Protect citizen access to police radios in state

For decades — ever since the first two-way radio was used in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1933, connecting the Police Department headquarters to nine of their patrol vehicles — newsrooms have listened in, too.

Not out of any prurient interest, or to spy on law enforcement. That's our job, to let our readers, listeners and viewers know what's going on in their communities.

The squawk box on the police reporters' desks can be loud, and filled with mostly inconsequential communications: “Car 54, where are you?” Everyone but the journos whose jobs it is to follow what's going on down at what is affectionately known as the cop shop have to learn to basically tune out the radio traffic so they can concentrate on other things.

But it's truly public information, that radio traffic, and some hobbyists at home have long listened in too, sometimes phoning in to newsrooms to make sure we haven't missed some important incidents.

We the taxpayers literally own that information on the airwaves. Law enforcement works for us, after all, not for themselves. We're not interested in what's going on for prurient reasons, and certainly not to interfere with police officers doing their jobs.

But ever since radio has been going more and more digital, making the communications easier to encrypt, police agencies, which have been known to be secretive whenever they can be, have been trying to keep their transmissions to themselves.

Our stance as journalistic organizations is that this is a bad thing for the public that law enforcement serves. As Brittney Barsotti, general counsel of the California News Publishers Association recently wrote, “Ever wonder how your local newspaper always seems to have the most reliable and up-to-date information on urgent public safety issues? It's because for over 80 years, reporters have been able to scan police radio transmissions to learn about threats from criminal activity, natural disasters, road and traffic conditions, and more.”

Right — it's not just chasing down the bad guys that we're interested in. As the editorial board of The Orion in Chico has it, “Listening in on scanner traffic during wildfire events is vital for knowing where the fire is headed, what firefighters are doing, where evacuations might be and the level of danger the fire poses. (We) listen in on scanner traffic, monitor cameras, follow local law enforcement and emergency services and tweet out updates to the public to help aid emergency service members.”

That's why we support SB 1000, legislation authored by Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, aimed at reversing the trend that began in 2020 when the California Department of Justice issued a memorandum urging police to adopt procedures to “protect sensitive information while allowing for radio traffic with the information to provide public safety.”

The memo did not ask for full encryption. Yet that's what many police agencies in the state are trying to do. It is already a crime to listen in to police radios for criminal activity. SB 1000 would simply ensure public access to the police radio communications that have been available to the people and the press for these many decades. And it would still allow — even require — that agencies ensure that “any criminal justice information or personally identifiable information” on citizens “is not broadcast in a manner that is accessible to the public.”

To protect our right to know what police are up to, the Legislature should pass SB 1000, and the governor should sign it.