NYPD BEGINS BLOCKING PRESS AND PUBLIC FROM LISTENING TO ITS RADIO BROADCASTS
PUBLIC NYPD RADIO BROADCASTS IN SIX BROOKLYN PRECINCTS GO DARK IN HISTORIC FIRST. PART OF CITY-WIDE DIGITAL UPGRADE CAPABLE OF ENCRYPTED TRANSMISSIONS TO MAKE ALL NYPD BROADCASTS SECRET IN 2024.
1970s-era Radio Shack Realistic Patrolman PRO-77 Scanner. Photo Credit: David Miller via YouTube.
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The NYPD news blackout has begun.
NYPD radio broadcasts for six Brooklyn precincts went dark on Monday. For the first time since the NYPD started using radios to communicate in 1932, all of its ordinary radio transmissions are no longer able to be monitored by journalists and citizens with police scanners.
The blackout is part of an imminent department-wide shift to digitally encrypted radio transmissions not susceptible to scanner interception, as previously reported by The Free Lance in Feb.
The shift will be complete in 2024, the NYPD says. When complete, all NYPD radio transmissions will be secret.
"Starting at 0700 hours on Monday, July 17, 2023 radio zones 24, 25 and 26 will be out-of-service with no radio communications until further notice," according to an internal NYPD message obtained by The Free Lance.
Each of those zones is assigned an open, analogue radio frequency. Now, instead of these open frequencies, NYPD officers working in those zones must use a new digitally-encrypted channel with a "+PBBKN" designation, according to the message.
"All Brooklyn North radios must be surveyed to ensure they have the designated +PBBKN channel," the message continued. "If the radio does not have the designated channel, it needs to be exchanged immediately" for a new radio capable of making and receiving digitally-encrypted transmissions.
The three named zones cover the NYPD's 81st, 83d, 84th, 88th, 90th and 94th precincts—all in north Brooklyn.
A journalist using a scanner to monitor NYPD radio traffic Monday morning reported radio traffic from those precincts was “dead.” There was “some activity” on the old, analogue channels, but it was “mostly telling everyone to switch.”
Journalists rely on police scanners to bring the public news and hold police accountable. A scanner allowed journalists to secure the bystander video that captured the NYPD's killing of Eric Garner from the bystander who shot it before the NYPD could find him and suppress the video.
The loss of the ability to monitor police activity, in real time, cripples journalists' ability to independently report news to the public, without relying on police press releases.
News photographers are particularly impacted by encryption. While reporters may be able to piece together a story in reverse, photojournalists can never travel back in time to replicate an image they weren’t there to capture when it happened.
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.
Maximo Pequero dying after being shot by the NYPD in 2009. Pequero was unarmed, but police claimed he tried to run over an officer with the car he was driving. Photos like these, that capture the real life-and-death stakes of police reform, would be almost impossible to obtain if the NYPD goes through with its plan to encrypt all police radio transmission and not provide access to the press. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.
A coalition of journalists' advocacy groups met with the NYPD in Jan. to convince it to continue to afford professional journalists access to police radio transmissions. The NYPD refused to commit to providing journalists' access.
The City Council appropriated $21 million for an NYPD radio upgrade to a digital system capable of encryption in 2021.
Adrienne Adams, the current City Council Speaker, refused to commit to backing a local law requiring the NYPD to continue to allow journalists to listen in real time to encrypted NYPD radio transmissions when asked in Feb.
The Free Lance informed speaker Adams' office of Monday's developments and asked if she wished to comment further. If she does, The Free Lance will update this report.
The Free Lance also asked Mayor Eric Adams whether he backs a local law mandating journalists’ access to encrypted NYPD radio transmissions. The former NYPD officer did not respond.
"Law enforcement operating under cover of darkness puts freedom and liberty in peril," Colin DeVries, then-president of the Deadline Club of New York, a journalists' group, told The Free Lance in Feb. "Encrypted police communications shrouds access to public safety information that concerns the community."
Journalists use police radio communication as a tip to inform the public about serious criminal activity, active shooter situations, and incidents indicative of systemic problems that need correction, such as patterns of violence or misconduct, DeVries explained.
"Encrypting police communication without providing timely access to journalists and the public will stymie the flow of pertinent public safety information,” DeVries added, “which could put lives at risk."
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