Sheriff's Office balks at audio stream By HEATHER SCOFIELD Staff Writer BUNNELL -- Despite more than a year of promises, the Flagler County Sheriff's Office will not launch an online audio stream of the agency's emergency dispatches as planned.
The effort to restore the public's access to emergency communications was first delayed while agency officials looked for computer software that would delay the transmissions. Officials found the software and Sheriff Donald Fleming spent $1,258 for it this year. But the plan is a bust anyway, said sheriff's spokeswoman Debra Johnson. A new method of communication, implemented when Flagler law enforcement and emergency officials switched to the new $10-million encrypted 800-megahertz system two years ago, is to blame, Johnson said. She said Flagler County emergency officials once communicated with "10-codes," shorthand radio codes describing emergency situations. They now speak plain English without codes during radio transmissions. And that has created concerns about privacy in medical situations, Johnson said. Public access to police and emergency calls through home scanners became nearly impossible two years ago when emergency communications moved to the new system in Flagler County. Some fire and ambulance transmissions can still be heard on home scanners, but radio transmissions between sheriff's deputies and dispatchers responsible for the county's largest city, Palm Coast, cannot be heard on a typical police scanner. And that upset some residents. The relationship between the community and the police department changes when the agency decides to keep all communications secret, a legal defense director Gregg Leslie for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said after Flagler County officials announced plans to upgrade to the encrypted system. There's no First Amendment right that guarantees public access to police communications, the defense director said. But it's something that's been largely available in places like Flagler County and people are accustomed to having that access. Under the new system, neither media outlets nor individuals can follow emergency events in their area, react to the agency's immediate needs, or watchdog emergency workers who use the system. So Fleming announced plans to stream audio from the new system on the agency's Web site. But he said he needed the broadcast to be delayed from real time for safety reasons. Fleming didn't want people taking the law into their own hands or arriving at the scene of a crime or emergency before law enforcement officers were able to secure the area, he said. And to do that, he needed pricey computer software. Credit card statements show the Sheriff's Office purchased the software Fleming wanted, but Johnson said the online radio stream still wouldn't come to be because officials realized the medical aspect of their transmissions could violate the federal law designed to protect locals' privacy. They switched to plain language communications, in part, to meet a requirement of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Johnson said. FEMA did not return telephone calls seeking comment for this story, but the agency requires plain language be used during local emergencies and in emergency responses that involve multiple agencies or jurisdictions, according to their Web site. The requirement is in place because as the meanings of number codes vary from one agency or jurisdiction to another. Emergency responders' use of common terminology prevents misunderstanding, the FEMA Web site said. The federal agency doesn't require local agencies to use plain English in their internal day-to-day communications. But it is strongly encouraged to increase familiarity and reduce confusion in an emergency, the FEMA Web site said. Johnson said the Sheriff's Office would adhere to the recommendation of Federal emergency officials, Johnson said. <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>heather.scofield<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>@news-jrnl.com ---------- © 2008 News-Journal Corporation. ------------------------------------------------------- Amateur Radio Operator Duane Whittingham - N9SSN Skywarn, ARES, SATERN City of Chicago CERT Member Red Cross Disaster Services Technology Member Red Cross ECRV Certified ******************************* * POST TO [EMAIL PROTECTED] * ******************************* Medianews mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
