via: Mass Privatel

Police are secretly using PBS television stations to spy on Americans

DHS is using Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television stations to send videos and messages to law enforcement across the country.

“Once the hardware [IP encapsulator] is set up at the television station to enable this capability, data recipients will need a datacast receiver connected to their computer in order to receive the information being broadcast from the PBS station. Datacasting’s software allows the owners of the video and other data to target individual users or groups of receivers to receive the video, files and notifications being transmitted.”

“Datacasting gives first responders the same broad access to data that we are all used to having on our smartphones, explains John Contestabile, APL’s datacasting program manager. Emergency voice communications are currently good, but they aren’t designed to handle large amounts of data. And, during an emergency, cellular networks become congested and strained from use by the public.”

What they’re really saying is, police can use ‘datacasting’ to secretly communicate with each other after shutting down cellphone service. There have been at least two reported incidents of police shutting down cellphone service in recent years, one in Calif. and another in Boston.