The New York Police Department is spending $500 million on a new radio system it calls more reliable and secure. But the public will no longer be able to monitor what officers are doing minute to minute.
But a new $500 million radio system the New York Police Department introduced this past summer encrypts officers’ communications, meaning the public, including members of the press, will no longer be able to listen in.
Those who oppose the shift — including elected officials, news outlets and advocates for demanding more accountability from law enforcement — argue that encryption inhibits such transparency, erodes trust in the police and prevents crucial information from being reported quickly.
“The idea that we’re going to turn this sort of vital information into something that’s only accessible to the public at the whims of police is just truly chilling,” said Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project in New York.
In the 55 years since, he has captured some of New York’s most memorable photos: The Avianca plane crash on Long Island in 1990 that killed 73 people who were on board; Michael Jackson after he collapsed onstage in 1995; and, in 2003, a full-grown tiger in a Harlem building as it stared down an officer through a fourth-floor apartment window.
As soon as Roosevelt crossed, “The word to open the bridge to toll traffic was flashed from a special short-wave field station to police radio cars and motorcycles,” according to a front-page article in The Times the next day.
The chief, a 38-year department veteran and longtime technology buff, knows every facet of the vast communications network and how it functions: A call from one of the 42,000 hand-held radios, or one of the 3,400 in boats, helicopters, patrol cars and other vehicles, is picked up by antennas throughout New York, then transmitted to a dispatcher, all in nanoseconds.
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But a new $500 million radio system the New York Police Department introduced this past summer encrypts officers’ communications, meaning the public, including members of the press, will no longer be able to listen in.
Those who oppose the shift — including elected officials, news outlets and advocates for demanding more accountability from law enforcement — argue that encryption inhibits such transparency, erodes trust in the police and prevents crucial information from being reported quickly.
“The idea that we’re going to turn this sort of vital information into something that’s only accessible to the public at the whims of police is just truly chilling,” said Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project in New York.
In the 55 years since, he has captured some of New York’s most memorable photos: The Avianca plane crash on Long Island in 1990 that killed 73 people who were on board; Michael Jackson after he collapsed onstage in 1995; and, in 2003, a full-grown tiger in a Harlem building as it stared down an officer through a fourth-floor apartment window.
As soon as Roosevelt crossed, “The word to open the bridge to toll traffic was flashed from a special short-wave field station to police radio cars and motorcycles,” according to a front-page article in The Times the next day.
The chief, a 38-year department veteran and longtime technology buff, knows every facet of the vast communications network and how it functions: A call from one of the 42,000 hand-held radios, or one of the 3,400 in boats, helicopters, patrol cars and other vehicles, is picked up by antennas throughout New York, then transmitted to a dispatcher, all in nanoseconds.
The original article contains 1,377 words, the summary contains 280 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!