Police Transparency Disappearing
The following is a guest post from Matt Clark, LPKS Political Director.
In a massive blow to government transparency, police departments across Kansas are rapidly encrypting all police radio communications. Citizens and journalists will no longer be able to listen to police scanners once all communications become encrypted. These moves are often being announced with very short notice and with no public input.
13 cities in Johnson County are scheduled to make the switch January 23rd. The public was notified just before the holidays on December 21st. On January 2nd, Harvey County announced all police departments in the county agreed to move to encrypted radios, effective January 15th.
The primary justification given, for locking the public out of all remaining radio channels, was to comply with an FBI Criminal Justice Information System policy (CJIS Policy). This is a policy document developed by a federal advisory board governing the joint programs federal and state law enforcement agencies utilize. This is a common method the federal government uses to attempt control issues that should be governed locally.
While unlimited encryption is one way to comply with the policy, it is using an ax to open your kids' new toys when scissors would be more reasonable. Other cities have complied with this policy, while maintaining primary dispatch open to the public on non encrypted radio, it absolutely can be done here, as it has already been done elsewhere, without federal consequence. The negatives of using all encrypted radios far outweigh the inconvenience of using other methods to comply with CJIS policy.
The public good achieved through police dispatch on open, unencrypted radios far outweighs any justification to encrypt. Take for example, the recent shots-fired incident at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park. Social Media was immediately filled with reports of a mass shooting. Police scanner listeners and journalists quickly dispelled those reports. During a crisis, police can not immediately update the public, they must focus on securing the scene and apprehending the bad guys.
Let the police do their job and let the public remain informed by passionate citizens and journalists with access to open, unencrypted radio channels!
Police have expressed concern over apps that make listening to scanner traffic easier than ever, while ignoring that listening to police radio traffic was never difficult. One local complaint was that “The recorded radio traffic was altered and posted to social media to discredit their agency.”
City council meetings are live streamed online. Should those no longer be streamed online because someone might alter the video to make the city council look bad? No, of course not! Transparent government outweighs the concern that the video will be used in a misleading manner.
How many of your city council members, mayors and county commissioners have campaigned on the benefits of transparent government? Just search “transparency” on their websites or social media accounts to find out. I have one representative that posted about their support of transparency four times in the past 2 years, but yet supports this change!
I find that none of the justifications commonly presented for total encryption outweighs the public good of transparent governance; and I hope you will remind your elected officials how important transparency is to them. This massive wave of loss of transparency must be stopped locally and needs to be addressed by the state legislature to ensure it does not return.
