August 4th, 2009
The criminals, journalists and common people are known to use the radio scanner devices to eavesdrop on frequencies .Listening to the transmissions of emergency services has been happening for some time now. The scanners used by them to eavesdrop are simply radio receivers capable of tracking hundreds of frequencies which cannot be heard normally using casual radio devices.
While many people use these radio scanners for fun, some of them use it with evil motives like keeping track of the activities of law enforcement to benefit in their intentions. Other than being used in law enforcement agencies these radio scanners are used for high frequency communication in corporations and emergency services to keep their information private. Seeing the rising in number of intrusions taking place in their communication devices the corporations began to broadcast it digitally. This move eventually opened up the market for digital radio scanners as technology kept pace with the advances made by the corporations.
APCO Project 25 is a set of standards for digital radio communications used by public safety agencies in USA to help them communicate with each other. It is similar to European Tetra protocol though not linked with it in any level. The project was introduced after September eleven attack .According to this protocol a spectrum of digital frequencies has to be assigned for the usage of law enforcement and emergency services. But this move was jeopardized by the advent of digital radio scanners which made the transmissions available to the public as good as the old scanners did with high frequency broadcasts. These digital radio scanners are available in plenty of mortar store which sells electronic goods.
Post 9/11 the US government decided to encrypt the digital frequencies to stop the public from intruding using the digital radio scanners. This opened up a series of controversies and plenty of liberal advocates tried to defend the right of the public to intrude into the airwaves using right to information act .Their efforts were futile as government chose to encrypt their digital transmissions. Some of the people tried to buy radio scanners which can decrypt the digital transmissions but those products were legally banned. The government also passed law making it a violation to posses decrypting digital radio scanner which can be punishable by jail time and fines. This is the present scenario in US for digital radio scanners.
