5 ms·

I live in the SF Bay Area, and in my sub-region, everyone uses the same P25 trunk system. By everyone I mean fire, sheriff, city police, medical, animal control

I live in the SF Bay Area, and in my sub-region, everyone uses the same P25 trunk system. By everyone I mean fire, sheriff, city police, medical, animal control, public works, park district, other fire departments, and even the mass transity agency has a hookup too. I listen to it via SDRTrunk which is fascinating, but challenging with so many channels of so many different things going on. That being said, half the police chatter is encrypted. Not by default, but they have the option. And that's totally fair. The police deal with a lot of sensitive situations and personal information. If it was my information that they were reading across the radio, I'd rather it's not generally available for any random person to get. Plus I've seen first hand what happens when the criminals have scanners tied to police radio. My favorite was 4th of July in San Francisco - everyone was setting off illegal fireworks all over. Some of the bigger displays would go on for quite some time then, as soon as there was a police dispatch call for that location... the fireworks show would stop and no one would get caught. 15mn later... the show would start again. Clearly people are listening and using the information for illicit purposes. There are not a huge number of benefits to the public having real-time access, but there are some huge detriments. Note: I said real time. Recordings obviously should be kept of everything. And remember, cops have cell phones. If they really want to say some shit and not have it recorded, they know how to turn off their body cams and use their phones. It's not like the public listening to the radio is gonna keep a bad cop from doing bad things.

drewcoo 3y ago
> There are not a huge number of benefits to the public having real-time access, but there are some huge detriments. Note: I said real time. Recordings obviously should be kept of everything. We can't even manage to make police cams work to stop police brutality. It seems hard to believe that anything potentially incriminating would be decrypted and made public with people so well-practiced "technical problems."
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Not if you draw the expectation at perfection. Police cameras have been tremendously helpful for accountability and transparency.
  - jamesTee49 3y ago
    The only centuries old effective way to police the police is to have watchmen for them. In ancient time, they have society assassins that will hunt down entire police families (including extended one over several decades). This is usually misrepresented as family feud. The best example of this was how entire family/clan of China first emperor exterminated with the instigation of one of Chu (a country destroyed by first emperor) originated eunuch. You need to have a society element carrying illegal extermination to keep police or rulers in check.
  - nyc_data_geek1 3y ago
    In what way? Do you have evidence of your claim? Police flatly refuse to release damaging footage to the public, often turn off or obscure their range of view, and yet somehow these cameras are always running in good working order when they capture incriminating evidence on a suspect.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      Police do those things because the camera is effective. The solution here is to punish officers for disabling or obscuring their cameras, not to get rid of the cameras.
      - Two4 3y ago
        It's the DRM argument - publishers don't stop using Denuvo because someone always manages to crack it, they use it to stop little Timmy from copying Assassins Creed 27 on to a USB drive for his friend Dave. In the same way, Officer Porkchop can't openly conspire with Lieutenant Bacon to plant evidence, because the audio is on record. But doubtlessly, the Porcine Patrollers will manage when it really counts, maybe just not as often.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      well the first level, any evidence collected and released is more than zero, which is the baseline before cameras. They are frequently included in trials. They are also sometimes released to the public in high profile cases, usually in the interest of exonerating the police, but which is also sometimes informative. Do you have any reason you do you think that they are a net negative?
Scoundreller 3y ago
> The police deal with a lot of sensitive situations and personal information. If it was my information that they were reading across the radio, I'd rather it's not generally available for any random person to get. > And remember, cops have cell phones. Lotta rural regions combine the best of both worlds: a reliable and cheap to operate unencrypted plain radio system, but small enough that they just call eachother for sensitive info. Not perfect (gotta call out an address and that may be no bueno for a domestic call). But worked a treat during the Nashville bombing and FirstNet went down across multiple states (ooops).
karlshea 3y ago
The entire state of Minnesota has a P25 system (called ARMER[0]) for public safety, and I’ve done the same thing with SDRTrunk. It is fascinating! But you need to filter out a LOT to really follow anything otherwise you'll end up hearing about shift changes on the light rail while you're trying to listen to updates on a car chase. Unfortunately the same things started to happen and now some users (Hennepin County Sheriff recently) are encrypted by default. [0]: https://www.radioreference.com/db/sid/3508 https://www.radioreference.com/db/sid/3508
1letterunixname 3y ago
"Everyone" except special, uc, and tactical units.

drewcoo 3y ago

> There are not a huge number of benefits to the public having real-time access, but there are some huge detriments. Note: I said real time. Recordings obviously should be kept of everything. We can't even manage to make police cams work to stop police brutality. It seems hard to believe that anything potentially incriminating would be decrypted and made public with people so well-practiced "technical problems."

s1artibartfast 3y ago
Not if you draw the expectation at perfection. Police cameras have been tremendously helpful for accountability and transparency.
- jamesTee49 3y ago
  The only centuries old effective way to police the police is to have watchmen for them. In ancient time, they have society assassins that will hunt down entire police families (including extended one over several decades). This is usually misrepresented as family feud. The best example of this was how entire family/clan of China first emperor exterminated with the instigation of one of Chu (a country destroyed by first emperor) originated eunuch. You need to have a society element carrying illegal extermination to keep police or rulers in check.
- nyc_data_geek1 3y ago
  In what way? Do you have evidence of your claim? Police flatly refuse to release damaging footage to the public, often turn off or obscure their range of view, and yet somehow these cameras are always running in good working order when they capture incriminating evidence on a suspect.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    Police do those things because the camera is effective. The solution here is to punish officers for disabling or obscuring their cameras, not to get rid of the cameras.
    - Two4 3y ago
      It's the DRM argument - publishers don't stop using Denuvo because someone always manages to crack it, they use it to stop little Timmy from copying Assassins Creed 27 on to a USB drive for his friend Dave. In the same way, Officer Porkchop can't openly conspire with Lieutenant Bacon to plant evidence, because the audio is on record. But doubtlessly, the Porcine Patrollers will manage when it really counts, maybe just not as often.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    well the first level, any evidence collected and released is more than zero, which is the baseline before cameras. They are frequently included in trials. They are also sometimes released to the public in high profile cases, usually in the interest of exonerating the police, but which is also sometimes informative. Do you have any reason you do you think that they are a net negative?

Scoundreller 3y ago

> The police deal with a lot of sensitive situations and personal information. If it was my information that they were reading across the radio, I'd rather it's not generally available for any random person to get. > And remember, cops have cell phones. Lotta rural regions combine the best of both worlds: a reliable and cheap to operate unencrypted plain radio system, but small enough that they just call eachother for sensitive info. Not perfect (gotta call out an address and that may be no bueno for a domestic call). But worked a treat during the Nashville bombing and FirstNet went down across multiple states (ooops).

karlshea 3y ago

The entire state of Minnesota has a P25 system (called ARMER[0]) for public safety, and I’ve done the same thing with SDRTrunk. It is fascinating! But you need to filter out a LOT to really follow anything otherwise you'll end up hearing about shift changes on the light rail while you're trying to listen to updates on a car chase. Unfortunately the same things started to happen and now some users (Hennepin County Sheriff recently) are encrypted by default. [0]: https://www.radioreference.com/db/sid/3508 https://www.radioreference.com/db/sid/3508

1letterunixname 3y ago

"Everyone" except special, uc, and tactical units.