Providing Police Communications To Journalists, Emergency Personnel After Encryption Bill Keep Police Radio Public Act Vetoed By Gov. Hochul: UPDATED

Providing Police Communications To Journalists, Emergency Personnel After Encryption Bill Keep Police Radio Public Act Vetoed By Gov. Hochul

**We reached out to several of the private ambulance/ ambulette companies on the island.  They have not been affected by this change, as they use their own radio system with their own dispatchers to respond to calls.  While the scanner system had been useful as an adjunct, thankfully this change did not cause any disruptions in the care they provide.  They are already part of the EMS network, so they receive their calls that way.  They can also be contacted directly, and this is especially pertinent for those who wish to go to a hospital on the island that may be further away from them.  If a resident wants to go to SIUH, for example, and they are zoned for RUMC, they would have to contact one of the private ambulance companies in order to go to that hospital.  These companies do bill insurance, and residents who are covered for ambulance care in their policies can generally get these types of calls covered as well.  Companies included Primary Care, ACT Ambulette, and Richmond County Ambulette. If you didn’t know these companies existed, maybe this can help you in the future to go to the hospital of your choice.  They also pick up at hospitals for discharge, and can take disabled residents to their medical appointments as well.  

Advocates for media, journalists, transparency, and emergency responders who are not officially city run (such as many of the smaller ambulette and private ambulance companies) have been pushing for a bill to require the police department to provide access to radio communicating to such emergency responders and journalists.  After about two years of advocacy, they managed to get the bill to pass the State Senate and the Assembly, but it has been vetoed by the governor. 

Apparently, the governor did not make it clear that this was a bill that she would not support.  There was not a veto-proof majority, and most Staten Island Republicans, including Asm. Pirozzolo, voted against it.  So this bill is now not going to happen. 

It should be pointed out that, prior to 2023, the police radio frequencies were publicly available.  Anyone who had a scanner could tune in to find out where police were being sent, whether it was to a robbery, a domestic abuse situation, or rescuing a kitten who climbed into the engine of a parked and unattended car (such as happened on Staten Island during the pancemic in 2020). 

While it has been stated by the NYPD that criminals using the scanners are endangering their lives, there is no actual evidence that someone who caused harm to police officers determined their location using a scanner.  However, there have been instances where a criminal seeking to evade capture was listening in on a scanner to help escape detection by the police looking for them.  This was a rare instance, and it’s not clear how listening to a scanner and getting general information about the search would have actually helped a criminal evade capture. The criminal in question was captured in the cited instance.  The officers closing in on someone aren’t usually that specific on the radio that it would help.  There is no evidence provided thus far to show that the police were actually in danger from criminals finding them using scanners to do them harm.  

Scanners have been available for decades, since the police started using radios to communicate.  Digital radios, regardless of who is using them, are essentially upgraded cell phones.  What does that mean, and is it important?

While the towers where these signals are originating from do have backup generators, what if they don’t, or what if they fail?  Not every single cell tower has a backup generator, and these radios are using cell phone frequencies.  While they are using frequencies that are prioritized and separate from the major companies, they might be still subject to the logjams that ordinary citizens would experience in an actual emergency.  Remember September 11th?   Cell phone service was literally suspended for  practically the entire day.  If their radios were on these frequencies, would they have had difficulty too?

What are the safeguards for when the towers go out?  What if there is a persistent blackout that lasts for an extended period?  What if there is an emergency situation that causes everyone to suddenly use their cell phones?  Will the police be able to communicate? Or will they be subject to the same issues as civilians?

According to information online, the police are using specialized frequencies for their own communication, on dedicated towers as well.  However, this system doesn’t have the long time of testing in emergencies their old system had. It is not always the case that newer is better.

It should also be pointed out that bad actors and criminals who want to listen in would potentially be able to obtain contraband radios (such as stolen from a department or from a criminal network within the department itself).   While there are safeguards to protect against this, such as keys and remote control, there are undoubtedly situations where this could be an issue.  So, if a criminal really wanted to get their hands on a radio with these encrypted frequencies, they very likely could.  It would be more difficult, but not impossible.

It does, however, keep these communications away from journalists and private  first responders that need it to pursue stories, assist in rescues, or just to keep the public informed about what is going on. Staten Island has several ambulette companies that would need this information, but there is now no system for them to receive it.   Police radio encryption is a huge blow to transparency, taking away any that the police may have had.  This also leads to reduced public trust in the police, which is already an issue.

According to a company providing this type of service, they actually believe that allowing the police to use encrypted and private communications will actually increase the public trust in the department, and their logic doesn’t really make sense.  Most people do not feel safer now that the police are communicating everything privately, with zero transparency or duty to report anything they do to the public they are there to protect: “Encryption and secure communication are also crucial for maintaining public trust in the police force. When the public knows that the police are taking steps to protect sensitive information and ensure secure communication, it builds confidence in the police’s ability to handle sensitive situations professionally and responsibly.” Would anyone in the public or in a watchdog group agree with this statement?

Realistically, it buit confidence in the police’s ability to handle sensitive situations when the public could see how they act and what they were doing.  When the public cannot see, they do not know what is actually going on.  Such a situation would be more likely to inspire more corruption by the police, because now no one can see what they are doing.  It also increases the challenge for those in charge of departments, because they are the only monitors of the behavior in their station house.  No journalists or other members of the public are watching, because they no longer can.  When no one is watching, do people tend to behave better or worse?  Remember human nature as you ask yourself this question.

Unfortunately, due to this veto, this legislation is effectively killed, and it has to be started once again from scratch, at the beginning.  All of the effort over the last year or so was wasted because of that.

We reached out to the NY News Publishers Association, who was advocating for this bill.  We asked:

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They responded: