[Scan-DC] Editorial: Don't silence the scanners

[Alan Henney]

Northern Virginia Daily (Strasburg, Virginia)

August 17, 2018 Friday

Editorial: Don't silence the scanners

SECTION: EDITORIALS

LENGTH: 390 words

Earlier this week, Strasburg police credited citizens listening to a police
pursuit on their home scanners for the quick arrest made of a man accused
of throwing his 2-year-old child down an embankment into a creek.

During that chase, residents called dispatch to let police know the
direction the man was heading.

"We had numerous calls from the community; citizens, giving us updated
locations on Mr. Sunday as he was fleeing from us and which helped us get
in a good direction of travel in time to set up a perimeter around that
location," Strasburg Police Chief Wayne Sager told the Northern Virginia
Daily on Tuesday.

This is a good example of how transparency in government works. Now, that
word transparency has been bandied about a lot over the past several years
– with politicians even vowing to make government more transparent during
their campaigns – but talk does not always turn into action, and the
meaning of transparency seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

In this week's Northern Virginia Daily, we published stories about how
Front Royal police and the Warren County Sheriff's Office plan to fully
encrypt new radio systems that will be installed soon. Encryption will
effectively silence public scanners – the public and the news media will
not be able to listen in to find out why police are next door, or why they
are setting up roadblocks, or if there has been a bank robbery, or where
police are during a foot pursuit.

When government officials try to control information, block or make access
to public information difficult to obtain, they are doing a disservice to
the public. We run into many public information roadblocks at police
agencies, courts and government offices each day as we work on stories that
impact or are of interest to our readers.

Going back to the scanner issue, silencing them is throwing up another
information wall to the public. We agree that sensitive communications
should be switched to an encrypted channel, but why should all police
channels be closed to the public?

We urge town council members and county supervisors in the counties that
will be installing new emergency communications to reconsider allowing
police to encrypt all radio traffic. Let the public know what's going on in
their neighborhoods; block the information that needs to be kept secret for
officer safety.