Should amateur radio be used for military purposes?

About a month ago, it was reported that amateur radio operators  in India had been drafted to monitor the radio communications of suspected terrorist using the ham bands. The report in The Arunachal Times notes:

Suspicious signals in coded Bengali and Urdu languages along the India-Bangladesh border in past few months have raised suspicion over extremists using this unconventional mode of communication, prompting authorities to deploy Ham radio operators on round-the-clock duty.

The incident first came into light in June after amateur Ham radio operators picked suspicious radio signals and unauthorised radio communications in coded Bengali and Urdu in Basirhat and Sunderbans region.

Alarmed over the incident, the operators informed the Centre following which they were called to an international monitoring centre (Radio) and asked to track the signals.

A team of 23 Ham radio operators are now on round-the- clock duty trying to track the exact location of radio signals.

This story was also reported in India’s Press Trust of India News and FirstPost.

While I’m all for ham radio being used for emergency and public service communications, I’m not so sure that I agree with this particular use. I would be OK with this if the amateur radio operators in question were actually drafted into the military and used military equipment to monitor these transmissions, but I’m not sure that as amateur radio operators they should be taking part in these kinds of operations.

What do you think? If you lived down near the U.S.-Mexican border or the U.S.-Canadian border, and the Border Patrol or Army asked you to listen for potential terrorist communications, would you do so?

The post Should amateur radio be used for military purposes? appeared first on KB6NU’s Ham Radio Blog.

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