Comment on NYPD faces backlash as it prepares to encrypt radio communications | New York | The Guardian

• KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Why would the situation need to be kept private? “We have a jumper at this and this street”, “shots fired on scene”, “I ate a burrito.”

  I’m honestly curious, what vitally secret info do you think needs to be communicated over radio? They aren’t for conversations.

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  • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    To keep the private info of the people involved actually private. License plates, descriptions, personally identifiable info. It seems mad that all of that is just broadcasted out to everyone. Probably wouldn’t even be legal where I live.

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    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      License plates are not private, they literally sit out in public all day. Descriptions are, again, not private. Even your license info is public.

      Not to mention, police reports are info that can be requested with a FOIA request. So all that info is public anyway, even if it was originally private.

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      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Would you be willing to share your license plate number here?

        License plate, connected to description and description of the situation, medical stuff etc. would obviously be something I wouldn’t want broadcasted to just anyone. I don’t know how Americans are comfortable with that.

        Or well, probably aren’t since they’re finally getting around to encrypting that stuff. It’s wild that it wasn’t done before.

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  • A_dude@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I mean… Let’s just take your example of “we have a jumper at x and y street”. Is it really a good idea to have everyone know that? Do we want “journalists” to drive over their and take pictures of people in crisis (possibly worsening it).

    Or let’s imagine a car chase, do we really want criminals to know that a spikestrip is set up 2 streets ahead?

    Do we want information like warrant and licence checks to be held over unencrypted radio transmitions. Allowing everyone who wants to to listen in and learn about people’s criminal histories?

    Just to add, I am aware that the whole idea of privacy isn’t really a thing in the US, the names and mugshots of arrested people are literally made public in some (all?) states, so you probably don’t care about the last point, but the rest still stand, and in lots of countries everyone’s privacy is considered a right, including that of (suspected) criminals.

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    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Is it really a good idea to have everyone know that?

      It really doesn’t hurt.

      Do we want “journalists” to drive over their and take pictures of people in crisis (possibly worsening it).

      How is a journalist any different than a dozen randos posting it to TikTok? At least the journalist would be more likely to report facts instead of “#justdoit”.

      Or let’s imagine a car chase, do we really want criminals to know that a spikestrip is set up 2 streets ahead?

      As a sid

      Do we want information like warrant and licence checks to be held over unencrypted radio transmitions. Allowing everyone who wants to to listen in and learn about people’s criminal histories?

      This info is already public. You can literally just look it up on government sites. You can do that in many different countries, in fact. And I’d say that’s a good thing, actually. Why should we keep criminal activity private? How do we keep both citizens and government accountable if we aren’t open about what was done and the punishment received. Otherwise you can have people just disappear from the street into a jail cell, and the public have no way of ever knowing.

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