NYPD TO COMPLETE CLOAKING RADIO TRANSMISSIONS BY END OF 2024—CITY COUNCIL WEIGHING WHETHER TO MANDATE CRUCIAL PRESS ACCESS

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The public shouldn't worry about reduced police accountability when the NYPD completes cloaking its radio transmissions with digital encryption by the end of 2024. 

“The NYPD is the most transparent police force in the country," Ruben Beltran, the NYPD's Chief of Information Technology, told the City Council during an oversight hearing looking into the $390 million plan on Monday. 

The Free Lance revealed the NYPD's plan to make its radio transmissions secret by the end of 2024 back in February. In July, we also exclusively reported when the NYPD began implementing the plan, by encrypting radio transmissions overnight in north Brooklyn. 

Journalists eavesdropping on NYPD radio broadcasts with police scanners have formed the backbone of newsgathering and reporting in New York City since 1932. The power to be there—and be there within minutes—is what close and careful surveillance of police radio transmissions captured by a scanner gives journalists. No other news gathering method or technology comes close to duplicating it.

For example, a news photographer listening to NYPD radio transmissions with a police scanner uncovered the NYPD killing of Eric Garner—and with it the video that shocked the world.

But on Monday NYPD technology chief Beltran called the public’s interest in listening to police transmissions "insignificant to non-existent." 

Official NYPD news releases, official NYPD social media posts and official responses to Freedom of Information law requests could keep New Yorkers adequately informed about police activity, Beltran claimed.

A coalition of news organizations condemned the NYPD plan because it doesn't guarantee bona fide journalists the continued ability to listen—and listen in real-time—to police radio transmissions. 

"Critical information delayed is information denied," Mickey Osterreicher, lawyer for the National Press Photographers Association, told the city council committees on Public Safety, Government Operations and Technology that held Monday’s joint hearing.

"I cannot overstate the importance of journalists being able to monitor" NYPD transmissions "in real-time," Osterreicher, the photographers’ lawyer, added.

News photographers would be particularly impacted by encryption. 

While reporters may be able to piece together a story in reverse like a good police detective, photojournalists can never travel back in time to replicate an image they weren’t there to capture when it happened.

David Donovan, President of the New York State Broadcasters Association, pointed out that if the press were denied access to NYPD radio transmissions the "only people who will have real-time access are the bystanders that have their cellphones that may be sending out misinformation."

"So realtime access—if we're going to serve the public during emergencies—is absolutely essential," Donovan explained.  "NYPD could very well have a system pretty much like Las Vegas where the media is allowed access while at the same time trying to figure out if the general public should retain it."

Even one of the NYPD's staunchest supporters on the City Council, Queens Republican Vickie Palladino, appeared convinced journalists should be allowed real-time access.

"There should never be a blackout of the press,” Paladino said. “Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, that’s who I am.”

Robert Holden, a councilmember who won election with Republican votes despite being a Democrat, called encrypting NYPD radios "a crime in itself." 

NYPD brass might hate radio transparency but front-line police officers on the street made their peace with it long ago.

"The police are actually happy to see us there," Kevin Downs, a long-time New York City news photographer, said. "These guys want us to tell their story of them doing that job. And without us there we can't tell their story."

"I don't like encryption," Downs added. "I think it's bad for New York."

State Sen. Michael Gianaris of Queens Introduced a bill in the state legislature on Friday called the “Keep Police Radio Public Act.”

“Preserving access to law enforcement radio is critical for a free press, use by violence interrupters, and the freedoms and protections afforded by the public availability of this information,”Gianaris explained in a news release on Monday. 

To date, NYPD has encrypted at least 10 frequencies.

The City Council could legally require the NYPD to allow journalists real-time access to its radio transmission, but a bill doing so has not yet been proposed. Fact finding was the purpose of Monday's hearing.

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