Wirelessly Securing Communications
The Yuba Police Department in Yuba City, Calif., continues to be a leader in technology applications, having become the first law enforcement agency to invest in the TalkSECURE Wireless phones sold by General Dynamics Decision Systems in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The TalkSECURE Wireless phones allow police officers in the city about 40 miles north of Sacramento to hold secure telephone conversations over wireless phones.
Purchase of TalkSECURE Wireline terminals extends the secure communication from headquarters to the field.
Yuba City Chief of Police Richard Doscher says the secure wireless phones are needed because drug traffickers and other criminals often use scanners to gain knowledge of department activity, and adds that the news media almost jeopardized an investigation last fall after someone picked up the details of a homicide and suicide on a scanner and then called a local television network, which reported the events as the crime unfolded.
However, Doscher says the trend toward law enforcement agencies needing to communicate with each other and government agencies, particularly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, also impacted the department’s decision.
TalkSECURE is interoperable with the secure communications devises used by U.S. government agencies, and the phones use technology certified by the National Security Agency for use by the Defense Department and other top government officials.
The TalkSECURE technology could become the standard for communications between law enforcement agencies and the federal government agencies, Doscher believes.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the Law Enforcement Technology (05/03) P. 56; Johnson, Stan. http://www.law-enforcement.com