[Scan-DC] Little Rock to stream police dispatches on Web after 30-minute delay

[Dewey3]

Uh oh, now this is scary, if this "takes", I see a precedent coming!  The
agency cannot be accused of hiding behind encryption, BUT, what journalist
or scanner hobbyist want 30 minute old news????

Dewey

On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 1:18 AM, Alan Henney <alan at henney.com> wrote:

>
> Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)
>
> September 24, 2014 Wednesday
>
> LR to stream police dispatches on Web after 30-minute delay
>
> BYLINE: SCOTT CARROLL ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
>
> SECTION: ARKANSAS
>
> LENGTH: 995 words
>
> The city of Little Rock will stream computer-automated, time-delayed
> police dispatches on the city's website beginning Oct. 1 after police
> encrypted their radio communication in July.
>
> The system, discussed by city officials and police during a City Council
> meeting Tuesday, posts the time, location and nature of a police incident
> 30 minutes after it occurs. The data are automatically extracted from
> computer entries made by police dispatchers. Dispatches will be available
> to view on the city's website for eight hours after being posted.
>
> City Manager Bruce Moore presented the system as a compromise among
> police, the city, the public and the media, each of which had been seeking
> to access - or disclose - different levels of encrypted police
> communication in accordance with the state's Freedom of Information Act.
>
> Police Chief Kenton Buckner has cited officer safety as the primary reason
> for making real-time radio communication unavailable to the public. City
> Attorney Tom Carpenter has said that certain information broadcast by
> police, such as license plate numbers and home addresses, put the city at
> risk of violating privacy laws.
>
> Police began encrypting radio communication July 31. A Cabot man and two
> Sherwood brothers filed lawsuits against the city in August alleging that
> police had violated state's Freedom of Information Act.
>
> Randy Foshee, city director of Information Technology, said at the meeting
> Tuesday that implementing the system has cost $3,500. It runs on freeware,
> or software available at no cost. Foshee said there will be maintenance
> costs but did not provide specifics.
>
> While the price was the least expensive of other options considered by
> police and the city, the system provides no vendor support should it crash.
> Technical problems will have to be addressed by the city, Foshee said.
>
> "If it fails, people are just going to have to wait for us to fix it," he
> said.
>
> Foshee said the city has been testing the system and that it should be
> able to handle high numbers of dispatches "if we have a really bad day and
> get a lot of calls." The system does not provide subsequent information
> after a dispatch is posted, such as whether officers have completed their
> response or whether the location of an incident has changed. Ward 7 City
> Director B.J. Wyrick said that concerned her. She said she frequently used
> a police scanner - before communication was encrypted - to receive
> real-time information on traffic conditions to plan her route home from
> work.
>
> Such live updates would be valuable to the public if there was a police
> pursuit spanning multiple locations, Wyrick said.
>
> "I think it's a good start," she said of the system, "but there is some
> action that's taking place out there, and people are not going to be able
> to protect themselves." Little Rock police Capt. Ty Terrell said Tuesday
> that police had considered using Tip 411, a text-message notification
> service, as a public alternative to real-time police transmissions. The
> service provides crime alerts and allows the public to submit anonymous
> tips to police.
>
> A two-year subscription to the service costs nearly five times as much as
> the computer-automated system, and the information it provides isn't as
> immediate, Terrell said.
>
> Terrell said that police would be sending about 450 text notifications per
> day and that significant staffing increases would be needed to provide
> alerts around the clock.
>
> "I don't think anyone wants to receive that many texts," he said.
>
> The city also considered providing redacted audio recordings of police
> communication to the public. Six days of recordings were requested by a
> plaintiff in one of the lawsuits filed against the city.
>
> City Communications Manager Laura Martin said Tuesday that redacting the
> audio would have required "excessive and concise attention," as well as
> lengthy work hours by additional staffers. Carpenter said redacting the
> audio would require new recordings to be created.
>
> The creation of a record is not required to satisfy a Freedom of
> Information Act request.
>
> Carpenter said during the meeting that after the system is introduced, the
> city still would be subject to lawsuits over police audio recordings under
> the Freedom of Information Act.
>
> He said by phone Tuesday night that he's drafting legislation that would
> make certain police broadcasts exempt from requests under the law,
> specifically radio channels that might contain officers' private
> information and response tactics.
>
> "I'm worried about if John Doe gets [the information] and puts it on the
> Internet or Facebook or something like that, and suddenly you have
> something where you are dealing with officer safety in the future," he said.
>
> Carpenter said that in the bill, recordings would still be subject to
> discovery in court. He said he was still outlining other facets of the
> legislation and that he was researching similar laws across the country.
>
> The possibility of unencrypted radio transmission - streamed on the city's
> website with a 30-minute delay - was also discussed Thursday. Martin said
> that would require hardware and software purchases by the city and
> 24-hour-a-day staffing to redact personal information as it's broadcast.
>
> "There's the fear that you could miss some personally identifiable
> information that goes out on the radio," she said.
>
> Buckner said the system is "a step in the right direction." "The No. 1
> fear that we had was that folks who were committing crimes, if they had
> these pocket scanners or these apps on their phone, that they could prepare
> for us in our response," he said. "So I think we've drastically reduced the
> possibility that they would be able to do that ... There's no perfect
> system. We've felt like this was kind of a middle of the road to give the
> public some kind of transparency, although delayed." Ward 5 City Director
> Lance Hines said Tuesday that he was concerned about a lack of public input
> on the new system, but he supports it anyway.
>
> "It's better than what we have," he said.
>
> This article was published 09/24/2014
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