Research the law. In the UK, it’s illegal to listen to anything not intended for you. Look at the wireless telegraphy act. Pinned for anyone else wondering
People don't give two hoots about Musk making billions using their 'private' data (and then spending money to affect the public and suit him). They even enjoy giving, Musk , Zuckerburg and the CCP their biometrics (these filters people casually scan their faces to 'apply' an on screen pair of specs and what-not). No problem... as long as it's a 'private' company at the face of it. Want to share your data with the NHS so they can model disease etc? Heck no. Want the Police to be able to listen for key words to help prevent terrorists? Yes, but without the listening! People are odd. Double standards. The unregulated AI brigade making billions off anything you do on the internet are the ones to worry about.
Back in the old days radio encryption was not possible or affordable. Today you wouldn't be able to hear anything anymore as these technologies are now available, and then some. Like trunking on top of AES encryption.
Thats how it is in the US. It is up to the sender and specific receiver of transmissions to encode/encrypt their traffic if they don't want others to hear.
Errr encryption aint the be all and end all, due to the modest processing power available in these devices encryption is not as strong as you might imagine, even the police's new flashy pay per message system can be decrypted in real time if like me, you have a background in computing and encryption. Ive yet to find an encryption standard to survive a radios, because we can gather way more information than you can an unencrypted radio. So your argument is invalid. A quick search on youtube, DECRYPTING Encrypted radio packets will be enlightening! Mobile phone network encryption is a joke.
Same in Canada. It's not illegal to listen. The expectation is that encryption is used to secure comms. What is asked of you is not to divulge information to a third party unless compelled to do so by court order or participation in a court proceeding.
No, it shouldn't. Just because your front door is unlocked doesn't mean I get to nick your stuff. It's super weird that the government seems to have a better sense of what's appropriate here.
Indeed. Though to be honest I doubt I'd actually be able to pick up anything of interest even if I did have the equipment to do so. In any case, the stuff that's likely to get you into trouble (i.e. listening to police radio signals) is on digital now which cheaper AM/FM units won't receive now. And in any case, the emergency services will soon be (or already are) using the ESN network provided by EE 4G.
Mate Canada makes it illegal to even "possess equipment for the purpose of intercepting private communications" -- what's omitted from this is intent needs establishing to land charges, and that isn't happening except for cases of spying or espionage. Edit: or criminality is the primary thing, like the examples here.
and you can speak to it also listening to it is the smallest problem, the real problem starts when people start to make use of it to prevent the police from doing their job
It's an old law. relating to times before encryption was available on emergency systems. Like many laws in the UK it needs updating and in a perfect world it would be an easy thing. Thing is this law, like many old obscure laws, isn't used often at all so sits low on the priority list. Remember then changes will need agreeing by a majority in parliment and the extreme left/right model we seem to be slipping toward, means these guys will disagree out of spite. From the cases we heard in the video though the 'offenders' were generally dealt with fairly. Those who seemed to stumble on the channels by mistake and stayed because it was intruiging and fun generally got let off with a fine, those with terrorsist or drug links generally got in a bit of bother. It's never a perfect system but from what we saw there are bigger things to worry about.
@@digitalmediafan There were some that went up (at least by the tuning scale) 107 MHz back then. The unit I had was just a normal transistor radio we'd got cheap from the market.
The UK is so full of paranoia that I wonder, if someone drove around in a windowless van saying "Thought Police Scanner" on the outside, many people might well believe it. That's how authority works: make people believe that you have them in your sights, and that helps to keep everyone in line. And the British know so well how to queue!
Haha. You’ve got a point but don’t be foolish enough to think everyone in the U.K. is like that. Laws are blatantly broken here everyday in broad daylight. Cannabis is on every street corner and there are kids walking around with machetes. Anyone paranoid about owning a scanner is overthinking their hobby.
For Next week’s video, we delve into the story about a Coventry man who is prosecuted for recklessly removing the “Do not remove under penalty of Law” tag on a neighbor’s mattress.
The tag is the fire safety certificate. Without the certificate the neighbour's landlord, assuming they provided the mattress as part of the rental, is likely to have to buy the neighbour a new mattress. So prosecution for criminal damage and civil action for the cost of the replacement mattress would seem reasonable.
I am a sworn Mattress Police Inspector. You think this is funny, punk? This is no joking matter. Go ahead and take your chances with that tag. Do ya feel lucky?
@@jamie59685 There's a fire safety law about not being allowed to sell furniture without the label. Not illegal to have this furniture but if you are a landlord renting that out maybe there could be a legal or insurance basis. It's extremely rare for anyone to bother unless the accused did annother crime and they wanted to add something else to tip the scales legally.
@@dessertlocustit is all the same government all over the world. The politicians are just puppets. In Kazakhstan I felt much more free and safer during the Soviet era than now. More government, more surveillance, more rules, more fines, more taxes. The more government there is the worse it gets for people and economy. At least here it feels like that.
Even as a Canadian I feel bad for the British. Our grandfathers who went ashore in Normandy would be mortified to see what prissy weaklings we've become.
You are not weaklings. Not all of you. You just took good life for granted and the evil snuck in and took hold. You will have to work be rid of it now. And it's not just you. All Western countries are facing this problem right now.
@@RCAvhstape I get what you're saying, and I certainly don't count myself in the prissy weakling camp. But I'm increasingly horrified at the extent to which my fellow citizens are meekly allowing our once-glorious country to be transformed into something so pathetic. For that reason I call 'us' weaklings - because by any useful measure, 'we' are.
@@snail2171 I don't buy the idea that good people must surrender liberties because bad people abuse them. Drug dealers use speech to do business, should we therefore ban speech? (The way youtube keeps deleting my comment?)
A lot of British soldiers at Normandy would would have voted for the same governments that put some of these laws into effect (specifically the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 which made using radio equipment to receive messages you aren't the intended recipient of a criminal act).
In the USA it is not illegal to listen to police frequencies, airline frequencies or emergency services. There may be state restrictions but no one gets arrested for these. This is a great series. Love your channel. Keep it up
But a large number of police departments now have radio systems that encrypt comms, which makes listening impossible. Where I live, it happened in 2004.
I've "heard" on more than one occasion that the State of Florida has mobile scanner use restrictions and that law enforcement, especially the Highway Patrol, is strict in this regard... that if you have anything other than a 27mhz CB in your car, you better have a FCC license. Re: listening to encrypted frequencies - it's my understanding that if one possesses receivers that are legal & available for public use, including ones that can "un-encrypt" inversion, digital, P25 etc encrypted comms, you can listen to what you hear. Many of these can cost in the thousands of $ , the only restrictions are that you may not divulge what you hear, nor use it for personal gain.
@@halfbakedproductions7887 There are phone apps that do it too. I have one called "Scanner App Pro" and it even has International streams. I listened to Australian fire fighters working the huge wildfires there, And I'm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania!
Under the telecommunications act, it is also illegal to use any wi-fi connection that has been left open. So anyone who's found & used an open wi-fi connection that isn't theirs has broken the law. Also, if you use a public wi-fi network meant for customers of a shop or cafe, but are not a customer, but sitting on a bench outside, then again if you make use of it, it is illegal. There are lots of other silly laws here in the UK.
Many years ago, before I had my own broadband, I use to use the public Wi-fi of a nearby doctors surgery to watch youtube videos, to save my phone data!!
@@RichieReportsUK_UKCNewsso you stole something. If I connected to your outside electricity supply, that would be OK? Being easy to do doesn't make it legal
About 20 years ago I worked at a (now sadly defunct) local newspaper here in the rural USA. We had a scanner in the office that was always listening for the local emergency services, for obvious reasons, and occasionally someone would address us directly. Usually it was the fire department dispatcher, casually letting us know that the current call was for equipment testing or something and we shouldn't get too excited. :)
@@14percentviking That is indeed VERY yikes and I hate my country deeply for being so dishonest and self-deluded on a political and social level, "social democratic safe utopian society" my ass we are a morally degenerate sugar free free-trial version of China
When I was a kid in the 80s, my dad bought me a kit from Tandy to build a police scanner. It was one of those beginner kits that used solderless spring connectors. It was advertised specifically as a police scanner, and could not receive normal radio stations. Crazy to think they used to be sold as toys for children, abd now it's a crime to own/use them.
Crazy to think you're a nosey Parker for listening in on a conversation but if you pass on information to the police because you were being a nosey Parker you'll get their thanks.
yes iremember that kit it was a superregenerative radio also i built a 27mghz cb radio useing the same principal and had a small crystal controlled transmitter about 100 milliwatts or up to a couple of miles in open country this one was soldered it got me into amatuer radio though tandys were a great store foe electronics enthusast so was maplins sadly these are both gone maplins had a good 80 mtr ham band direct conversion reciever kit you could recieve ham stations from all over europe and even the usa and canada with a good arial
It was stupid transmitting in the clear and then complaining when people listen. They used to transmit in middle of the FM broadcast band to make it even easier, and then blame the person receiving instead of dealing with the problem at source.
The law is the wrong way round. The responsibility should be on the broadcaster to not broadcast sensitive data insecurely and for them to be held liable if they do. Not on the listener to not listen. Can you imagine if GDPR worked that way round?
So your parents are responsible for the weirdo down the road that recorded their private phone conversations over their cordless phones? Nonsense. The young family down the road are responsible for the weirdo down the road recording their baby monitor? Nonsense. The entire reason of the law existing includes the reasoning that the typical consumer does not have control over how the devices they use broadcast that information. What you're suggesting should take place is effectively what you think is silly. It is reversing the concepts shown in the GDPR regulations.
@@lmaoroflcopter Yes. The parent's have a responsibility to safeguard their children by encrypting the baby monitor, cordless phones etc. It's similar to making a nude photobook for your partner... leaving it in public, unprotected and then crying because someone saw all your nudes. It's not your fault it occurred but it is your responsibility to safeguard yourself and those in your charge. If you can't trust it, then don't use it.
I know a school across town, whose radio frequency is PMR446 ch8, although they have their CTCSS frequency set. I often hear sensitive information being broadcast, such as children's names and their class name/number. I've tried approaching the school about their safeguarding, but they brushed it off as the frequency they were given. I suspect they either bought PMR446 radios and had the supplier set the CTCSS, as they don't know the law or are trying to ignore it, or they've hired the equipment & the supplier is charging them to be on his supplier licence, but just programmed the radios for 446. All the schools I attend to service their minibuses, use digital voice radios on business licence.
I had a scanner many years ago, and one night they had been a very large fight spilling out of one of the nightclubs in the town. The police had asked my landlord if they could setup some observers from the property that I was living in. So the police had came around and set up a video camera in my flat. So on a Friday night and Saturday night, the police would come round via the backdoor. They had seen my scanner as it was in plane sight, and they asked me what sort of things could I listen to. So I told them that I could pickup fishing boats, taxis, aircraft and many other things. Then they asked me if I could listen to the police, so I was being 100% honest to them and told them YES. So the officers would turn off their handsets and only used the handsets to actually talk to the police control. What a sad day it was when the police had gone over to the Tetra system. But all of the time that the police came to my flat, they knew that I had a scanner and that I often listened to the police. Even some of the officers asked me what would be a good scanner to get, and also what radio frequency would be good to listen to “as they also wanted to listen to police traffic so they could keep up-to date on what was going on”. But that was back in the mid 80’s. But I NEVER got into any trouble with any of the police for listening to anything that I was listening to. The only advice one officer told me, as long as I did NOT use any of the information to my financial gain, then everything would be OK 👌
I remember back in the day I had my old scanner on me listening to my dad who at the time had his license for amateur radio and I was out and about, a local Bobby at the time used to patrol the estate asked me what I was listening to and I explained my dad on his radio as I want to get my license and he asked me if I could pick them up I told a little white lie and told them I didn’t know and he asked me to find the frequency so he could listen himself when he’s not on duty lol
It's the same here in Germany. Eavesdropping is officially prohibited, including maritime or aviation radio ! I know of a case where someone was caught listening to military aviation radio. There was a complaint, but it was dropped. But we say "where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge" and you don't have to and shouldn't tell anyone about what you heard (illegally).
Where I live in northern Lower Michigan, we listen to police and fire channels for safety. We're rural, and knowing if there's a car crash that will change our driving plans, or a barn is on fire is information we should know just in case it's nearby and might spread to the forests that surround our homes.
When I was a cop in the States, my late mother would listen to my radio traffic using her scanner. A legal action by her at home. She would hear all my activity including dangerous and serious calls. It made her feel closer to me while I was on duty and she appreciated her son’s bravery, professionalism and service to others.
when the story starts with "when the police raided his house" , the scuffers dont come kicking your door in looking for a scanner , they kick your door in because the scrote will have other warrants out for them and lets face it most of the ppl out there would have had a scanner at some stage or another , hell i remember hearing the police etc on an old fm radio.
It seems like the USA isn't the only place with police overreach. The police shouldn't be scared of their public messages being monitored, because they shouldn't be doing anything illegal.
Its not about police doing anything illegal, Criminals do use radios to listen into the police. But unless you are doing something that impacts their abilities they should just screw off.
You’re assuming that everyone’s living on the same page. The dealer trying to sell drugs to your son, or the creep stalking your girlfriend or daughter isn’t - I hope.
@@dinnertimemishapTgen lets just outkaw knives, cars, radios, guns, and anything ekse that COULD be used to commot a crime! Ever hear of innocence till PROVEN guilty?
@@laustinspeiss"The dealer trying to sell drugs to your son." Where do you live that drug dealers have to actually look for customers? You sound like a boomer. Drugs sell themselves, they're the one of the biggest selling commodities going.
This misses the point. They are scared that the criminals will be one step ahead because they can listen to the police trying to catch them in real time. The problem is that it is easier for a politician to make it illegal to listen than it is for a politician to make it illegal to transmit sensitive information without encryption.
I was talking to someone back in the spring, who knew I was a Radio Ham. He said he'd come across a frequency on his scanner that sounded like drug dealers arranging deals and debt collection punishments. He was afraid to contact the police as they might prosecute him for illegal use of a scanner. He was considering an anonymous tip off to crime stoppers, but I don't know if he did.
Even if he reported it without evidence, such as recording it, it'd just be counted as, I forget the term but basically as if he could have made it up. If the police investigated everytime someone said something about someone else without evidence they'd get nowt done.
There was a case back inthe 1970s I believe where a Radio amatuer heard Communication between crooks who were Robbing a Bank. A film was made about it, some years later.
You know that law oft' cited as stupid that goes "it is illegal in this state to have an ice cream in your back pocket"? That's because horse thieves would do this in order to get horses to follow them. There is an angstrom of logic there, but if the reason was to prevent horse thieves why not also make it illegal to have carrots and apples in your pocket? Why not just make it illegal to abandon your horse without tying it up? Why not just make it illegal to make a car without an immobiliser? Why not just make it illegal to broadcast sensitive information without reasonable effort to encrypt it?
@@notNajimi and what's your point? If the laws don't exist the dodgy people can do what they want. Remember cases go to court where judges and jury can apply common sense - as we saw in the video. Laws are fine with adequate checks and balances. Having no laws would create huge problems almost instantly. Laws do need updating but that has to be done on a priority basis - this radio thing is pretty small fry to be honest, it's not like they are bussing loads of offenders in.
Seems like they include scanner use as an add-on charge. Something that might stick in court if the "real" charges (burglary, drugs, etc) somehow fail. What we don't see in the breathless news coverage are the people who listened quietly at home, did nothing else to break the law, and then kept quiet about it afterward.
The sentencing in the Northern Ireland case may seem ridiculous and disproportionate, but you probably need to take it in context of what Northern Ireland was like at the time. You know what I mean. The courts were clearly taking that into consideration. And I also think the guy in the first story was probably already a known toerag given the police seemed to know everything about him, and how his rap sheet later turned out. I'd say the radio scanning was a symptom of something else and not the problem.
They already jailed a woman for silently praying on the street near a abt. clinic. She wasn't doing or saying anything, just standing there. A cop asked her what she was doing, and she told him she was praying inside her head. Jail.
@@RCAvhstapeShe was probably past the line of protest. It's either 50 metres or 500 metres to protest near a hospital or private abortion clinic. They changed the laws about 2 - 3 years ago cause the American fundamentalists keep not only funding anti-abortion protests here is the UK but also coming over and organising them and were far more in your face about with their rubbish, so got pushed further back to stop harassment.
I can remember in the early 2000s. Buying 4 scanners at a local auction of item being sold from the police that had been used presumably in burglary and not required for evidence any longer. They all worked plus they were tuned into police security fire ambulances. Not that anyone had tried to clear the frequency on the scanners. I even brought pry bars bolt cutter ready made burglary kit.
In Australia. I saw my hydroponics growing equipment that'd been seized by police for sale in a Christian opp shop. They had top dollar on it too the cheeky bastards!
A friend bought an old police car at auction. For some reason, they never repainted it. They told him he should repaint it, so it didn't look like a police car anymore. He never did and had a lot of fun with that. Of course, the stickers were removed, but it still looked very much like a police car. He got pulled over several times and yelled at for not painting it. They couldn't actually do anything because they sold it that way, and it wasn't in writing that he had to paint it.
The worst thing is the hypocrisy and double standards. We have no privacy when it comes to our internet use, even Google probably knows everything you do and if you’re suspected of a crime the police will look at the contents of your mobile phone.
I wonder how many people were prosecuted when you didn't even need a scanner to listen to the police as they could be picked up on an ordinary FM radio?
UK radio laws are archaic and ridiculous. I was building an FM Transmitter that could pull MP3 track info and broadcast it via RDS way back when I was in Uni. I had to jump through so many hoops with the then Radio Authority. So many restrictions on power levels (basically not much above 0W), could only point the transmission antenna in a certain direction and was limited to broadcasting for less than 1hr between a certain time. It was enough to prove my concept to the lecturers and with plenty of extra credit because I had dealt with regulatory issues, but it really didn’t feel worth it.
I'd no idea that this was illegal. My granny had one for years. Police Scotland didn't throw the frail and elderly recidivist's arse into Cornton Vale once. She made great toast, so I'm glad they didn't.
Ah but in those halcyon days before Scottish c̶o̶m̶m̶u̶n̶i̶s̶m̶ centralisation it wouldn't have been "Police Scotland", it would have been Stirling Constabulary or something equally local - they probably would have known that your granny was a good egg and bothered someone more deserving instead. Mind you these days she'd have probably evaded arrest due to the central control room's confusing her address with somewhere in Shetland or Galloway...
@@fredjones100 Funny you should say Communism. Convicting people for listening to plod on radio scanners makes as much sense as the conviction of Mark "Count Dankula" Meechan. I will now contravene the Offensive Behaviour Online Thought Crime Act by calling the Lab-Con-SNP uniparty a shower of wankers. Thank you.
Which leads to an interesting EMI conundrum. As a Student, I was in the front bedroom of our shared house one day, when my housemate's hi-fi system (which was on, but in standby) began to broadcast a police transmission. This wasn't over the radio, it was simply coming from the amplifier. A police car outside was transmitting with a powerful enough signal that it caused interference with the amplifier which reproduced the transmission - so we could hear one side of a police radio conversation. Technically this was breaking the law.
Quite a few of the quoted examples of prosecutions on this video, are people who are clearly listening to the cops for more than simple curiosity' it's obvious that's why a prosecution has been pursued. Not all of them seem to be that, but most of them are. By way of comparison, if you go to an airshow or an airport where plane spotters are, you will most likely come across people using scanners to listen to ATC; it's obvious that this is occurring, but since these are not transceivers, they are essentially not really doing much harm, so there is never much of an effort dedicated to preventing this from happening. Since I work at an airport, many of our works vehicles have ATC transceivers in them out of necessity, for example, we use them to talk to ATC when moving about the airfield towing aeroplanes etc, but we usually leave them on in the tugs anyway, and technically, most of the transmissions we hear are, in the strictest sense, not intended for us personally, but could be argued to assist in situational awareness. These are licensed transceivers too, so I guess that's relevant as well. But licensed or not, there are legitimate and indeed laudable reasons for some people listening to ATC, such as student pilots gaining familiarity, drone or model aircraft flyers listening out for potential medevac or police helicopter arrivals where they are flying their model or drone and so on. I'm fairly sure that if I was listening to ATC transmissions at home, with ne being a pilot who also flies drones and models aeroplanes and someone who has to talk to ATC at work on a regular basis too, I suspect I could make a pretty good case for having a legitimate reasons for doing so because of that, whereas if I had the local cop frequencies stored, that'd be a bit harder to excuse. So it's a different matter with Police transmissions, these would obviously be useful in warning criminals that the Police are about and potentially responding to their activities.
These were mad times. I had a a Realistic scanner that I bought in 1989. I lived in Oxfordshire, and used to regularly listen to Thames Valley Rozzers and Oxfordshire Ambulance Service. I also listened to some mobile phone calls and radio hams. I was 15 at the time. 1989/1990 was an amazing time… Happy days 😊
I still have a scanner somewhere. Used to listen to the police twenty years ago because you got the news two weeks before the local paper printed it but then they went digital and it couldn't pick them up anymore.
Same here... I have a Yupiteru MVT-7100 scanner that's now almost silent since the switchover to digital and/or encrypted systems. Spoilt my late-night entertainment !
In the 80s before the range was filled with commercial radio stations, where I am in Berkshire you could listen to what I believe were police broadcasts on a normal FM radio, in the 100MHz to 108MHz range. Was it illegal to listen to those too?
I remember when you could get police traffic at the top end of the VHF band on a lot of portable radios. That cheap radio (nasty plasticy black and silver thing) was really good at LW dxing too. Most evenings in the late 70s, I used to listen to old Wolfman Jack programmes on American Forces Network Germany (I was in Scunthorpe). The farthest afield I ever heard police radio on VHF was a car chase in Nottinghamshire. I would have been 12 or 13.
The funniest thing about this is if someone's outside the border listens to those frequencies there will be no way of that person being caught. Radiowaves do not know borders. This can happen at the Northern Ireland/Irish border.
It's just like LPL when lock companies demand removal of the videos of their locks getting picked. It's not seen as an opportunity to make a better lock, but as a forbidden skill...
I listened to the Balcombe Street Seige on my stereo unit. It also at times picked up taxi cabs. I understood that listening was o.k. as long as you didn't profit from it. Afterall, its not my fault if my amstrad stereo fm receiver picked up such signals, i didn't build it and the Comet Shop i bought it from was shut down about 40 years ago. As there seems to be a growing number of these type offences, how is it possible to tell if somebody is "Listening In?"
I remember years ago, listening to the old FM radio in my car. A police car was three cars behind me, their radio came over my car radio then too. So I had no choice but to listen in to what they were talking about as they were interfering with FM frequencies. Thank you Spotify !
needs a TV license, cant carry a knife on your belt, cant listen to unencrypted radio signals, so much control that doesnt seem to accomplish anything.
I got my first scanner in 1987. In Australia (from what I remember and understand) you are free to listen to any radio transmission you want UNLESS it is a phone call; (AMPS cellular, SeaPhone (phone calls on VHF Marine), HF radio telephone calls, old FM cordless phones, etc.) The other rule was that you were not allowed to make commercial or financial gain from what you hear. There aren't a lot of phone calls that can be heard any more, if any.
What a moronic bunch of laws. If you don’t want people to listen to your radio transmissions, don’t invade peoples’ homes with them. This kind of crap makes me afraid to even visit the UK. Who knows what stupid laws I’d accidentally break (like inadvertently looking like I’m praying in proximity to the local Abortions ‘R’ Us).
In the '80 and '90, if the police in Amsterdam had something with privacy involved, they than talked about it on the second channel which was encrypted. When in my town a police officer forgot about the presence of listeners, the officer on the headquarter used his transmit switch to avoid that the audio could be heard over the relay.
Modern radios are digital and sometimes "trunked" and frequency hop each time you key the microphone. Scanners are generally useless at that sort of thing which is why I haven't even seen a scanner in 20 years or so.
Listening to that which has been broadcast,(that is, not encrypted), is not seemingly innocent. It IS innocent. Are we to believe a conversation held in a public place, which is easily within earshot of bystanders is not to be listened to, legally? What next, a nude woman walking in public can claim her body is not meant for you to see, therefore illegal to see?. This is an absurd situation.
I’m sure glad I don’t live in the U.K.. I’ve been listening to Scanners since 1970 and it has all been legal. Even when Cordless Phones were popular. I had all 11 frequencies and knew more about my neighbors than they did. Unfortunately the Trunking System messed everything up here in the states..
This is one of the most dystopian things I've ever heard. That's like ruining someone's life for looking at historic statues, even worse if you illustrate them in a doodle book. Accusing them of trying to copy the statue without any evidence for the intent. They're everywhere just like unencrypted RF, and only takes a little effort to find them.
In Hong Kong in the 1990's the bass player in my (hobby) rock band used a wireless connection between his guitar and amplifier. He would often pick up police radios. One time, when playing in the Petty Officers Mess, he picked up Naval ship to shore stuff.
Even the Government Monitoring Services need a court permit to listen in to VHF or UHF enterprise comms . There as been always laws against receiving comms not intended to the listener, all over the world. Theoreticaly there should be no problem listening to police or military, because none of them should be careless to transmit "on the clear", and shoild encrypt all the messages (with or without electronic means). Otherwise, the ones that paid for the systems (regular folks) would be jailed for listening, and the radio monitoring guys at foreign embassies wouldn't...and that is stupid. Nowadays, Tetra prevents the general public to listen, but all the 3 letter agencies listen to all the police and emergency comms from several monitoring stations and intercepting the backbone network. How stupid is that.....
Wow very informative ! Many Thanks .I too purchased one of these in the 90s (as a hobby) which came with a user manual listing different frequencies(Although it never listed which government agencys use them frequencies) I had no idea regarding the consequences of using them as the shops who sell you them don't warn you ! 👍
If the police and such like don't want their radio messages listened to, and are worried about terrorists listening in, then they should make sure the messages are encrypted, it's incredibly incompetent not to take basic precautions to protect radio messages, which means those people who were jailed unfairly for the failings of the police.
I think I was about 12 when a copper spotted me with my scanner walking the streets of Blackpool, I also had a BT pager on me that some lad sold me for £5. I spent 2-3 hours in the cells at the now decommissioned Blackpool central police station. My mum had to come and sit in on the interview under caution with the tapes and all. The copper thought I might be part of a burgherly gang and the BT pager had something to do with it so after being released they confiscated both my devices and it took months to get them back. I think by the end of it the copper felt a bit silly, bless him.
This video confused me. I’m not overly familiar with UK laws but my understanding is violent offenders receive shorter sentences than offenders here in the US. So why is this a 5 year felony???? Total waste of prison space and utilization. Now if this guy had other evidence of “terrorist” activities a high custodial sentence is reasonable but this didn’t appear that narrative fits. There’s also a huge discrepancy in sentencing.
The UK law is fairly straight forward. (www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/36/2024-08-23) (Section 48 Interception and disclosure of messages is the relevant part.) the range of sentancing is listed in the law (section 48, subsection 4) "A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale." - level 5 on the scale is "unlimited". there is no jail time for intercepting radio signals (only a fine) - the video title is clickbait.
Actually, they say that the novel was originally intended to be called "1948" but Orwell was persuaded to change the last 2 digits round because back in that age 1984 seemed to be in the impossibly distant future.
If you’re stupid enough to get caught listening to a radio then you deserve to get done. Most of these listeners were known by the police for other crimes.
Back in the years this was happening they used me and others like me we listened we got paid passing information on, though I was in a sky on unit once and they had icom r5 as well, we are talking befir airwaves, though still illegal to. Listen to marine and air orr commercial pmr radios no one really bothers
Sun spot number is at max now. When the sun goes down in the evening you should be able to hear the USA most days. This will last about a year then signals will go down until it is totally quiet and next sun spot maximum is then in 10 years. It is not a joke it is real. Enjoy for as long as it lasts.
CB is on 27MHz which will go around the world right now. The laws says 4W FM, 12W SSB max, but Italians are great at breaking that rule and do transmit with kW powers. They tend to be very, very loud everywhere.
It is not illegal to listen to a radio scanner but it could be illegal to make use of info received without permission
Research the law. In the UK, it’s illegal to listen to anything not intended for you. Look at the wireless telegraphy act.
Pinned for anyone else wondering
@@RingwayManchester Stupid Law//// Luckely its differend here in The Netherlands.
Terrible advice, and 100% wrong.
@@RingwayManchester That's a shame. Meanwhile, terrorists will continue to listen to whatever they want to.
Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 S48
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/36/section/48
Meanwhile, *they* want back door access to all of *your* actually private communications. 🤔
Authoritarian UK
There is no such thing as private communications anymore. The intelligence community monitors everything.
yet you can sue them for privacy infringement but no one does it.
@@Cheezus-Crus7 Probably, the state knows that lawsuits are expensive and the game is rigged in favor of them, just like in a casino.
People don't give two hoots about Musk making billions using their 'private' data (and then spending money to affect the public and suit him). They even enjoy giving, Musk , Zuckerburg and the CCP their biometrics (these filters people casually scan their faces to 'apply' an on screen pair of specs and what-not). No problem... as long as it's a 'private' company at the face of it.
Want to share your data with the NHS so they can model disease etc? Heck no.
Want the Police to be able to listen for key words to help prevent terrorists? Yes, but without the listening!
People are odd. Double standards. The unregulated AI brigade making billions off anything you do on the internet are the ones to worry about.
Their fault for broadcasting it unencrypted nobody should be blamed for being able to tune in.
Those crypteds are sketchy
@@DesertRat.45 The Mandelbrot Set
@@WR3ND What is that?
Back in the old days radio encryption was not possible or affordable. Today you wouldn't be able to hear anything anymore as these technologies are now available, and then some. Like trunking on top of AES encryption.
No one is - the offence is making use of information gathered in that manner .
In the day and age of encryption, anything still broadcast openly should be legal to listen to.
As it is in the EU
Thats how it is in the US. It is up to the sender and specific receiver of transmissions to encode/encrypt their traffic if they don't want others to hear.
Errr encryption aint the be all and end all, due to the modest processing power available in these devices encryption is not as strong as you might imagine, even the police's new flashy pay per message system can be decrypted in real time if like me, you have a background in computing and encryption. Ive yet to find an encryption standard to survive a radios, because we can gather way more information than you can an unencrypted radio. So your argument is invalid. A quick search on youtube, DECRYPTING Encrypted radio packets will be enlightening! Mobile phone network encryption is a joke.
Same in Canada. It's not illegal to listen. The expectation is that encryption is used to secure comms. What is asked of you is not to divulge information to a third party unless compelled to do so by court order or participation in a court proceeding.
No, it shouldn't. Just because your front door is unlocked doesn't mean I get to nick your stuff.
It's super weird that the government seems to have a better sense of what's appropriate here.
Laws be damned. If the RF is in the air, I'm gonna listen to it !
Indeed. Though to be honest I doubt I'd actually be able to pick up anything of interest even if I did have the equipment to do so.
In any case, the stuff that's likely to get you into trouble (i.e. listening to police radio signals) is on digital now which cheaper AM/FM units won't receive now. And in any case, the emergency services will soon be (or already are) using the ESN network provided by EE 4G.
@@TheSpotify95 a $45 RTL-SDR will get it done
@TheSpotify95 pocsag is still used widely by hospitals, fire and coastguard. That's not encrypted.
Its like saying nooo
Don't look
You have my support! If their radio waves are passing through your body without your permission I say Fuck 'Em! From your pal in the USA!
This country criticizes China for being authoritarian, then throws you in prison for listening to radio....
We're heading in the same direction
You clearly have zero understanding of how authoritarian the CCP is
Oh my sweet summer child... This is nothing compared to China.
@@technoman9000 keep consuming that propaganda man...
@@technoman9000you're naive to think we're any different.
The UK is so completely mental about radio, it makes no sense to a Canadian. If you can hear it, you can hear it!
Mate Canada makes it illegal to even "possess equipment for the purpose of intercepting private communications" -- what's omitted from this is intent needs establishing to land charges, and that isn't happening except for cases of spying or espionage. Edit: or criminality is the primary thing, like the examples here.
And if you don't want it to be heard, don't broadcast it.
Remember that 1984 was written by a Brit! This insane radio business may be how that shit starts!
and you can speak to it also
listening to it is the smallest problem, the real problem starts when people start to make use of it to prevent the police from doing their job
It's an old law. relating to times before encryption was available on emergency systems. Like many laws in the UK it needs updating and in a perfect world it would be an easy thing.
Thing is this law, like many old obscure laws, isn't used often at all so sits low on the priority list.
Remember then changes will need agreeing by a majority in parliment and the extreme left/right model we seem to be slipping toward, means these guys will disagree out of spite.
From the cases we heard in the video though the 'offenders' were generally dealt with fairly. Those who seemed to stumble on the channels by mistake and stayed because it was intruiging and fun generally got let off with a fine, those with terrorsist or drug links generally got in a bit of bother. It's never a perfect system but from what we saw there are bigger things to worry about.
When I was a kid, In the 1970s, the North London Metropolitan Police could quite easily be heard on the FM Broadcast band with any VHF radio!!
so True ❤
Yes they were on AM but very oddly around 100 to 104 Mhz or so, very few FM tuners went above 104 Mhz back then I think
@@digitalmediafan There were some that went up (at least by the tuning scale) 107 MHz back then. The unit I had was just a normal transistor radio we'd got cheap from the market.
I could hear them on 100Mhz in Hertford.
Yes, I used to lie in bed listening to them as a schoolboy. Only got half the conversation though.
The UK is so full of paranoia that I wonder, if someone drove around in a windowless van saying "Thought Police Scanner" on the outside, many people might well believe it. That's how authority works: make people believe that you have them in your sights, and that helps to keep everyone in line. And the British know so well how to queue!
And I bet if someone actually did do this it would be an offence of some kind.
There called TV License Detector Vans :)
Haha. You’ve got a point but don’t be foolish enough to think everyone in the U.K. is like that.
Laws are blatantly broken here everyday in broad daylight. Cannabis is on every street corner and there are kids walking around with machetes. Anyone paranoid about owning a scanner is overthinking their hobby.
I'm sure that was the real intention of TV Detector vans.
Of course. It is not possible to detect what transmission someone is tuned into.
For Next week’s video, we delve into the story about a Coventry man who is prosecuted for recklessly removing the “Do not remove under penalty of Law” tag on a neighbor’s mattress.
The tag is the fire safety certificate. Without the certificate the neighbour's landlord, assuming they provided the mattress as part of the rental, is likely to have to buy the neighbour a new mattress. So prosecution for criminal damage and civil action for the cost of the replacement mattress would seem reasonable.
@@timward2001 You have to be on the wind up
I am a sworn Mattress Police Inspector. You think this is funny, punk? This is no joking matter. Go ahead and take your chances with that tag. Do ya feel lucky?
@@jamie59685 Suggest you check the regs before supplying (and that includes giving away, not just selling or renting) any furniture to anyone.
@@jamie59685 There's a fire safety law about not being allowed to sell furniture without the label.
Not illegal to have this furniture but if you are a landlord renting that out maybe there could be a legal or insurance basis.
It's extremely rare for anyone to bother unless the accused did annother crime and they wanted to add something else to tip the scales legally.
listening to the radio? straight to jail.
with this government in power, breathing will send you to jail. lol
every day life gets worse for the euros
@@dessertlocust we live in an age of 'you cant do ...', 'youre not allowed to ....' society.
10 hyears from now the UK will be unrecognisable
With this Labour government, this sounds quite normal 🤦♂️
@@dessertlocustit is all the same government all over the world. The politicians are just puppets. In Kazakhstan I felt much more free and safer during the Soviet era than now. More government, more surveillance, more rules, more fines, more taxes. The more government there is the worse it gets for people and economy. At least here it feels like that.
Even as a Canadian I feel bad for the British. Our grandfathers who went ashore in Normandy would be mortified to see what prissy weaklings we've become.
You are not weaklings. Not all of you. You just took good life for granted and the evil snuck in and took hold. You will have to work be rid of it now. And it's not just you. All Western countries are facing this problem right now.
@@RCAvhstape I get what you're saying, and I certainly don't count myself in the prissy weakling camp. But I'm increasingly horrified at the extent to which my fellow citizens are meekly allowing our once-glorious country to be transformed into something so pathetic. For that reason I call 'us' weaklings - because by any useful measure, 'we' are.
Stop video at 0:10 and read newspaper article. Scanner was used in drug selling net operation to listen local police.
@@snail2171 I don't buy the idea that good people must surrender liberties because bad people abuse them. Drug dealers use speech to do business, should we therefore ban speech? (The way youtube keeps deleting my comment?)
A lot of British soldiers at Normandy would would have voted for the same governments that put some of these laws into effect (specifically the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 which made using radio equipment to receive messages you aren't the intended recipient of a criminal act).
In the USA it is not illegal to listen to police frequencies, airline frequencies or emergency services. There may be state restrictions but no one gets arrested for these. This is a great series. Love your channel. Keep it up
But a large number of police departments now have radio systems that encrypt comms,
which makes listening impossible. Where I live, it happened in 2004.
I've "heard" on more than one occasion that the State of Florida has mobile scanner use restrictions and that law enforcement, especially the Highway Patrol, is strict in this regard... that if you have anything other than a 27mhz CB in your car, you better have a FCC license.
Re: listening to encrypted frequencies - it's my understanding that if one possesses receivers that are legal & available for public use, including ones that can "un-encrypt" inversion, digital, P25 etc encrypted comms, you can listen to what you hear. Many of these can cost in the thousands of $ , the only restrictions are that you may not divulge what you hear, nor use it for personal gain.
There are even UA-cam channels which livestream radio comms from emergency services in random towns in the US.
@@halfbakedproductions7887 There are phone apps that do it too. I have one called "Scanner App Pro" and it even has International streams. I listened to Australian fire fighters working the huge wildfires there, And I'm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania!
There's also apps on the Android/Google store that allow you to legally listen to emergency services in the USA.
Under the telecommunications act, it is also illegal to use any wi-fi connection that has been left open. So anyone who's found & used an open wi-fi connection that isn't theirs has broken the law. Also, if you use a public wi-fi network meant for customers of a shop or cafe, but are not a customer, but sitting on a bench outside, then again if you make use of it, it is illegal. There are lots of other silly laws here in the UK.
Many years ago, before I had my own broadband, I use to use the public Wi-fi of a nearby doctors surgery to watch youtube videos, to save my phone data!!
I heard of people being arrested after being caught using an open wifi network with their laptop in their car
@@RichieReportsUK_UKCNewsso you stole something. If I connected to your outside electricity supply, that would be OK? Being easy to do doesn't make it legal
Crazy how trespassing is not illegal though, as long as you leave if asked are not 'equipped' or break anything on the land
About 20 years ago I worked at a (now sadly defunct) local newspaper here in the rural USA. We had a scanner in the office that was always listening for the local emergency services, for obvious reasons, and occasionally someone would address us directly. Usually it was the fire department dispatcher, casually letting us know that the current call was for equipment testing or something and we shouldn't get too excited. :)
@@ZGryphon use to be commonplace in the UK until it was made illegal
At least we can still cross the street without a Jaywalking conviction 😂
here in Denmark you can listen to everything without going to jail or getting a fine,
but a lot of it goes digital
Yes, I am happy that the Danish government and the Danish Energy Agency had not gone crazy and make stupid laws regarding radio communication.
It is technically illegal, but they consider it impossible to enforce
@@14percentviking That is indeed VERY yikes and I hate my country deeply for being so dishonest and self-deluded on a political and social level, "social democratic safe utopian society" my ass we are a morally degenerate sugar free free-trial version of China
When I was a kid in the 80s, my dad bought me a kit from Tandy to build a police scanner. It was one of those beginner kits that used solderless spring connectors.
It was advertised specifically as a police scanner, and could not receive normal radio stations. Crazy to think they used to be sold as toys for children, abd now it's a crime to own/use them.
I remember that kit with the springs, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I’d forgotten all about that
Crazy to think you're a nosey Parker for listening in on a conversation but if you pass on information to the police because you were being a nosey Parker you'll get their thanks.
yes iremember that kit it was a superregenerative radio also i built a 27mghz cb radio useing the same principal and had a small crystal controlled transmitter about 100 milliwatts or up to a couple of miles in open country this one was soldered it got me into amatuer radio though tandys were a great store foe electronics enthusast so was maplins sadly these are both gone maplins had a good 80 mtr ham band direct conversion reciever kit you could recieve ham stations from all over europe and even the usa and canada with a good arial
@@12presspart I miss Maplin. I was gutted when I learned that they had gone out of business.
Let this be a lesson to everyone - when you buy a second hand radio - it might well have been stuffed down the front of their pants at some point.
It was stupid transmitting in the clear and then complaining when people listen. They used to transmit in middle of the FM broadcast band to make it even easier, and then blame the person receiving instead of dealing with the problem at source.
The law is the wrong way round. The responsibility should be on the broadcaster to not broadcast sensitive data insecurely and for them to be held liable if they do. Not on the listener to not listen.
Can you imagine if GDPR worked that way round?
So your parents are responsible for the weirdo down the road that recorded their private phone conversations over their cordless phones?
Nonsense.
The young family down the road are responsible for the weirdo down the road recording their baby monitor?
Nonsense.
The entire reason of the law existing includes the reasoning that the typical consumer does not have control over how the devices they use broadcast that information.
What you're suggesting should take place is effectively what you think is silly. It is reversing the concepts shown in the GDPR regulations.
@@lmaoroflcopterprivate individuals aren't subject to GDPR
@CorrosiveCitrus indeed. They are subject to DPA2018 though which covers much the same ground.
Notice I didn't raise GDPR. The original poster did.
@@lmaoroflcopter Yes. The parent's have a responsibility to safeguard their children by encrypting the baby monitor, cordless phones etc. It's similar to making a nude photobook for your partner... leaving it in public, unprotected and then crying because someone saw all your nudes. It's not your fault it occurred but it is your responsibility to safeguard yourself and those in your charge. If you can't trust it, then don't use it.
I know a school across town, whose radio frequency is PMR446 ch8, although they have their CTCSS frequency set. I often hear sensitive information being broadcast, such as children's names and their class name/number. I've tried approaching the school about their safeguarding, but they brushed it off as the frequency they were given.
I suspect they either bought PMR446 radios and had the supplier set the CTCSS, as they don't know the law or are trying to ignore it, or they've hired the equipment & the supplier is charging them to be on his supplier licence, but just programmed the radios for 446.
All the schools I attend to service their minibuses, use digital voice radios on business licence.
"Is that a radio scanner or are you just pleased to see me?"
Unbelievably draconian laws. What a joke.
Truth is if someone is allowed to broadcast a signal through your body, you should be allowed to decode and inspect it 🤷🏻
"Oi sunshine, you got a permit for breathing?"
'breavin'
@@JohnBaker-vm1wf Spot on! Thank you!
I had a scanner many years ago, and one night they had been a very large fight spilling out of one of the nightclubs in the town. The police had asked my landlord if they could setup some observers from the property that I was living in. So the police had came around and set up a video camera in my flat. So on a Friday night and Saturday night, the police would come round via the backdoor. They had seen my scanner as it was in plane sight, and they asked me what sort of things could I listen to. So I told them that I could pickup fishing boats, taxis, aircraft and many other things. Then they asked me if I could listen to the police, so I was being 100% honest to them and told them YES.
So the officers would turn off their handsets and only used the handsets to actually talk to the police control.
What a sad day it was when the police had gone over to the Tetra system.
But all of the time that the police came to my flat, they knew that I had a scanner and that I often listened to the police. Even some of the officers asked me what would be a good scanner to get, and also what radio frequency would be good to listen to “as they also wanted to listen to police traffic so they could keep up-to date on what was going on”.
But that was back in the mid 80’s. But I NEVER got into any trouble with any of the police for listening to anything that I was listening to. The only advice one officer told me, as long as I did NOT use any of the information to my financial gain, then everything would be OK 👌
I remember back in the day I had my old scanner on me listening to my dad who at the time had his license for amateur radio and I was out and about, a local Bobby at the time used to patrol the estate asked me what I was listening to and I explained my dad on his radio as I want to get my license and he asked me if I could pick them up I told a little white lie and told them I didn’t know and he asked me to find the frequency so he could listen himself when he’s not on duty lol
In Sweden you can listen all you want, however it's illegal to relay what you heard to someone else.
It's the same here in Germany. Eavesdropping is officially prohibited, including maritime or aviation radio ! I know of a case where someone was caught listening to military aviation radio. There was a complaint, but it was dropped. But we say "where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge" and you don't have to and shouldn't tell anyone about what you heard (illegally).
Where I live in northern Lower Michigan, we listen to police and fire channels for safety. We're rural, and knowing if there's a car crash that will change our driving plans, or a barn is on fire is information we should know just in case it's nearby and might spread to the forests that surround our homes.
We have Facebook
When I was a cop in the States, my late mother would listen to my radio traffic using her scanner. A legal action by her at home. She would hear all my activity including dangerous and serious calls. It made her feel closer to me while I was on duty and she appreciated her son’s bravery, professionalism and service to others.
If you dont want someone to listen to you then encrypt it.
Anything sent in the clear cannot be illegal to listen to in any rational world.
So what happens if you are standing in front of police officers and you hear their radio transmissions?
Life imprisonment.
Straight to Jail! Do NOT pass "GO", Do NOT collect £200... 😂
That would not involve using an apparatus
when the story starts with "when the police raided his house" , the scuffers dont come kicking your door in looking for a scanner , they kick your door in because the scrote will have other warrants out for them and lets face it most of the ppl out there would have had a scanner at some stage or another , hell i remember hearing the police etc on an old fm radio.
Just searched the archives and most recent case involving scanner I found was 2023, part of a parole hearing for a guy who tried to kill a cop.
It seems like the USA isn't the only place with police overreach.
The police shouldn't be scared of their public messages being monitored, because they shouldn't be doing anything illegal.
Its not about police doing anything illegal, Criminals do use radios to listen into the police. But unless you are doing something that impacts their abilities they should just screw off.
You’re assuming that everyone’s living on the same page.
The dealer trying to sell drugs to your son, or the creep stalking your girlfriend or daughter isn’t - I hope.
@@dinnertimemishapTgen lets just outkaw knives, cars, radios, guns, and anything ekse that COULD be used to commot a crime! Ever hear of innocence till PROVEN guilty?
@@laustinspeiss"The dealer trying to sell drugs to your son."
Where do you live that drug dealers have to actually look for customers?
You sound like a boomer.
Drugs sell themselves, they're the one of the biggest selling commodities going.
This misses the point. They are scared that the criminals will be one step ahead because they can listen to the police trying to catch them in real time. The problem is that it is easier for a politician to make it illegal to listen than it is for a politician to make it illegal to transmit sensitive information without encryption.
I was talking to someone back in the spring, who knew I was a Radio Ham. He said he'd come across a frequency on his scanner that sounded like drug dealers arranging deals and debt collection punishments. He was afraid to contact the police as they might prosecute him for illegal use of a scanner. He was considering an anonymous tip off to crime stoppers, but I don't know if he did.
Even if he reported it without evidence, such as recording it, it'd just be counted as, I forget the term but basically as if he could have made it up.
If the police investigated everytime someone said something about someone else without evidence they'd get nowt done.
99% of meshtastic traffic
Was probably police he heard
There was a case back inthe 1970s I believe where a Radio amatuer heard Communication between crooks who were Robbing a Bank. A film was made about it, some years later.
@@GazB85 That is their job
Imagine yelling in the street snd getting angry that someone could hear you.
Not a perfect analogy.
I mean dishonesty and abuse et cetera are illegal on the street already, but radio? Nah radio is sPeCiaL
All countries have some laws that are simply obnoxius.
And all countries have some people that are simply obnoxious.
It works both ways.
@@laustinspeisswhat’s your point? Do people doing bad things mean this law is good actually?
@@laustinspeissYes. Our PM!
You know that law oft' cited as stupid that goes "it is illegal in this state to have an ice cream in your back pocket"? That's because horse thieves would do this in order to get horses to follow them. There is an angstrom of logic there, but if the reason was to prevent horse thieves why not also make it illegal to have carrots and apples in your pocket?
Why not just make it illegal to abandon your horse without tying it up?
Why not just make it illegal to make a car without an immobiliser?
Why not just make it illegal to broadcast sensitive information without reasonable effort to encrypt it?
@@notNajimi and what's your point? If the laws don't exist the dodgy people can do what they want.
Remember cases go to court where judges and jury can apply common sense - as we saw in the video.
Laws are fine with adequate checks and balances.
Having no laws would create huge problems almost instantly.
Laws do need updating but that has to be done on a priority basis - this radio thing is pretty small fry to be honest, it's not like they are bussing loads of offenders in.
Seems like they include scanner use as an add-on charge. Something that might stick in court if the "real" charges (burglary, drugs, etc) somehow fail. What we don't see in the breathless news coverage are the people who listened quietly at home, did nothing else to break the law, and then kept quiet about it afterward.
Exactly this point!
The sentencing in the Northern Ireland case may seem ridiculous and disproportionate, but you probably need to take it in context of what Northern Ireland was like at the time. You know what I mean. The courts were clearly taking that into consideration.
And I also think the guy in the first story was probably already a known toerag given the police seemed to know everything about him, and how his rap sheet later turned out. I'd say the radio scanning was a symptom of something else and not the problem.
Absolutely. It’s just the fact that there was zero evidence of anything relating to that. But yes valid point
That the police rely on unencrypted radios is the real crime. Instead they criminalise everyone.
They don't : the Airwave system currentloy used by all emergency services is encrypted , as will be the new ESN system which is coming out .
Soon: direct to jail for hearing call for pray from mosques.
They already jailed a woman for silently praying on the street near a abt. clinic. She wasn't doing or saying anything, just standing there. A cop asked her what she was doing, and she told him she was praying inside her head. Jail.
@@RCAvhstapeShe was probably past the line of protest.
It's either 50 metres or 500 metres to protest near a hospital or private abortion clinic.
They changed the laws about 2 - 3 years ago cause the American fundamentalists keep not only funding anti-abortion protests here is the UK but also coming over and organising them and were far more in your face about with their rubbish, so got pushed further back to stop harassment.
@@GazB85 "Line of protest". Hmm. Still, she was not "protesting" if she was just standing still and not even talking.
@@RCAvhstaperightly so, go be high and mighty somewhere else
I can remember in the early 2000s. Buying 4 scanners at a local auction of item being sold from the police that had been used presumably in burglary and not required for evidence any longer. They all worked plus they were tuned into police security fire ambulances. Not that anyone had tried to clear the frequency on the scanners. I even brought pry bars bolt cutter ready made burglary kit.
In Australia. I saw my hydroponics growing equipment that'd been seized by police for sale in a Christian opp shop. They had top dollar on it too the cheeky bastards!
A friend bought an old police car at auction. For some reason, they never repainted it. They told him he should repaint it, so it didn't look like a police car anymore. He never did and had a lot of fun with that. Of course, the stickers were removed, but it still looked very much like a police car. He got pulled over several times and yelled at for not painting it. They couldn't actually do anything because they sold it that way, and it wasn't in writing that he had to paint it.
You might of got some of 15 plus scanners I had stolen by police
4 scanners with stuff programmed veery possible these were mine what models were there
Banning listening to transmissions over the airwaves is like banning reading signs on a public street.
The worst thing is the hypocrisy and double standards. We have no privacy when it comes to our internet use, even Google probably knows everything you do and if you’re suspected of a crime the police will look at the contents of your mobile phone.
The police records everywhere your car goes.... and then the government tracks who you send emails, phonecalls etc to.
I wonder how many people were prosecuted when you didn't even need a scanner to listen to the police as they could be picked up on an ordinary FM radio?
UK radio laws are archaic and ridiculous. I was building an FM Transmitter that could pull MP3 track info and broadcast it via RDS way back when I was in Uni.
I had to jump through so many hoops with the then Radio Authority. So many restrictions on power levels (basically not much above 0W), could only point the transmission antenna in a certain direction and was limited to broadcasting for less than 1hr between a certain time.
It was enough to prove my concept to the lecturers and with plenty of extra credit because I had dealt with regulatory issues, but it really didn’t feel worth it.
I'd no idea that this was illegal. My granny had one for years. Police Scotland didn't throw the frail and elderly recidivist's arse into Cornton Vale once. She made great toast, so I'm glad they didn't.
It's in the greater national interest to make good toast.
Ah but in those halcyon days before Scottish c̶o̶m̶m̶u̶n̶i̶s̶m̶ centralisation it wouldn't have been "Police Scotland", it would have been Stirling Constabulary or something equally local - they probably would have known that your granny was a good egg and bothered someone more deserving instead. Mind you these days she'd have probably evaded arrest due to the central control room's confusing her address with somewhere in Shetland or Galloway...
@@fredjones100 Funny you should say Communism. Convicting people for listening to plod on radio scanners makes as much sense as the conviction of Mark "Count Dankula" Meechan. I will now contravene the Offensive Behaviour Online Thought Crime Act by calling the Lab-Con-SNP uniparty a shower of wankers. Thank you.
The UK has jumped the Orwellian shark.
Just tell them that even though it's a ham radio set, all you got was crackling...
😆 PORK crackling
Which leads to an interesting EMI conundrum.
As a Student, I was in the front bedroom of our shared house one day, when my housemate's hi-fi system (which was on, but in standby) began to broadcast a police transmission. This wasn't over the radio, it was simply coming from the amplifier. A police car outside was transmitting with a powerful enough signal that it caused interference with the amplifier which reproduced the transmission - so we could hear one side of a police radio conversation.
Technically this was breaking the law.
The law is written around 'intent' so you'd have to establish intent to receive to land a charge, so it's not an EMI conundrum, at all.
Quite a few of the quoted examples of prosecutions on this video, are people who are clearly listening to the cops for more than simple curiosity' it's obvious that's why a prosecution has been pursued. Not all of them seem to be that, but most of them are. By way of comparison, if you go to an airshow or an airport where plane spotters are, you will most likely come across people using scanners to listen to ATC; it's obvious that this is occurring, but since these are not transceivers, they are essentially not really doing much harm, so there is never much of an effort dedicated to preventing this from happening.
Since I work at an airport, many of our works vehicles have ATC transceivers in them out of necessity, for example, we use them to talk to ATC when moving about the airfield towing aeroplanes etc, but we usually leave them on in the tugs anyway, and technically, most of the transmissions we hear are, in the strictest sense, not intended for us personally, but could be argued to assist in situational awareness. These are licensed transceivers too, so I guess that's relevant as well.
But licensed or not, there are legitimate and indeed laudable reasons for some people listening to ATC, such as student pilots gaining familiarity, drone or model aircraft flyers listening out for potential medevac or police helicopter arrivals where they are flying their model or drone and so on. I'm fairly sure that if I was listening to ATC transmissions at home, with ne being a pilot who also flies drones and models aeroplanes and someone who has to talk to ATC at work on a regular basis too, I suspect I could make a pretty good case for having a legitimate reasons for doing so because of that, whereas if I had the local cop frequencies stored, that'd be a bit harder to excuse. So it's a different matter with Police transmissions, these would obviously be useful in warning criminals that the Police are about and potentially responding to their activities.
jesus christ this is horrible.
loads of criminals, burglars, drug dealers etc going to prison?
Cursing is a sign of a weak mind and a weaker character.
@@yetidodger6650 listening to a radio should not be a crime.
@@KeystoneInvestigations at what point did I curse?
@@moonman8865 depends why you're listening to it.
Damn, they ignored protected land. We can even trust protection anymore.
Lobbying is crazy.
I paid a small fortune for the AOR 8200 back in the 90s still got it but it's not been used in over 20 years
It's not only me then! 😎 along with an AR 5000, Yaesu FRG9600 and ICR 7000! 🤣
@@barrieshepherd76942 X yupiteru 7100 EU 🤘😆
These are great Sir. Thank you!!
The UK is a police state
So is the United States, so is Canada, so is China, so is North Korea, so is Mexico.....shall I go on?
@KeystoneInvestigations Mexico is no police state its a narco state
These were mad times. I had a a Realistic scanner that I bought in 1989. I lived in Oxfordshire, and used to regularly listen to Thames Valley Rozzers and Oxfordshire Ambulance Service. I also listened to some mobile phone calls and radio hams. I was 15 at the time. 1989/1990 was an amazing time… Happy days 😊
I still have a scanner somewhere. Used to listen to the police twenty years ago because you got the news two weeks before the local paper printed it but then they went digital and it couldn't pick them up anymore.
Same here... I have a Yupiteru MVT-7100 scanner that's now almost silent since the switchover to digital and/or encrypted systems. Spoilt my late-night entertainment !
@@andrewmonument8847I've 2 yupiteru 71000😊
@@andrewmonument8847nice coverage tho...100hz to 1.65 continuous
Maybe properly encrypt the channels then. Else as far as I'm concerned it's a public broadcast.
Basically getting arrested for overhearing the police shout stuff to each other in the street
Bit like nowadays, when people are arrested for sending offensive Tweets!
In the 80s before the range was filled with commercial radio stations, where I am in Berkshire you could listen to what I believe were police broadcasts on a normal FM radio, in the 100MHz to 108MHz range. Was it illegal to listen to those too?
I remember when you could get police traffic at the top end of the VHF band on a lot of portable radios. That cheap radio (nasty plasticy black and silver thing) was really good at LW dxing too. Most evenings in the late 70s, I used to listen to old Wolfman Jack programmes on American Forces Network Germany (I was in Scunthorpe). The farthest afield I ever heard police radio on VHF was a car chase in Nottinghamshire. I would have been 12 or 13.
100mhz am then 152 am yep!
The funniest thing about this is if someone's outside the border listens to those frequencies there will be no way of that person being caught. Radiowaves do not know borders. This can happen at the Northern Ireland/Irish border.
i remember when i had one way back , used too get police helicopter too ground police cars , it was very exciting in them days
It's just like LPL when lock companies demand removal of the videos of their locks getting picked. It's not seen as an opportunity to make a better lock, but as a forbidden skill...
UK IS Gorge Orwell’s 1984
I listened to the Balcombe Street Seige on my stereo unit. It also at times picked up taxi cabs. I understood that listening was o.k. as long as you didn't profit from it. Afterall, its not my fault if my amstrad stereo fm receiver picked up such signals, i didn't build it and the Comet Shop i bought it from was shut down about 40 years ago. As there seems to be a growing number of these type offences, how is it possible to tell if somebody is "Listening In?"
Has anyone thought this might be a little heavy handed?
Welcome to the island
The court costs seemed very reasonable, actually...
I remember years ago, listening to the old FM radio in my car. A police car was three cars behind me, their radio came over my car radio then too. So I had no choice but to listen in to what they were talking about as they were interfering with FM frequencies. Thank you Spotify !
That is ridiculous. Not even a suspended? Our prisons are overflowing
It was years ago!
That's even worse! I mean, nowadays.......but years ago?
These convictions are from the early 90s anyone who went to prison. They have been out a good 30 years.
The most recent example in this video was 30-odd years old!!!
In the Netherlands if you can pick it up it's legal. Transmitting or interference can end you up in court.
needs a TV license, cant carry a knife on your belt, cant listen to unencrypted radio signals, so much control that doesnt seem to accomplish anything.
Someone somewhere feeling like they have some sort of control over people. That is what that person accomplished.
Ditch the nonce licence.
@@Napoleonwilson1973I'm sure as a watcher of this channel, you completely understand what the "TV" licence actually funds, yes?
I got my first scanner in 1987. In Australia (from what I remember and understand) you are free to listen to any radio transmission you want UNLESS it is a phone call; (AMPS cellular, SeaPhone (phone calls on VHF Marine), HF radio telephone calls, old FM cordless phones, etc.) The other rule was that you were not allowed to make commercial or financial gain from what you hear. There aren't a lot of phone calls that can be heard any more, if any.
What a moronic bunch of laws. If you don’t want people to listen to your radio transmissions, don’t invade peoples’ homes with them. This kind of crap makes me afraid to even visit the UK. Who knows what stupid laws I’d accidentally break (like inadvertently looking like I’m praying in proximity to the local Abortions ‘R’ Us).
Invade people's homes?
If you don't want people to cross the road, but barriers up everywhere
In the '80 and '90, if the police in Amsterdam had something with privacy involved, they than talked about it on the second channel which was encrypted. When in my town a police officer forgot about the presence of listeners, the officer on the headquarter used his transmit switch to avoid that the audio could be heard over the relay.
If they don't want to be listened to could they not use encryption ? It wouldn't even need to be strong.
Modern radios are digital and sometimes "trunked" and frequency hop each time you key the microphone. Scanners are generally useless at that sort of thing which is why I haven't even seen a scanner in 20 years or so.
In all of Europe Police, fire etc. are on the Tetra digital network.
Yes why didn't they think of that (30 years ago)
@@thomasmaughan4798 ok thanks.
Fire In uk still use uhf on scene radios dmr and analog
Listening to that which has been broadcast,(that is, not encrypted), is not seemingly innocent. It IS innocent.
Are we to believe a conversation held in a public place, which is easily within earshot of bystanders is not to be listened to, legally?
What next, a nude woman walking in public can claim her body is not meant for you to see, therefore illegal to see?.
This is an absurd situation.
.. back in the day I always had the scanner on for night time listening.... used to be really good.....
I’m sure glad I don’t live in the U.K.. I’ve been listening to Scanners since 1970 and it has all been legal. Even when Cordless Phones were popular. I had all 11 frequencies and knew more about my neighbors than they did. Unfortunately the Trunking System messed everything up here in the states..
In Britain, we are subjects not citizens
You stopped being "subjects" when nationality laws changed in the early 1980s.
Here in the US, you can listen to anything, you just can’t talk (unless it’s an emergency).
This is one of the most dystopian things I've ever heard. That's like ruining someone's life for looking at historic statues, even worse if you illustrate them in a doodle book. Accusing them of trying to copy the statue without any evidence for the intent. They're everywhere just like unencrypted RF, and only takes a little effort to find them.
The Uk fascist don't care?!
Some would say the UK is dystopian
In Hong Kong in the 1990's the bass player in my (hobby) rock band used a wireless connection between his guitar and amplifier. He would often pick up police radios. One time, when playing in the Petty Officers Mess, he picked up Naval ship to shore stuff.
Even the Government Monitoring Services need a court permit to listen in to VHF or UHF enterprise comms .
There as been always laws against receiving comms not intended to the listener, all over the world.
Theoreticaly there should be no problem listening to police or military, because none of them should be careless to transmit "on the clear", and shoild encrypt all the messages (with or without electronic means).
Otherwise, the ones that paid for the systems (regular folks) would be jailed for listening, and the radio monitoring guys at foreign embassies wouldn't...and that is stupid.
Nowadays, Tetra prevents the general public to listen, but all the 3 letter agencies listen to all the police and emergency comms from several monitoring stations and intercepting the backbone network.
How stupid is that.....
TETRA uses propietary cryptography and had a backdoor, so it was cleartext for any smart or state backed hackers :3
@@spinecho609
👍👍👍
Wow very informative ! Many Thanks .I too purchased one of these in the 90s (as a hobby) which came with a user manual listing different frequencies(Although it never listed which government agencys use them frequencies) I had no idea regarding the consequences of using them as the shops who sell you them don't warn you ! 👍
Say things -> jail.
Listen things -> jail.
Is it legal to watch things in UK?
Not without a TV license
If the police and such like don't want their radio messages listened to, and are worried about terrorists listening in, then they should make sure the messages are encrypted, it's incredibly incompetent not to take basic precautions to protect radio messages, which means those people who were jailed unfairly for the failings of the police.
The UK has become a dystopia. If I lived there I would consider leaving.
You don't live here. Your opinion is irrelevant
@@darenn71 irrelevant but correct
This was all back in the late 1980s, early 1990s. They don't do this any more.
In the 1970s, you would listen to cops on the FM band above 104MHz. What on earth were doing using the 88 to 108MHz broadcast band?
Listenong to private broadcasts often involving government services is illegal? No way...
What did you expect?
It isn't .
@derekheeps8012 Maybe listen to literally the first 5 seconds of the video?
Horrible law. There is no reason to criminalize listening to the airwaves. Fascism is gonna fash.
This law is from 1949 ... couldn't be further from it ... what the law hasn't done is anticipate every person to have 10 million transistors
I think I was about 12 when a copper spotted me with my scanner walking the streets of Blackpool, I also had a BT pager on me that some lad sold me for £5. I spent 2-3 hours in the cells at the now decommissioned Blackpool central police station. My mum had to come and sit in on the interview under caution with the tapes and all.
The copper thought I might be part of a burgherly gang and the BT pager had something to do with it so after being released they confiscated both my devices and it took months to get them back.
I think by the end of it the copper felt a bit silly, bless him.
"truck has crashed on the b73, it's been shedding its load two miles back up the road, mainly cans of Tenants lager" yeah right, let's go and look
This video confused me. I’m not overly familiar with UK laws but my understanding is violent offenders receive shorter sentences than offenders here in the US. So why is this a 5 year felony???? Total waste of prison space and utilization. Now if this guy had other evidence of “terrorist” activities a high custodial sentence is reasonable but this didn’t appear that narrative fits. There’s also a huge discrepancy in sentencing.
The UK law is fairly straight forward. (www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/36/2024-08-23) (Section 48 Interception and disclosure of messages is the relevant part.)
the range of sentancing is listed in the law (section 48, subsection 4) "A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale." - level 5 on the scale is "unlimited".
there is no jail time for intercepting radio signals (only a fine) - the video title is clickbait.
Good luck enforcing that. Making it illegal attracts listeners. Greetings from Arizona.
Guess what, it is not enforced unless you're an utter moron doing something illegal already, then it's a cherry on top of the cake.
Stuff like this is even better when it's illegal!!
1984 was really true by the 1980's. 😅
Actually, they say that the novel was originally intended to be called "1948" but Orwell was persuaded to change the last 2 digits round because back in that age 1984 seemed to be in the impossibly distant future.
I have lived in the UK all my life and did not know this was illegal. I do not think it should be.
If you’re stupid enough to get caught listening to a radio then you deserve to get done.
Most of these listeners were known by the police for other crimes.
How do reporters and media agencies know where there is police or is fire dept activity for their news?
Back in the years this was happening they used me and others like me we listened we got paid passing information on, though I was in a sky on unit once and they had icom r5 as well, we are talking befir airwaves, though still illegal to. Listen to marine and air orr commercial pmr radios no one really bothers
Picked up a cheap CB radio and could hear an Italian guy from Palermo. He spoke in English. How was this possible. Such a long way.
CB is in the shortwave spectrum, under the right atmospheric conditions you might hear someone 1000's of miles away, but not 10 miles away!
Sun spot number is at max now. When the sun goes down in the evening you should be able to hear the USA most days. This will last about a year then signals will go down until it is totally quiet and next sun spot maximum is then in 10 years.
It is not a joke it is real. Enjoy for as long as it lasts.
CB is on 27MHz which will go around the world right now. The laws says 4W FM, 12W SSB max, but Italians are great at breaking that rule and do transmit with kW powers. They tend to be very, very loud everywhere.