By the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board
Police radio communications have been public ever since the Detroit Police Department began broadcasting one-way transmissions to mobile officers on station KOP in the 1920s…
In California, the Department of Justice in October 2020 directed all police agencies that use the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (the network that links police agencies in California to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the FBI and one another) to protect confidential information.
The directive gave each agency a choice — they can relay personal information separately by cellphone or another closed method, while keeping the rest of their communications open, as the California Highway Patrol does. Or they can move to completely encrypted channels and make all transmissions unavailable to the public.
More than 100 agencies chose the second option.
That’s a bad step, especially at a time when trust between law enforcement and the public is waning…