Members of the state Legislature voted Thursday to approve the “Keep Police Radio Public Act,”which will give credentialed members of the media access to encrypted police radio.
This comes after the NYPD completed encryption of its precincts, special operations, and several other frequencies this past year. While several citywide frequencies and transit radio remain open, encrypted radio has left many members of the media to guess whether particular calls were real or nonexistent. Sometimes, events are not known until the NYPD reports them to the press.
This success should be tempered however, as we await the signature of Governor Kathy Hochul, which we believe is not certain at this time and will require our brothers and sisters in journalism to show support through editorials to make this happen.
The legislation passed thanks to our sponsors, Deputy Majority Leader Senator Michael Gianaris (Queens) and Assemblymember Karines Reyes (Bronx). We also must thank the News Guild of New York, Communications workers of America and of course the New York Media Consortium made up of eight press organizations representing thousands of journalists from the city, state and around the country.
Much credit goes to the union lobby led by News Guild President Susan DeCarva and her Vice President Juan Carlos Rodriguez; Diane Kennedy, president of the New York News Publishers Association and David Donnovan, president of the New York State Broadcasters Association for their lobbying efforts. Credit also goes to our member groups including Bruce Cotler, president of NYPPA and Todd Maisel who founded the Consortium, Mickey Osterriecher, chief counsel of the NPPA, David Cruz, president of the NY Press Club (past president Jane Tillman Irving), Cesar Bustamante, president of the Society of Professional Journalists (The Deadline Club) and past president Peter Szekely; Dan Shelly and Tim Scheld, president and chairman of Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) and American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) represented by Erica Price.
But the fight is not over.
In the near future, we will be calling upon our press brethren to urge through editorials and opinion pieces to help convince the governor to sign our six-year fight for the legislation. We’ve already had editorial help from the New York Daily News, WINS Radio, and City and State. We will call upon our fellow journalists to back the bill with their words as this is our best chance of having access to encrypted radio. We will reach out to individual publications and stations soon.
The NYPD has maintained that its nearly billion-dollar radio upgrade was necessary to improve radio technology and “keep bad guys from using radio transmissions against them.” However, neither the NYPD nor the mayor could say how the press was using radios against them.
Should the bill be signed by the governor, there are many questions about implementation to be worked out. We will keep all advised on those developments as some departments might take legal remedies to prevent transparency.
Please monitor our Facebook social page for updates and discussions on encryption and other matters of concern. https://www.facebook.com/groups/NYPPAINC
For more information about encryption both for the city and nationally, see Police Radio Encryption Resources — Todd Maisel – Contributing editor – FORMER BREAKING NEWS EDITOR, AM New York – Visual Journalist – NYPPANote: The FDNY’s Amanda Farinacci confirmed that the fire department is not encrypting their standard radio transmissions from the boroughs nor citywide channels. A note in the Strategic Plan indicated an encrypted channel, but she said it was an internal frequency unrelated to day-to-day fire traffic. Successive deputy commissioners have assured us that there is no plan to encrypt those channels. We continue to check in on the FDNY to see if there is any plan that might lock us out of breaking news.