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Why are they encrypting their communications? Do they have something to hide?
If they've got nothing to hide, then they've got nothing to fear.
Or so I've heard, anyway, right?
They're public employees. Their privacy is non-existent while on duty. There is actually no reason for police radios to be encrypted. The only reason police feel even a modium of responsibility to the public is because they are able to be constantly watched by citizens, and their unencrypted comms is an important part of that.
ETA: I get what you were saying and adding onto it, not trying to contradict
Their privacy is non-existent while on duty.
True, but your privacy exists even in this case.
There is actually no reason for police radios to be encrypted.
Actually I can think of a couple of reasons.
One is that this way the parents of a violent crime or lethal incident victim can be informed about the condition before the press publish the news. Last year we had some cases here in Italy where the parents of people who passed away for some incident/crime discover it from the press even before the authority had time to inform them.
True, in this case is the press that is in the wrong, but they could do it because they had access to the communications.
Another is that maybe it is not a good idea to let criminals know what the police are doing to catch them.
BUT I understand your point given the news about US police I read around.
What I think about it is that if you think that all the US police officers are bad then I agree that the not having access to the radio communications can be a problem. The solution however is not to keep the communications open but to fix the US police.
In that case the records need to be auditable, e.g. available for subpoenas and all that. But given the frequency of their body feels suddenly "malfunctioning" during arrests, I don't see that happening in the shower term.
What we need BEFORE encrypted comms is stronger accountability laws and harsher punishments for police brutality.
Otherwise I won't buy the "protect and serve" excuse. They just want to save their own asses.
I don't quite get these comments, I think our emergency services went encrypted a while back in Vancouver Canada and I'm surprised NY wasn't already encrypted?
What about keeping the communications encrypted for the privacy and safety of people involved, and storing the records for a set amount of time. Anyone with access to the live feed can access the backups during that time, and report issues as needed.
I'm not familiar with the issues with the police department, so maybe a better compromise would be to open up the feeds publicly after a set amount of time?
I'll put it simple.
American cops are not equivalent to Canadian cops. US cops use tax payer money to pay lawsuits but are allowed a special police union as well. No other public servants get a union to do their bidding while tax payers foot the bill.
Open the channels. What's there to hide. In emergency events, yes it could be an issue. But people also need to know where serious events might be occurring in their areas.
Historically in the USA many police agencies have tried to cover-up and hide evidence of wrongdoing by on duty officers. Some people viewed the open radio policy as a way to monitor the police to make sure they're not breaking the law themselves. I personally have never tried to listen in to a police radio so it doesn't bother me much but some people are upset about it.
Police interactions are public information. If you go to a police station and do a FOIA request, you get all that info anyway. Why would it need to be kept secret before the point it is requested?
Apart from the fact that many departments deny legal FOIA requests and force people to take legal action to get the information they are legally entitled to.
Oh wait. Maybe that’s why they want encryption.
When I was in the USCG Auxiliary in Boston in the 90’s they used the same VHF radio as all boaters for most comms, but they also had an encrypted radio they could switch to if they needed to discuss anything sensitive. The encrypted radio was crap though and only worked over short distances. But they’d use it when relaying personal details of boats/people they stopped, dealing with drunk boaters, etc.
As time progressed they switched to using mobile phones when they wanted privacy. Cell coverage along the coast proved far better than the proprietary encrypted radio…
Where I live it's partly to protect the privacy of the people involved.
Aside from the transparency issue, did you see how much it's going to cost?
Four hundred million dollars! The city is cutting back on pretty much everything else but wants to spend that on police radios.
Everyone has to tighten their belts while the thin blue line gets fatter and more dangerous.
No matter what it costs, we will shield police from accountability.
Name a price and go fuck yourself.
They actually need to focus on hospital communications. It's scary what all you can pick up from paging systems in cleartext with a $20 USB SDR and a laptop. Patient names, rooms numbers, alert codes, everything.
I worked in a hospital, and patient names should never be paged. Room numbers and alert codes are not PHI, and generally they would say "Adult Male blah blah blah...". Unfortunately, in concrete mazes, paging is still the most reliable (as seen by how easy it is for others to see). And when you're as important as a doctor, you need reliability.
I find it fascinating how in the United States police radio communications aren't encrypted and therefore anyone can listen to them. In my European country all emergency service communications are TETRA encrypted.
Which had/has a built-in backdoor for years.
https://www.wired.com/story/tetra-radio-encryption-backdoor/
EU security forces didn't really care as TEA2 wasn't backdoored. It's a mid-90s standard with different encryption levels for different actors, it should be blindingly obvious that whatever is publicly available is backdoored. You may not like it, I do not like it, but it should've been obvious.
The actual own goal was that while all EU security forces always had access to the secure stuff plenty of operators of critical infrastructure (think energy suppliers etc) used TEA1 as that's what they were given. Also some EU forces bought TEA1 equipment presumably because they didn't know what they were doing, with or without help from manufactures with an overstock of TEA1 radios.
Here's a 37c3 talk about the whole thing, from the people actually breaching the protocol.
Aside from those encryption issues (which are finally getting addressed btw) TETRA is a great protocol, though. By now a bit dated so bandwidth isn't exactly stellar (forget video streaming or such) but devices can talk directly to another just as in olden times, setting up a base station simply increases range, radio channels are now virtual, it's all very sweet. Basically TETRA is to radio what GSM is to rotary phones. Which, as GSM phones don't tend to be wired, makes a hell a lot more sense.
Not all llaw enforcement or emergency services are in the clear. The Feds are all encrypted (except for some intentional in-the-clear channels for open comms).
One of the biggest criticisms after 9/11 was the lack of easy comms across agencies because of radio set ups, different 10-codes, etc.
Hopefully this is something they are accounting for with this change.
Also $400m doesn't seem that crazy for an endeavor like this given the size of NYPD.
40k officers and staff + backhaul + tower upgrades + vehicle radio upgrades and installation /$400m
And is that $400m entire lifecycle cost? Over 5-10 years or whatever that's really not insane.
Well, for starters, European police are actually trained professionals (in general, much more so than American police) and have different oversight. American police also handle a wider variety of things that really aren't law enforcement - things that should be handled by other kinds of professionals.
EDIT: American law enforcement agencies are also home to some of the highest rates of domestic violence perpetrators and right-wing extremism.
American police shoot and kill 3-4 people each day. That doesn't take into account deaths that occur in jails and prisons due to negligence.
It seems insane that they were communicating out in the open.
On the one hand, you probably hear all kinds of cool shit. On the other hand, how in the fuck are they just discussing all their sensitive shit out in the open??
Yeah police radio should never be encrypted.
I suspect it would be helpful for protecting sensitive situations. Currently (at least with EMS) they call each other's cellphones for that, not ideal.
What kind of situations?
EMS communication over unencrypted channels is limited by HIPAA, patient information must be kept vague to protect patient privacy. In the event that, say, an individuals name needs to be given to the receiving facility to facilitate review of records prior to arrival by the ER physician, some other method of communication has to be used.
It's not a HIPAA violation for a report like this to go over unsecured radio waves:
16 year old male, unresponsive. Suspected alcohol poisoning. EMS required. Address to be provided by emergency services
I know, which is why my example was about providing the patient's name over the radio.
This isn't just bad news for citizen monitoring of the police, it's bad news for the media as well. I worked at a news station. We had multiple police scanners going in case something big happened. The cops want no cameras around.
Surprised it's not encrypted in the first place. You haven't been able to listen to police communications in Finland since the 90's. I would assume most of Europe is the same way.
Yes, this is absolutely suspicious and definitely a sign of police overreach and government's misplaced priorities.
But.
I do want to point out that, whenever a cop wants to do something shady right now, they don't do it over the unencrypted radio. It's not like we're giving them a new way to be malfeasant. It's not like they're currently completely accountable and transparent, and they won't be later.
Right now, they just use their cell phone when they want to do something shady.
i'm all for full transparency regarding all police activity - i'm not for full realtime transparency regarding all police activity.
active shooter scenarios, violent crimes and everything that invites rubbernecking (read: situations where MORE people are a bad idea, which is most police/ambulance business) should probably not attract people; a 24h delay for release would be enough tho.
my inner cynic already tells me - without searching - that noone thought about automatically releasing the info after a delay. :-(
I genuinely like this idea, because it would allow to reach both goals.
The problem I see is that this would probably go down the same as the bodycam idea, with inconvenient recordings vanishing due to "technical issues".
You'd need an independent third party doing life recording and delayed release. Subjectively, the US don't have a great track record with these.
Easier idea: Just publish last week's encryption key. Probably won't happen because some tech supplier will lobby for a more expensive solution.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear (or something like that)
I'm surprised it was nos encrypted already.
Any one can silently hear their frequency. I looks like an easy way to know if police is coming your way, and how avoid them.
It's insane it hasn't been encrypted ages ago. Bizarre
just the police doing everything they can to make sure that no one ever knows what they're doing because they're such great big heroes that we normal people just can't handle their awesomeness
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The New York police department (NYPD) is facing serious backlash after announcing additional details about its plan to encrypt its radio communications system, which experts warn will limit transparency and accountability.
The entire “upgrade” to a new, encrypted radio system will be completed by December 2024 and cost an estimated $400m, a hefty price tag as several city agencies have been forced to swallow major budget cuts.
Maisel said that during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when more than 200 people died, he was able to provide public safety updates on social media by listening to the police radio.
The encryption plans also have support from Mayor Eric Adams, who said during a July press conference that “bad guys” are listening to the police radios, the New York Times reported.
Cahn added that police have been unable to provide “concrete examples” of criminals abusing the radio system, especially to justify citywide encryption.
“I really do think that we have a fundamental rule-of-law issue under Eric Adams, where the NYPD continues to be enabled to lawlessly pursue this surveillance agenda without abiding by the protections that already exist under law,” Cahn said.
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