The Most
Powerful Crimefighting Tool?
Can something as bland
and unsightly as a communications tower be the most
underrated crimefighting tool ever? Can a communications
tower serve as the purest scope for public scrutiny
against menacing social tyranny the free world has ever
appreciated?
Yes!
Welcome to the debate of open
system versus closed system. A debate spawned
by a growing trend towards closed public safety
communications systems. Systems, by intent or design,
that rip away the once easy ability to monitor police
activity in local communities using inexpensive radio
scanners, or other means.
It's happening everywhere.
County by county, city by city, public safety officials
are heeding the call of cramped air space and the promise
of increased flexibility to upgrade their radio
communication systems. Upgrading doesn't simply refer to
computerized controls, information input and output
devices, tracking hardware, or call-taking tools.
Upgrading in the latter half of the 20th century
generally means taking advantage of an entirely new radio
paradigm known as digitalization. From a systems
flexibility standpoint, digitalization is the best thing
to come to public safety communications since Marconi.
Digitalization is the
process of breaking up audible sounds into data more
resembling the information that flows through your PC
than the analog information that is processed by your
tabletop radio. It is extremely analogous to listening to
your favorite radio station over the Internet where
programming is encoded digitally, then streamed and
decoded by your PC using software such as Real Audio. In
fact, the equipment used by public safety in the field
might well be regarded as stripped-down PCs dedicated to
two-way voice and data communications. The problem for
hobby scannists, crime-watch groups, journalists, or the
independent curiosity seeker is that much like the
inability of tabletop radios to decode streaming Real
Audio data, traditional tabletop scanners cannot decode
digital public safety communications. The positive
attributes of such transparency, in turn, are eliminated
at the community level.
There is a bright side to
the revolution of digital radio systems implementation:
they offer unprecedented flexibility to the host agency,
increased security and confidentiality, and some say
improved voice clarity. However, there is a darker side
that even a minority of public safety agency officials
will openly embrace. That is that community members are
suddenly shut out from the otherwise completely public
process of crimefighting, and the security of instant
community awareness.
Up until now, it was easy
to be part of either. With conventional communication
systems you could listen. Listen for yourself
what newspapers and TV journalists only filter and relay
to you third-hand in the spirit of history but not
fact. You needed no governmental permission, you
needed no special skill, you needed no special status,
and you needed no special reason. You could listen all
you wanted and it didn't matter because you were lucky
enough to be born in the United States of America. And
while it never occurred to anyone to make sure you could
continue to listen as a guaranteed right, who
thought it would matter here? After all, our local police
aren't supposed to work like secret police.
In bringing this
development to explicit public attention, many feel that
the Open Broadcasting rhetoric is merely defending the
right of hobbyists to play with police scanners. We are
desperate to convince you that something far more
sinister is at stake as a silent social asset is
undergoing extinction. For now, yes, scanner radios are
the most efficient access tool in reaping these seemingly
obscure benefits. However, since increased digitalization
and less reliance on actual voice communications will
render something referred to as a "police scanner"
irrelevant over time we're not talking about the means so
much as we are discussing the philosophy harbored
by public safety agencies. In effect we're talking about
recognizing and establishing the value of live open and
proactive public safety broadcasts for use by the public
at large.
Back when merely trunking
public safety communications was a problem (now resolved
thanks to the latest breed of radio scanners that can
follow trunked signals), David Pinero (an Open
Broadcasting campaigner) contacted his local sheriff's
office to find out how he might continue to monitor them
after their reported transition to a trunked radio system.
The head administrator of the Hillsborough County Florida
system at the time, who we'll safely call "John",
went so far as to humorously explain outright that the
public is why agencies went trunked to begin with. To
quote the master of public relations, agencies built
trunked systems to thwart "people like me". For
those of you keeping tabs, that would mean people like
you, too. In fact, it could be anybody with a contrary
social opinion or anybody simply considered annoying. The
reality is that public safety agencies typically convert
to more complex radio systems to take better advantage of
technology first. Other reasons are ancillary. This was
the case when public safety agencies began converting to
trunked systems, and today as they adopt digital
technology.
However erroneous, John's
banter in and of itself is a powerful revelation as to
why open broadcasting is important in a free society. As
John so accidentally demonstrated, closed systems promote
an incorrect perception of our democratic society which
is that this is a world of us and them...wherever
you happen to draw that line personally.
Trunking and digital
technology are inconvenient enough for fluid public
absorption, but there is yet another level altogether
that can be outright treacherous. Some particularly
inclined officials add the extremely expensive component
of encryption to their systems. While these
encryption systems can be selective in what they actually
encrypt, public safety often takes this ability and
encrypts everything. That means super-secret surveillance
operations, citizen vitals (such as name and address of
victims and perpetrators), and basic patrolcasts.
Some even encrypt fire and medical communications.
Naturally, Open
Broadcasting does not criticize the encryption of
communications directly related to officer safety or
operational security. More to the point, we believe that
the first-time ability to selectively encrypt these kinds
of communications actually enhances the freedom to openly
broadcast patrolcasts and other forms of public-relevant
communication. For the sake of the pro-access argument,
patrolcasts are those broadcasts related to the
fundamental patrol duty of police officers. They are the
primary exchange of communications between officer and
dispatcher as the officer is sent from one spontaneous
call for service to another. Because the utility argument
of the pro-access standpoint involves aiding the average
citizen in avoiding critical situations, such as police
pursuits, patrolcasts include those situations of dire
emergency as well. Others may have perfectly valid
definitions of what a patrolcast is, but ours is a good
starting point.
As the problem described
here is a technical symptom of a philosophical
misadoption, the solution to it is purely public safety
attitude. Technical solutions are limited in time because
any public safety agency that continues to view public
listening with hostility, will seek to evade the public
with each new technical solution. Digital scanners, for
example, can solve the problem but won't solve all of the
problem.
Open broadcasting must be
recognized as the valuable public service that it is.
After all, it is the premier example of something trendy
called Community Policing in which police work to
integrate the community with the crimefighting process
through open dialog and trust. It is about the exchange
of information and breaking down the barriers of access
to the police that has existed for decades.
It's About
Communication! In fact, it is all about
communication. And the simple truth is that at least one
solution to the communication problem has existed for
over 60 years. That solution has been Open Broadcasting.
It has existed for decades as a means for the individual
to mentally participate in the crimefighting process,
develop pro-police attitudes, and aid themselves and
public safety in countless meaningful ways.
Open Broadcasting
recognizes not just a public safety issue, but one of
individual liberty as well. For example, In Hillsborough
County Florida it had been reported that the "select"
media would have access to live patrolcasts while average
citizens would not. If this sounds like state government
sponsoring "selected" corporate media it's
because it is. When the government aligns itself
with media, making a political game out of access to live
broadcasts or other forms of public information, you and
I as individuals literally become mental slaves of the
media. You get the point! Who is the media and why
should public safety agencies be given the broad power to
officially yet arbitrarily ascertain that in your
community?
We know that more than
ever our public safety administrators are educated, well-meaning,
and informed. They are capable of great strides in crime
reduction through effective management, and they openly
preach the prospects of civilian involvement in the
communication process. Why should we question the
sincerity of hearts when we hear such sincere words?
A communications tower
depicted at the head of this essay is a symbol of the
greatest, most efficient crimefighting tool ever devised.
It is the symbol of wide-area, lightening speed,
inexpensive, and efficient communication. It is up to
those in power to recognize and adopt philosophies that
transcend their technological upgrades and preserve
citizen access to public safety communications. Radio
scanner manufacturers (such as Uniden and its Trunk
Tracker) should not be our only salvation. It is
worth reiterating that for every technology introduced to
enable public listening, hostile public safety officials
will surmount that technology with something more vicious.
It's getting cheaper to do every day.
Issue three challenges to
your local government if they are considering maintaining
a closed broadcast communications system:
- Challenge them to
view an open broadcast system as a public safety
benefit
- Challenge them to
keep open broadcasting available in your area, in
any number of ways
- Challenge them to
make it all count
The penalty for inactive
communities on this issue will be the gradual but
dramatic conversion of a public safety communications
system, into a public ignorance communications system.
If history has taught us
anything, it is that there is no safety, or freedom, in
ignorance.
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