[Scan-DC] For Austin police, encrypting radio chatter means weighing transparency vs. safety

[Bill Nolan]

If the cops are worried about safety and encrypt everything... including normal or regular dispatches, they a doing themselves a disservice.  Ex: An ordinary citizen (who’s hobby is listening to police and fire calls) happens to see some guy sit on a park bench. The guy has a backpack with him.  The guy gets up and throws something away in an adjacent trash can. Thinking nothing of it, the citizen moves along. Sometime afterwards, a report of an explosion is broadcast in the clear over both fire and police channels. “Wow! I was just there!” Thinks the citizen... and then realizes they should say something, it falls under the heading of See something, Say something. It could very well be what’s called a “SECONDARY DEVICE”. The first bomb in the pack pack was designed to get first responders to congregate at the site and a second bomb (in the trash can) goes off and injured police and firefighters. 

The cops can’t be everywhere so they DEPEND upon the citizenry, to a certain degree, to be their eyes and ears. 

To encrypt or not to encrypt... there are legitament  arguments to both sides. 

> On Oct 14, 2019, at 12:46 AM, Alan Henney <alan at henney.com> wrote:

For Austin police, encrypting radio chatter means weighing transparency vs.
safety

https://www.statesman.com/news/20191001/for-austin-police-encrypting-radio-chatter-means-weighing-transparency-vs-safety

Austin police are wrestling with the idea of encrypting radio traffic on
most, if not all, of the department’s radio channels, potentially by the
end of the year.

Police leaders say the move is a way of protecting officers and denying
criminals the advantage of knowing where police are or when they might be
coming.

Some of the department’s specialty channels, like those of the special
operations and intelligence units, are already off public airwaves, but
police are now looking to expand those protections to a wider array of
channels that could include those used by officers on patrol.

Each of the nine sectors in which Austin police officers work — Adam,
Baker, Charlie, David, Edward, Frank, George, Henry and Ida — gets its own
radio channel, and police have carved out several other channels for
specific units or tactical operations.

Assistant Police Chief Joe Chacon said department leaders have not decided
whether main patrol channels will be encrypted. They are considering how to
walk the line between protecting officers and remaining open to the public.

The news media and police watchdog groups use scanner traffic to learn of
police activity in real time. Without it, reporters would be forced to rely
upon police departments’ willingness to share information about incidents.
The publicly available radio chatter also allows watchdog organizations to
keep tabs on police activity during major crimes or in the regular course
of their patrol duties.

“We have to balance the need to keep our officers and the community safe
with the need for transparency,” Chacon said.

According to radioreference.com, nearly 500 law enforcement agencies
throughout the country have encrypted their general dispatch and main
channels. Those include 27 agencies in Texas. All law enforcement agencies
whose radio traffic runs through Williamson County emergency communications
is encrypted.

Earlier in the year, the Austin Police Department had considered encrypting
radio traffic in October, but that date was pushed back. Chacon said he
still couldn’t provide an exact date as there is still a good deal of
uncertainty as to how expansive encryption will be, and what steps the
department will take to make sure members of the news media have access to
scanner traffic.

“It’s unfortunate now, when we see the violence that’s been committed
against police officers in communities around the country, examples of just
sitting in restaurants and being assassinated, sitting in a police car
being assassinated,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said. “We are trying
to make sure that officers are as safe as possible when they’re doing their
job.”

Adam Wandt, assistant professor of public policy at John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, said the ability of law enforcement to encrypt their
radio traffic goes back a long way, and departments throughout the country
have handled the issue in several ways.

“This is a trend that is not new,” he said. “However, there seems to be a
new surge in it in the past few years.”

Wandt said he sees both sides of the encryption debate, and he only has a
problem with the practice if departments completely seal out the public and
the media.

“I think that it provides a watchdog and oversight capability,” he said.
“On the other hand, law enforcement certainly has sensitive topics that go
over the radio, and (for) some of those sensitive topics, it makes sense
for them to be encrypted.”

Information such as the names of victims and suspects, or personal medical
information with a name attached are of particular concern to Wandt.

“I have a problem with the fact that every ordinary citizen could monitor
dispatch frequencies. I think it could be used for criminal activity,” he
said.

Many cities that have encrypted their radio networks have granted licenses
to media partners so they can listen in on their channels. Others have
chosen to block the media but provide call logs and summaries of traffic at
the end of each shift.

“I think that an open dialogue and public hearings and conversations are
important. And I never think it’s appropriate for law enforcement to
completely restrict the information and release nothing,” Wandt said. “A
system where not even call logs are released at the end of the shift is not
transparent, and it’s problematic when it comes to fraud, waste, abuse and
corruption.”

Kathy Mitchell, an Austin criminal justice policy analyst, said it’s
important to keep the public informed on the department’s plans as well.

“Any decision to make info about our emergency response system encrypted
and confidential should be made very carefully and with a full public
process,” Mitchell said.

Manley said the department has had the ability to encrypt radio traffic for
some time, but it hasn’t moved to do so yet because police leaders have not
landed on a final decision on how to keep the news media in the loop.

“We do support being transparent and putting that information out,” Manley
said. “We’re working on identifying how we can keep media informed of
what’s going on around the city while protecting the officers, and really
the community, because it doesn’t do anybody any good if you have people
showing up on calls for service that don’t need to be there.”

Assistant Police Chief Troy Gay said encryption wouldn’t come with any
added cost to taxpayers but as part of regularly scheduled radio upgrades
slated for later in the year.

“It’s not really a budget issue as much as it’s just we’re going to work
through all of the hoops so that we make sure before we actually launch
this, that we have that plan (to include media) in place,” Manley said.
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