[Scan-DC] The usual excuses w/no specific examples

[Alan Henney]

The Roane County News (Kingston, Tennessee)

October 16, 2015

Police radios to be encrypted

BYLINE: Cindy Simpson

SECTION: TODAY'S NEWS

LENGTH: 194 words

Fans of listening in on law-enforcement radio traffic in Roane County will soon be hearing radio silence.

That's because those agencies will soon have their radios encrypted to make their dispatch discussions private. 

"The reason everyone is encrypting them is safety," Harriman Police Chief Randy Heidle recently told City Council.

"They now know we know they have warrants, said Heidle, who used a scenario of a driver evading arrest after hearing scanner traffic on his cellphone during a traffic stop and reacting when he hears the patrolman has learned he has outstanding warrants.

Sheriff Jack Stockton painted another scenario, one in which a scanner allows a getaway driver in an armed robbery to alert his cohorts that police are on their way.

Roane County E-911 Director Mike Hooks said his department is prepared to go once all the other departments got their radio encryptions completed.

The encryption will affect only law enforcement, with the main channel used by the Roane County Sheriff's Office, Harriman, Kingston and Rockwood police departments impacted.

Other emergency personnel are on different channels and will not be encrypted, Hooks said.