These times have been strenuous for the United States and its people. Especially stressing are the men and women in Public Safety, those who took the job to protect us. Now more than ever they keep a watchful eye in their jurisdiction and report any strange occurrences. Well, we all know that right? We're scanner listeners. We're the ones listening to those reports from the Public Safety agencies over the air. Why then must we watch ourselves from sharing this information with the wrong people?

The United States just doesn't have a problem with terrorism; it has a problem with crime in general. Turn the TV on or read a newspaper lately and the local, regional and national news all have reports of crime occurring everywhere. Shootings, to bank robberies to narcotics busts all the way to having what will soon be a nationwide Amber Alert system for missing and abducted children. I graduated high school over four years ago and I never had to practice for a school intruder situation in my life. Now working fulltime at a rural high school in a wonderful small town, I can see drastic changes in the daily life styles. It isn't every day when you accidentally set off an audible alarm in a wiring closet and every student in the vicinity about drops or races to the nearest classroom for shelter from what possibly could be an intruder alert.

Public Safety agencies have to protect us and they rely on communications as a key component in working together as a team. Our hobby consists of intercepting those communications. Now what we do with those intercepted messages is the key. Are you hearing a local narcotics bust in operation? Or maybe you're hearing a school police officer breaking up a fight. You could be hearing the local SWAT team setting up a perimeter around a bank. Whatever you are hearing, you need to think twice about who you are going to share that info with.

The Internet is a vast communications realm in itself and everybody (and their dog) can lurk in the corners and even pose as somebody else. Think of everybody on the Internet as anonymous users; you don't know them, and they don't know you. When we post what some people call a "hot call" or a call in progress to the Internet via such servers like Yahoo Groups or paging services that hobbyists can subscribe to for up to the minute action, we are posting to hundreds and thousands of anonymous people. How do you know if they are true hobbyists? Scanner hobbyists simply get a thrill of listening to the action over their scanner. Some other hobbyists use the scanner just for their thrill of knowing the latest news. And other anonymous users use the scanners for crimes and to aid them in being one step ahead of the public safety agencies.

We need to make sure what we are posting on the Internet is info that is valid to a scanner hobbyist only and not something that can aid a criminal. In my experience with local law enforcement agencies and this publicized info, the majority of criminals are dumb. They are looking for the easiest way to program their scanners, understand what is coming out the speaker, and getting all the frequencies they can get. Why make it easy for them? Most criminals have no clue what a trunk system is, let alone program one into their scanners. Just who are you giving those step by step instructions of how to program your local trunk system to? Sure, giving them the dispatch and traffic IDs are valid but if you spent hours searching for that elusive SWAT or narcotics operations ID on that trunk system, don't give it to them in a heartbeat. If they're a hobbyist, let them enjoy the search themselves.

Sharing frequencies is what we hobbyists do best. Considering the fact a lot of these frequencies are in books and other publications such as Scanning USA, even beginners can enjoy the hobby with their brand new scanner. What's even better is sharing those frequencies directly with other hobbyists, trading information on a local fire dept tact for some frequencies of your own. It is here where we can slip up and share some of our best finds too like secret narcotics or SWAT operations. Those are our prize possessions and not to be shared tit for tat so easily. When you do share this info, consider who you're sharing it with. Do you know the intent of the person who is gaining this info? Will the person enjoy it personally with their scanner or will the person turn around and practically make it front page news the next day?

There are a lot of Internet groups online such as Yahoo Groups that allows the reader to subscribe to a group of their choice and read or send e-mail to the group so everybody in the group can read it. I've written an article once on how to use Yahoo Groups. These are great sources of information, but do you know everybody on those groups? Let's be careful about the information we share on these lists. All too many times I see entire radio plans uploaded complete with input frequency and the PL tone, two items NOT needed by a hobbyist. Those two items though can be used together to jam a repeater system and effectively shutdown communications for that agency.

The key component to sensitive information being leaked are the websites themselves. There are websites all over the Internet dedicated to local hints and tips and secrets of how to get the best out of your scanner for a particular area. I have one such website for Northern California at www.norcalscan.org and I have had to go through the entire site and clean up any possible sensitive information.

These websites are teeming with information on input frequencies and their PL tones, narcotics operations details, and other information that isn't critical for hobbyists to enjoy the hobby. How many criminals surf the net looking for these same frequencies? According to local law agencies who have contacted me, my website has been found printed out in at least 10 narcotics stings. One even had the entire site printed out and nicely stacked on a bed, with a radio shack scanner set on top as the cops came pouring into the house. Even a speeder on I5 had a page of mine printed out on the passenger seat with a scanner on top although a scanner won't alert you like a radar detector would. These instances are only those where the agency thought to contact me and advise my site was being used for bad also. I don't know how many more are out there, and my site wasn't the only one in some of the stacks of print outs.

Not only are narcotics an issue but with recent publicity with abductions and shootings, schools have tightened security on campus and in their bus routes. Like other agencies, schools use radios to coordinate their work. Sure, everybody can hear the custodian being requested to clean up the cafeteria food fight, or little Johnny go to time out since those are usually run over the common FRS radio. There isn't much security need there either. However the bus transportation is more complex and in need of the security they seek. While some schools own VHF or UHF conventional repeaters others subscribe to a local communications system that probably runs a UHF LTR trunked system. The security behind the fact they're trunked and not easily monitored is assuring to the school so that they can transmit addresses, names, and other details. While working at different schools I've heard parents call and request the school to inform the child they won't be home and to use the hide-away key under the doormat. So the school contacts the bus the child is on and informs the bus driver to advise the child. They are on a UHF trunked LTR system and it is not easily found but the school secretaries would still do it if they were on a conventional system. They don't care if it's trunked or not. Anybody can hear who's home and not, who's parents are going to be late, or who's kids have to walk alone down a long driveway since the parent's car broke down. Think about it.

Locations of transmitters are another issue that didn't cross my mind when I posted the info. Sure, everybody knows there's an antenna farm on top of that mountaintop but they don't have to know what exact tower transmits the local PD, or the actual sites where the state microwave system travels on. I know in the little county in live in, the local law angencies would be deemed overkill for requesting me to take the info off the website for homeland security reasons but the practice is common throughout the Internet on other hobbyist's websites. I found out later though the local PD is worried somebody could deliberately crash their car into the wooden pole the PD transmits on to disable the radio system and then hold up a bank or something related. My first thought was yeah, this is incentive to get a REAL radio system but that shouldn't be the attitude we have. The department might not afford a REAL radio system and that is all they have. Officer's safety is on the line. What about the local dispatcher who is alone in a rural dispatch center at 1am? Why describe details on the location of that center? If some maniac takes out a large communications hub on some mountaintop I seriously doubt it was to tactfully disable a certain system; leaning more towards the fact they wanted to just blow something up and these metal antenna-looking things look good enough. Why post the info though? Sure it's public if you put the puzzle together at the FCC website but that takes dedication and lots of your time and effort. Why share it so easily?

Have you ever thought about business radios? I love business radios because it places radios in the hands of people who have no radio skills. Great entertainment. I never gave it much thought until a friend of mine (who works for his family business in town) asked for frequencies of all the other "competition" in town. Woah! Now this was small family business stuff but they can be harmed just the same as others. What about the larger dealings such as taxis, tow trucks, and other "radio dispatched" services? Businesses survive by corporate secrets and if those secrets are shared, the businesses hold no more power than their competition down the road. It happens all the time and I've had the owner of a local communications company that serves businesses with an impressive UHF LTR system contact me regarding business frequencies I had online, and his clients complaining to him that I had these. Not only does the business loose money in lost fares for other taxis picking up his "radio dispatched" fares, but if he dumped the communications contract, then he would lose money too, money which helps support the radio system. This is why deep sea fishermen are on pirated radio frequencies and talk in code so their competitors don't find their favorite fishing holes and take it all. You'll find fishermen on ham radio traffic, TV audio channels, all sorts of things. This is very common and can be heard near any seaboard in the United States.

Now we're into an economy lesson where you can follow the dollar bill through the hands like the food chain. The bottom guy loses a dollar, so the person above him loses the same dollar a little later, which effects the owner of a business which relies on the first business and they lose a dollar too. Things add up and you start losing lots of money in corporate theft. The economy isn't doing too well after Sept 11 and the last thing they need is a leaky faucet under the sink where they lose a dollar here and there because of secrets let over the radio.

So if you think about it, a lot has changed since Sept 11 and the actions we partake in by sharing info to strangers across the Internet can have a direct toll on the safety and economy of many in the United States. I am not running around saying the sky is falling but I do just request you think twice about that discrete frequency you just heard and want to share with the 500 people on the YahooGroup covering your area. I certainly didn't think twice until a recent meeting I was asked to attend regarding the communications business complaint and other local agencies who had concerns with content on the website about building locations etc. Sure, legally I have every right to post the public info and the agencies don't bother ordering me to take info off the website, but do I have the defense and funds to support a court case against a business who supposedly lost money due to intellectual theft of its assets? They have the funds and power to really play the "Good ol' boy system" and regardless if I'm right or wrong, I lose in that situation as a simple website owner who thinks it isn't worth the risk. With an official complaint from a business lodged to the local sheriff dept, it's not only a new ballgame, it's an entirely new world out there.