The Crossville City Council took up the topic of police scanners encrypted now in Cumberland County.  During the work session the Council heard from two local media representatives, Mike Moser with the Crossville Chronicle and Scott Humphrey with 3B Media. Both men had very compelling arguments for not encrypting police radio signals.

The two news reps told the Council it would be nice if the police radios would be allowed to be unencrypted for the media to hear important emergency information to pass along to the public.  The Council listened to the two newsmen and agreed there needs to be a system available for the media to be aware quicker of situations that may affect the public.  As the discussion went on it was becoming clear the Council was not going to unencrypt the radio transmissions. It should be pointed out that the City has no authority to unencrypt police signals except possibly the City Police radio communication but not County Sheriff and Fire departments.

The Council pointed out that radio encryption was becoming the norm pretty much nationwide to help protect officers.  Council said…not only can the general public hear the radio communications with unencrypted radio communications but the ‘bad guys’ can hear also and that isn’t good.  It was pointed out by the local media reps that Cumberland County law enforcement officers have private channels they can switch over to that cannot be heard on scanners and in the past have used those channels often.  Ultimately, the Council decided to check into the possibility of a text program to send information to the news media when needed.  Two local news agencies, PEG Broadcasting and Crossville News First did not attend the meeting.  Crossville News First did not attend because “we felt certain the Council would not unscramble the radio signals”   We believe that it is important for local news media to learn of emergency situations that could help the public avoid harm or even traffic information – but it is also important that officers perform their duty without fear of being interfered with by onlookers or criminals.  Larger cities employ what is known as a PIO (public information officer) whose only job is quickly getting out information to the news media of any pressing situations.  The Council said that might be the proper approach here. But for now, the hundreds and maybe thousands of scanners in the county will remain silent.  Anyone who has purchased a police scanner lost their investment overnight when the local government ‘encrypted’ the radio transmissions.  Had Crossville News First attended the Council meeting we would have probably only had one question: “Can we get our money back?”