S2E5 - Put Down That Scanner: Encrypted Police Communications and Civil Liberties

Across the country law enforcement units are encrypting their communications, barring the general population and journalists alike from following police radio channels. Weighing concerns with privacy and officer safety with citizen watchdog oversight and freedom of the press is an extremely complex policy issue. On this episode we get into why that may matter with an introduction from Danielle Conrad, Executive Director of the ACLU of Nebraska and an in-depth dive into the issue with Mailyn Fidler, an expert on constitutional rights and intellectual property who recently authored a piece about the growing use of encrypted communication by local police departments, who will discuss with us some of the potential issues that covert police communication presents. Glossary: Encryption: the process of encoding information by converting the original representation of the information into an alternative form known as ciphertext that only those with the key to that text can access. FOIA Request: a request for information from the government using the Freedom of Information Act