Insistence on transparency in law enforcement has nothing to do with whether one likes or dislikes police officers. It comes down to trust and this is essential for a free society and the effective, honest policing of our streets.<\/p>\n
This is why Gov. Kathy Hochul should sign the \u201cKeep Police Radios Public Act\u201d into law. The bill was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Michael Gianaris (Queens) and in the Assembly by Karines Reyes (Bronx). It took two hard-fought years to get both houses of the legislature to approve this bill that grants credentialed members of the media and emergency volunteer first responders access to encrypted police radios. Nearly the entire democratic conference voted in favor.<\/p>\n
Police departments around the country are moving towards radio encryption to keep \u201cbad guys\u201d from using the radio traffic against them. There is adequate evidence that some criminals have used police scanners to commit crimes and even anarchist protestors who monitored police movements to riot and commit vandalism. There were instances of protestors who used Chinese-made Baofeng radios to interfere with NYPD cops during George Floyd related rioting in New York City \u2013 encryption prevents this interference.<\/p>\n
The sponsors of the \u201cKeep Police Radios Public Act\u201d realized that the \u201cbad guys\u201d were not members of the credentialed media who are informing the public at emergency situations. They also realized that federal mandates indicate that all emergency first responders must have \u201cinteroperability\u201d to effectively back law enforcement during disasters and incidents. We saw this inadequate communication on 9\/11 when 343 firefighters and 72 police officers were killed at that terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n
Police agencies have privacy concerns for victims of crimes and crashes. Every police agency now provides cops with their own phones and almost no department transmits personal information over the airwaves. Dispatchers have been instructing officers to call their commands to convey personal information on victims of crimes or mishaps for years.<\/p>\n
So why are some police departments opposed to the press listening to their radios? Some of the most important stories were learned through members of the media hearing radio calls. Would police have told the public in a timely manner about cops shooting to death Sean Bell on the night before his wedding? When would cops have informed the public about pressure cooker bombs in Times Square? And certainly, every bit of information was needed on 9\/11 to save thousands of lives?<\/p>\n
Patrick Lynch, the former president of the Police Benevolent Association in NYC, was quoted as saying 95 percent of what the press reports is favorable to his members. Most members of the media understand that working as a partner with the police is in their favor.<\/p>\n
Are members of the media the \u201cbad guys,\u201d or just the messengers? A civil society doesn\u2019t shoot the messengers, but instead takes that information into account to make society safer. This is why Governor Hoohul must move forward and sign the \u201cKeep Police Radio Public Act\u201d and make it law to compel departments to give legitimate press access to that communications as they have had for decades.<\/p>\n
It comes down to trust of law enforcement and that trust has worn thin for many people. It is reflected in the courts where cops are accused of being biased and in the streets where officers are treated with disrespect. Departments have gone a long way to establishing trust by using body-worn cameras. But encrypting radios without giving the press access takes away vital checks and balances that are necessary to maintaining credibility for law enforcement.<\/p>\n
Gov. Hochul should understand that signing this bill is not an act against policing, but instead is creating greater trust between police and the public.<\/p>\n
Todd Maisel is founder of the New York Media Consortium. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Insistence on transparency in law enforcement has nothing to do with whether one likes or dislikes police officers.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-59850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}