|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
This article is part of a larger story on police agencies encrypting radio dispatch communications, which can be found here.
—
While the FBI and California Department of Justice (DOJ) say private information might fall into the wrong hands when the public and the press listen to radio transmissions on scanners, there have been hundreds of instances of police abuses of the system by law enforcement staff themselves, according to the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international nonprofit organization advocating for privacy and accountability regarding technology and the law. The foundation has researched abuses of the system by law enforcement employees for the past five years.
The foundation has pressed for transparency over police abuses of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS) system. In 2017 alone, they found 143 cases of privacy abuses, according to the foundation’s reports. The abuses included using the CLETS information to stalk ex-partners, gain advantage in custody proceedings and to screen potential online dates. In one of the worst incidents, a Los Angeles police officer allegedly attempted to leak records on witnesses to the family of a convicted murderer, the foundation noted.
Electronic Frontier Foundation pushed the state DOJ to better track the abuses. In 2018, the state DOJ began requiring law enforcement agencies to report 100% of abuses. Failure to comply could result in sanctions and removal from using the CLETS service, according to a foundation report.
Interest in protecting private information grew beyond identity theft concerns and police use for private matters, however. In 2019, the Trump administration was pushing for law enforcement agencies to divulge information about detained individuals and their immigration status to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). There were concerns that ICE was or would be violating SB 54, the 2017 California Values Act, which prevents state and local law enforcement organizations from using their resources to aid federal immigration enforcement agencies.
Aaron Mackey, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the pendulum has now swung the other way, with regulation meant to prevent improper security access by officers as a pretext to cut off public access to police communications.
One of the fundamental purposes of access to the dispatch transmissions is so the public has knowledge of information about their communities. It’s why the press access is so important, he said.
“I’m not aware of any case where (the press) was listening with the purpose of obtaining personal information and misusing it,” he said.
Police radio transmissions need to be encrypted for the protection and safety of police officers, as well as for victims. Bad guys listen to police radio channels all the time!!! There is no reason for the consuming public or the news media to be listening to police radio transmissions.