Pasadena Police Encrypt, Deny Access To Police Radio

An anonymous reader writes "There is media (but not public?) outcry over the Pasadena, CA police switch from analog radio that can be picked up by scanners to encrypted digital radio that cannot. 'On Friday, Pasadena police Lt. Phlunte Riddle said the department was unsure whether it could accommodate the media with digital scanners. Riddle said the greatest concern remains officer safety. "People who do bank robberies use scanners, and Radio Shack sells these things cheap," Riddle said. "We just had a robbery today on Hill Avenue and Washington Boulevard," Riddle said. "The last thing I want to do is to have the helicopter or the officers set up on the street and the criminals have a scanner and know where our officers are." Just prior to the switch over, city staffers said they would look into granting access to police radio chatter, most likely by loaning media outlets a scanner capable of picking up the secure signal.'"

Comments

Why is this news?

[icebike]

This has happened in hundreds of jurisdictions, and its been going on for a dozen years. Some jurisdictions only encrypt special tactical frequencies used for emergencies, but most realize that as soon as they did that they needed the decryption capable radios for every officer and car any way, and there was not much saving leaving regular channels unencrypted. They bought the radios, why not use them.

Not having reporters and wanna-be-cops show up at every incident was sort of a side benefit in their eyes.

Why the press would expect to be "loaned" a radio is beyond me. The press never "loans" their confidential sources to the police.

Re:So?

[errandum]

The problem here is not really the access, but the access in real time, according to the article.

If you request a communication you will still be able to get it.

Re:We the people...

[Mister Transistor]

They don't release that information over the air. They just don't, ever. They use KDT terminals in the car for any sensitive information like names, addresses, etc. The most they will usually EVER give over the air is a phone number or situation codes like "Signal One", "Code Black" or "10-8". If they can't use the data terminals, most of the cops have figured out that a cell phone is an easy way to keep things off the air and confidential, a lot of them use the phone to call their dispatch and discuss any sensitive information like the type mentioned above on a regular basis and hardly ever use their radios at all anymore. As they switch to digital and encrypted type communications, they actually are finding their radios more useful than before - due to the extra margin of security, they actually CAN safely discuss names, addresses, etc.

That said, my Cook County Sheriff here in Chicago has been running full-time encryption since they went digital about 4 years ago. A lot of smaller city agencies are also in the process of going digital and want full-time encryption, too. When they did this, the world did not stop, the media did not dry up and blow away - somehow they still report on crimes in a timely manner, but a bunch of scanner geeks and hams were pissed off. That was it, that was the sum total of the impact. Unfortunately, I'm one of the hams that used to listen in because it was interesting when there was no Ham traffic to listen to, but hey, life is short - there's a lot of other things to do and listen to elsewhere!