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NYPD faces backlash as it prepares to encrypt radio communications | New York | The Guardian
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Yeah police radio should never be encrypted.
I suspect it would be helpful for protecting sensitive situations. Currently (at least with EMS) they call each other's cellphones for that, not ideal.
What kind of situations?
Off of the top of my head, I can see how an announcement of an open shooter at a location might attract some Meal Team 6 Rambo wanna-be to try and bust in and save the day and making it significantly worse.
I've never heard of this happening. It's probably more for people avoiding police and maybe ambulance chasers.
We had a kid cross state lines to show up to a riot with a gun to defend property and shoot people. Just because you haven’t heard about it doesn’t mean it’s not plausible as a valid reason.
And? Do you think he heard about it from a police radio, and not literally every news outlet that was covering it at the time?
You must know that unencrypted police radios have been a upstream source for local media for a long time, right?
And I’m not arguing that encryption is a good idea, in fact I think a blanket encryption of emergency radio is a bad idea (but nuance on social media is invisible).
This thread is simply in answer to an earlier poster who asked for a situation where it could be helpful to protect a sensitive situation and I provided one that we have seen analogs of in real life.
Sure, they get some information from radios. They also usually have at least one person at the headquarters at all times. They will know about big events regardless.
I forgot that police have no filters or power in person to be more private in discussions about sensitive topics just because there’s a person at their precinct. All conversations happen wide open just like you get with a police-band scanner. 🤦🏻♂️
OK, so something thats never happened before needs to be curtailed?
And even if so, active shooters are rare, do we need to encrypt ALL chatter for something that happens maybe every few years for a given precinct/jurisdiction?
Nope, even never had any sort of analogous situation where armed civilians show up to insert themselves and potentially complicate matters: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/07/13/feature/in-all-reality-there-were-three-shooters-oklahomans-kill-an-active-shooter-and-its-not-as-simple-as-it-sounds/
I never suggested we did. The original poster referenced a specific context of a “sensitive situation” and you asked for an example, so I provided one that could qualify.