The Honolulu Fire Department, city Emergency Medical Services and police brought the P25 Motorola system online and are using a patch to the old system while the conversion is completed. Licenses at a cost of $4,000 plus additional insurance purchases, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. State lawmakers have tried in places like California and Colorado to make the encrypted communications public, but those efforts failed after significant pushback by law enforcement and local governments. Sioux City, Iowa and elsewhere do not make their communications public. Denver Baltimore Las Vegas Palo Alto, Calif. The police departments in Washington, D.C. Department of Justice mandates to protect witness, victim and suspect information, hundreds of police departments and first responders around the country started encrypting their frequencies. Most newsrooms in America are outfitted with scanners tuned to first-responder radio traffic.īut starting around 2011, citing the need to keep criminals from listening in and to adhere with U.S. The internet brought applications like Broadcastify that allow browsers to listen in on scanner chatter anywhere the frequency is available In addition to HPD and the Honolulu Fire Department, Ocean Safety, Emergency Medical Services, Department of Information Technology, HonoluluĪuthority for Rapid Transportation, Department ofįacilities Maintenance, Environmental Services and the Department of Parks and Recreation will be on the same, encrypted system.įor more than 40 years, anyone with knowledge of radio frequencies and the inventory at Radio Shack was able to listen in as dispatchers sent firefighters, police officers and emergency medical services personnel to incidents requiring their services. But this change is about protecting our community and improving our collective response to emergencies in the City and County of Honolulu.” “We do acknowledge that it is a big change, because in years past, store bought scanners could patch into just about everything communicated to and from EMS, fire and police. The shift will be able to further protect members of our community - whether it be through preventing their personal and private medical information from being transmitted over the airways to allowing first responders to hear uninterrupted transmissions in areas dense with concrete buildings,” said Brandi Higa, spokeswoman for the mayor. “The P25 Motorola system provides first responder users with more bandwidth, which equates to a more efficient use of the radio system. The upgrade and encryption, saying it will help first responders save lives and respond in an efficient, coordinated manner. The Federal Communications Commission did not respond to emailed questions or phone calls requesting comment on the nationwide trend and how Honolulu’s radio encryption balances with the public’s right to listen in. Portnoy, an attorney at Cades Schutte who represents the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in First Amendment proceedings. I can understand the upgrade, but to have a system which shuts out the public without a companion system that does not is just more proof that HPD (Honolulu Police Department) and other emergency responders just don’t appreciate the public’s right to know what is going on in their community,” said Jeffrey S. “Just another example of the lack of transparency. When the conversion is complete, any information about what units and personnel are dispatched where, when and for what will be released at the discretion of the individual department’s leadership team. To scanners raises First Amendment concerns and questions about why the public is prevented from listening to taxpayer-funded radio systems transmitting unfiltered information about events in their communities. In a 1997 article the Society of Professional Journalists said police and fire scanners are “about as necessary in a newsroom as is the pen and notebook.” The move is intended to make operations quicker and more efficient by providing first responders with more bandwidth.įor decades reporters have been able to listen to police and fire department scanners to be alerted to major accidents, fires or crimes in progress and alert the public. The public’s long-standing access to routine radio communications by Honolulu police and firefighters is coming to an end as the city nears completion of a $15 million system overhaul that will encrypt the frequencies used by nine city departments, preventing objective monitoring of the transmissions.Īn analog system to a P25 Motorola digital system will allow the departments to talk to each other on a single channel and is part of a national move away from analog radio systems by county, state and federal agencies.
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