Police Encrypt Radios To Tune Out Public

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Police departments around the country are moving to shield their radio communications from the public as cheap, user-friendly technology has made it easy for anyone to use handheld devices to keep tabs on officers responding to crimes and although law enforcement officials say they want to keep criminals from using officers' internal chatter to evade them, journalists and neighborhood watchdogs say open communications ensures that the public receives information as quickly as possible that can be vital to their safety. 'Whereas listeners used to be tied to stationary scanners, new technology has allowed people — and especially criminals — to listen to police communications on a smartphone from anywhere,' says DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier who says that a group of burglars who police believe were following radio communications on their smartphones pulled off more than a dozen crimes before ultimately being arrested. But encryption also makes it harder for neighboring jurisdictions to communicate in times of emergency. 'The 9/11 commission concluded America's number one vulnerability during the attacks was the lack of interoperability communications,' writes Vernon Herron, 'I spoke to several first responders who were concerned that their efforts to respond and assist at the Pentagon after the attacks were hampered by the lack of interoperability with neighboring jurisdictions.'"

Comments

Publish Them

[Doc Ruby]

There is a real argument that realtime police communications requires secrecy to protect police and their operations while they do the majority of their work that is indeed properly protecting the public.

But there is also a real argument that hiding those communications also hides lots of the minority of their work that at best doesn't protect the public, some of which severely harms the public.

These arguments don't conflict when the realtime parameter is removed. Both legitimate cop business and legitimate public protection are served if all these comms are published after some short delay. Like the following day, or perhaps even just a few hours later.

Publishing them also removes the advantage that some people have who can spend on equipment to monitor the comms. Instead any interested member of the public can check them. All of them, compared to audited logs of the activity on the cops comms equipment. The publication order has to have teeth, prosecuting people for obstructing justice when they're hiding cop comms they find inconvenient to reveal.