A police radio transmission went silent in Aurora, Colorado, in 2016, and then in Denver, Colorado, in 2019. Many journalists are used to using newsroom scanners to monitor police radio communications to identify any newsworthy events as soon as they happen. Still, suddenly they were cut off from critical updates about events that threatened public safety and interfered with their ability to produce timely and accurate reports.
There were three years of failed legislation before the Colorado legislature agreed in 2021 to enact statutory language that addressed a trend among Colorado’s law enforcement agencies to fully encrypt their radio communications following three years of failed legislation.
It has been reported by the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition that by May 2021, a considerable number of law enforcement agencies across the state have encrypted their radio transmissions, and this will lead to increased security.
According to the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act, journalists have a right to request police radio transmissions, but they may have their records withheld or redacted for legal reasons.
The provisions that were incorporated into the law on police accountability required agencies to set up a “communications access policy” for local news media outlets that would enable them to listen to primary dispatch channels on commercially available radio receivers, scanners, or other technologies that would be feasible.
This article has been indexed from CySecurity News – Latest Information Security and Hacking Incidents
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