[TrunkCom] Philadelphia

[Michael Wallach]

The message below is from the philscanner mailing list.  I am offering 
without comment on the reliability of the author (who I do not know), but 
if true is a very major development.  I thought their were court rulings 
upholding the right of the public to monitor public service agencies, and 
holding that encryption solely for the purpose of preventing monitoring of 
non-sensitive (i.e. routine) activities was not in the public interest, if 
not actually unconstitutional.  Anybody know more about the Philadelphia 
issue, or the general use of encryption to intentionally prevent public 
monitoring of all communications?

Michael

--- In PhiladelphiaCitywideRadio@y..., "firefoto3" <firefoto3@y...>
wrote:
All interested,
I heard a rumor the other day, so checked it out. Thru a very
reliable source, I have learned that Philly is very pissed right now
at the Bearcat announcement of the new digital scanner. They are now
involved in a big fight and possibly lawsuit with motorola. Seems
Motorola promised the city no one would be able to monitor city
activity with the new system, until that is, Bearcat came out with
their announcement. What I hear now is....The City wants Motorola to
pay for upgrading the system to a "FULLY ENCRYPTED" system, so that no
one can hear the every day traffic of fire or p/d activity. I did
check this out thru a very reliable source who knows what is going on
with the system, and it has been confirmed, Philly wants to fully
encrypt the new 800 system to keep us all out. I guess this will be
the beginning of some fireworks between the City, Motorola, and the
Media. This can't be tolerated, and is ridiculous beyond belief.

Brian/PCW-5