Friday, January 11, 2008

Campaign Communications

I've finally seen a report of some political campaign communications being monitored.

During the time around the New Hampshire primary, the local Secret Service office was heard operating in P-25 mode on the USSS BAKER frequency (165.7875 MHz) with RENEGADE CP in operation. It was pretty much assumed that RENEGADE is the call sign for candidate Barack Obama, and is confirmed in this story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/16/AR2007061601079.html?hpid=topnews

Also, during the Iowa Caucuses I received a report of USSS OSCAR (164.8875 MHz) being used for a motorcade in Davenport. The original information guessed that this was for John McCain, but as far as I can determine at this time, the only candidates that have Secret Service protection at this time are Clinton and Obama. Also, McCain has stated that he is not interested in Secret Service protection.

I have been surprised at the lack of postings or information about the security details at these early campaign events. I'm not sure if it's just a lack of people willing to search for activity, or folks are just keeping it quiet.

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