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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.'"
I'll accept the police having encrypted communications, the moment EVERY COP on duty has video and audio surveillance on their person at all times recorded on person, and rebroadcast to their squad car for preservation without tampering.
Short of that? No, you can't have encrypted communications.
Law enforcement will never be able to justify to me why their actions cannot be 100% transparent.
Because they have a job that's far less dangerous than fishing for crab off Alaska.
Snark aside, that's the usual bullshit excuse - that they're risking their lives and all that. Sure, there are a very few places in this country where officers would probably increase their safety by volunteering instead to sweep for IEDs by hand in Iraq. But by and large, the common knowledge of it being dangerous to be a cop is absurdly overstated. Yet this continues to justify military-like armaments, ridiculous pay and pension, effective immunity from prosecution, a lack of transparency and oversight, et cetera.