St. Mary’s County Commissioner Cynthia Jones (R: 1st) has joined the growing chorus of people expressing concerns about the encrypting of police radio calls. Commissioner Daniel Morris (R: 2nd) had previously expressed concerns as did several speakers at a recent commissioners’ public forum in Charlotte Hall.
The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office recently began encrypting all calls. Encrypting is a decoding system that makes it impossible to hear the calls on a police scanner without the proper decoding device, which are not available to the general public.
Jones said at Tuesday’s commissioners’ meeting that she was not aware from the information provided by the sheriff that all calls would be encrypted. She said she is an advocate for transparency in government. “The present situation is not a balanced approach,” she said.
Jones added, “I hope we can come up with something that is fair and balanced.” Morris said he agreed with Jones. He contends that only one encrypted channel is needed for emergency situations.
None of the other three commissioners has logged in during the current controversy, which has also played out in letters to the editor in the local papers.
At the public forum, local Fraternal Order of Police President Lt. Ed Evans and Sheriff Tim Cameron spoke strongly in favor of encrypting as a way to protect police and the public. The sheriff said his office is instead working on a number of fronts to keep the public informed, including an email alert system for citizens.
A method of following emergency dispatch calls, looking on line at the CAD system which gives line by line information on dispatches, has also been encrypted and made unavailable for all but a select number of members of the volunteer fire departments and rescue squads. A synopsis of the 911 calls, however, is available on the county web site.
