypt most of their radio traffic
to make things simpler and avoid a confusing situation that could put officers in peril"

"At first. . .department officials considered only limited encryption for its channels.
But eventually they decided that uniform encryption was best to avoid officers getting lost in the conversation
when they transitioned between encrypted and nonencrypted channels".

Bovine excrement!
Train your people on their equipment.
Their lives depend on it!
.

 

[pinballwiz86]

Kudos!

I wish we would see more people filing lawsuits against police agencies hiding their comms.

 

[pepsima1]

Good Luck on getting that overturned. What's hilarious is that the city attorney said that giving them access to encrypted radio traffic would be put the city at a legal risk.

Well what about for the last 100 years the city has been in the clear. The city has been at a legal risk since the beginning of time. What a joke but at least somebody is starting to file suit.

I know this thread is going to take off in the southern direction. This is a HOT topic

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I do say if this lawsuit for some reason did get overturned and some of their day to day dispatch channels or (talkgroups) go back to being in the clear this opens up the flood gates for the rest of the country to follow suit. It would be a big day for our industry and radio manufacturers.

 

[SCPD]

I wonder If a scanner business would throw money for legal fees there way. After all a win like that would make sells. You see it happen in politics and a win for them 2 brothers would open the door to a slowly dying hobby for guaranteed sales.

 

[pepsima1]

I catch your drift when it comes to having the major scanner makers throw in some cash and have their legal team file suit too. Its just un-charted territory on a corporation filing lawsuits on cities and counties in the public sector.

I am surely going to stay tuned on this issue in Arkansas. I think there may be some head wind. Wonder if Little Rock will strike a deal with these two brothers and make this whole issue go away and sweep it under the carpet. It makes all complete sense.

 

[nfc2014]

The same thing is about to happen in the Richmond, VA area. I live in this area and have been posting in the Va forum about encryption coming in the next 3 years as localities in this area are in the planning stages of replacing current radio systems that have been in with newer ones that have 100% encryption for all law enforecement channels . Trying to rally scanner enthusiast in this area to voice their concerns to their local elected government officials.

 

[mikewazowski]

Please continue discussion here: http://forums.radioreference.com/ar...ark-citizens-suing-over-radio-encryption.html