[Scan-DC] Vancouver scanner hobbyists put it on Twitter

[Bruce Harper]

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 12:04 AM, Alan wrote:

>
> The Associated Press State & Local Wire
>
> January 31, 2012 Tuesday 4:56 PM GMT
>
> Vancouver scanner hobbyists put it on Twitter
>
> BYLINE: By ANDREA DAMEWOOD, The Columbian
>
>
> Vancouver police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said there's a chance what's coming
> across the airwaves isn't verified.
>
> "I would always (use caution) about putting out information in literally
> the infancy stages of any incident, because we don't necessarily know all
> those facts or some of them, or any of them are true," Kapp said.
>
> She said there is also a chance that a tweet could tip off a criminal
> about police activity.
>

Why do reporters never challenge anyone on this? The question is really
simple: "Couldn't a criminal purchase or steal a scanner and monitor police
activity directly?" The other side of this is how many criminals are
 really smart enough to figure out that they could actually do this in some
shape or form, either with a scanner or by following some twitter account?
Even if some meth addict did figure it out, what good would it do? So
 units are being dispatched to a major incident at X location -- does he
figure out that now is a good time to do something across town? Or that he
is the reason for the major incident? It is these throw-away lines that
give people ideas that it is easy to know exactly what is going on and give
the officials the ammunition to believe they need to encrypt their
communications to keep their business secret. The bottom line is that no
one was served by Kapp's comment.

Bruce in Blacksburg