Tom, Thanks for your comments. Yes, I'm very concerned about the confidentiality aspects of situations like this one. I also understand that the Board wants to present a "united front" in public as much as possible and, yet, individual Directors need to be able to let their members know their own thoughts on "controversial" issues faced by the Board. On the Indianapolis PD story, I can understand the ARRL keeping a low profile during the "data collection" phase of the investigation. At some point, however, the ARRL should issue an objective report to the ham community on the misuse of ham gear by some officers in the Indianapolis PD. 73, K5MC ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Frenaye" <frenaye@pcnet.com> To: "arrl-odv" <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 7:36 AM Subject: [arrl-odv:17621] Re: Indianapolis PD misuse of ham gear?
At 02:54 PM 4/1/2009, Mickey Cox wrote:
If somebody asks me during the ARRL Forum at the next hamfest about why the League has kept a very low public profile on this issue, is it OK for me to pass along your comments verbatim? Or do you want me to say something to the effect that "Federal officials requested that the ARRL not go public with this story because the premature publicity would (or has) impeded its investigation into this matter"? I don't believe that I can simply shrug my shoulders and then try to change the subject if this issue is brought up by a member in my Division.
Hi Mickey -
On issues like this the main thing to keep in mind is that information presented on the ARRL OD or ODV reflectors (and Board committee reflectors), should be treated as confidential and only used within the Board. The info in the ARRL In-News also falls into the same category. From time to time I've wanted to be able to say more on a topic to SMs or members who ask - in that case I'll usually ask Dave or Joel where the limit is if I'm unsure.
In this specific case (Indiana PD), I think you've hit on a topic that we haven't published any information on at all - I couldn't find anything in the ARRL web news and haven't seen it in QST. That does make it look like we've ignored the story or don't want to cover it - we usually do cover any story related to FCC's ham radio enforcement because it helps to keep hams aware there are limits. Seems like we ought to publish something on this one.
-- Tom
===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444