Interesting balance of one's right to legally operate a scanner to monitor the actions of public safety agencies versus the right for these agencies to do their job. You all know the score.
I'd like to give PDs credit that they would qualify survelliance, and be able to figure out whether a suspect has access to and/or use scanners, and find other ways to do their jobs. At least that what I've seen from episodes of COPS.
There are some privacy issues on information regarding (innocent before proven guilty) citizens whose data your hear over the airwaves. Right to privacy and all those constitutional rights....
This is probably a large portion of the ammunition being used to encrypt ALL radio channels instead of just the very sensitive ones.
Respectfully submitted, I think that scanning, for me, is about radio technology and not conduct oversight. This could probably be the rest of the ammunition used by radio vendors to encrypt everything.
I think that the (legitimate) scanning community can help these agencies. We could find blind spots, help determine coverage areas, help fight crime, warn if a glitch decrypts an encrypted channel, etc.
I know that if I knew an agency wanted volunteers to track a test signal and report back to a website; or if an Amber Alert goes out and the friggin' suspect vehicle passed me on the highway, I'd drop some peak usage minutes, a text message or an email.
I would suggest that most agencies would take favor on such a volunteer program based on its cost (insert smiley).
And as the RR founders know, back home in drug smuggling-capitol-of-the-USA it's too late. We really can't hear/trunk any traffic on the EDACS/ESK, and one by one, all the remaining agencies are going online. It's only a matter of time until every frequency back home is encrypted and unscannable both by technology and by law (insert sad face).
So I'd suggest that the communities could expand on this topic & discuss all possible ways of using scanners to help their local agencies. Maybe start a New Forum of success stories or make it a policy to put that in the RR Tavern.
