(TNS) - Portland police started encrypting officers’ radio communications June 3, days after nightly protests against racism and police brutality began. The switch came without public input or notice.
Last week, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and Gresham police followed suit and encrypted their communications.
Public safety communications between emergency dispatchers and police, or “scanner” traffic, has long been monitored by members of the press and others to track the response to shootings, stabbings and other calls. Encryption restricts ways for the public to gather information on unfolding situations without relying heavily on official police communications, often issued hours or days after officers have already left the scene. Portland police did not inform the public about a triple killing in June for three days.
The change comes at a time when cities nationwide are grappling with how to make police forces more transparent and accountable. But Portland police and city officials say the switch has been in the works for months.
Portland police Ofc. Derek Carmon, a spokesperson for the agency, said the effort began in November “due to safety and information security concerns.”
“Although the plan was not complete, we did switch over to nets that were already encrypted shortly after the protests began,” Carmon said in an email.
The change was first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, the city’s police commissioner, has not responded to questions about the shift and its impact on the police transparency. A spokesperson for Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who oversees fire and emergency communications, declined to answer any questions.
Dan Douthit, a spokesperson for the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, said dispatch officials met with Portland police and other “regional partners,” to discuss encryption to “protect officer safety” in April and May. Officials also discussed making confidential medical information that is often discussed by fire and emergency medical services.
Portland Fire and Rescue’s radio traffic is still publicly available.
Tung Yin, a law professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, said police are likely legally able to encrypt radio communications because of public record exemptions for officer safety. However, Yin said, the decision is tied into a larger philosophical question: whether police feel they can trust the public or whether they frame their operations and interactions with the public in terms of an “us vs. them” mentality.
Yin said the question is especially prescient if police departments are pursuing the change permanently, rather than as a temporary response to protests and civil unrest.
Denver police began encrypting radio traffic in July 2019, drawing rebuke from journalists. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, based in Minneapolis, decided to encrypt its radio communications in October, prompting criticism from the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists. Radio traffic “helps news organizations inform readers and viewers about public safety incidents while ensuring accountability and transparency from the police and fire departments that respond,” the group said.
A joint Department of Homeland Security and National Capital Region Threat Intelligence Consortium memo sent to Portland officials June 11 discusses the topic of encrypting radio traffic and signals what may be a national trend toward encryption. The document, obtained through a public records request by The Oregonian/OregonLive, was sent to Wheeler’s public safety adviser Robert King and Aaron Fox, Portland Bureau of Emergency Management operations specialist.
The memo recommends using encrypted channels, much like Portland police decided to do eight days earlier. The memo draws a connection between recent protests and “an increase in the public’s awareness and use of police scanner applications (apps) to monitor law enforcement activity.”
Although the memo acknowledges many people who listen in are “hobbyists or amateur radio enthusiasts,” the document issues a grave warning.
“Threat actors could use these unencrypted radio transmissions to identify locations of law enforcement officers and other emergency personnel with the intent of engaging in planned of opportunistic physical attacks,” the memo says before qualifying in bolded script that agents have no credible information it is being used that way.
-- K. Rambo
krambo@oregonian.com
@k_rambo_
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