the verdicts
Art by BLAIR MIGDAL
Amend PAPD policies ENCRYPTION, PRESS POLICIES MUST CHANGE
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N JANUARY 2021, the Palo Alto Police Department encrypted police scanner broadcasts and closed its doors to all real-time media inquiries. We urge the PAPD to reopen public access to its police scanners and increase press communication for the sake of police transparency and accountability in our community. The PAPD encrypting radio transmissions was in response to an October 2020 California Department of Justice memo instructing local police departments statewide to withhold “personally identifiable information” such as birth dates or driver’s license numbers from public transmissions. Despite the memo’s clear guideline that departments could do this without fully encrypting, the PAPD revoked public access to police activity tracking with no advance notice three months later. The PAPD recently released its “Police Calls for Service Interactive Map,” an interactive and 24/7 map with yellow dots indicating the general areas where calls were placed to the district. Clicking on each dot offers more information. While we commend this action and believe it is a well-intentioned step toward sharing once-broadcasted information, the map’s yellow dots — which often overlap and are
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thus difficult to click — are still limited recent years. These demonstrations exposed in their efforts to inform. The “call type” local police departments’ lack of transparcategory accompanying each yellow dot is ency as a factor in racially-biased policing. vague, such as “medical information” or The PAPD can do more, starting with im“suspicious circumstance,” with no further plementing this partial encryption and reelaboration. formulating department policy toward meWe urge the PAPD to instead adopt dia inquiries. partial encryption of police scanners that Currently, members of the press omits personally identifiable information searching for PAPD comment must subwhile mainmit questions taining pubthrough an online It [the current press policy] form. Reporters lic access to the transmisare promised a sends a message that the sions. This in up to police are absolutely un- response is not only five business days, acceptable by willing to share things, though responses the CDOJ are described to period.” memo’s stanbe “more timely” dards, but has for cases involving — DIANA DIAMOND, Palo Alto Online been accountdanger to public ed for — the San safety. Francisco Police Department planned for “It [the current press policy] sends a partial encryption in the months following message to me that the police are absolutethe state-issued memo. ly unwilling to share things, period,” Palo We recognize the PAPD’s other ongo- Alto Online columnist Diana Diamond ing efforts to maintain transparency such as said. “They [the PAPD] have said, ‘Okay, the decade-long employment of indepen- we will have our press releases. We will isdent police auditors like Michael Gennaco. sue press releases to you from time to time.’ Gennaco brings external accountability to Well, that doesn’t work because they choose the police department by handling civilian what they want to release. … Many things complaints and performing internal in- go undiscovered by the press.” vestigations for the OIR Group’s biannual Delayed form responses and the police public reports. call map’s limited information are major Police accountability is more crucial obstacles in local journalists’ efforts to covthan ever given racial injustice move- er breaking news about police activity in a ments in timely manner. Regaining access to 24/7 police scanner broadcasts — with necessary privacy measures — would fix this issue and serve as an important accountability measure for on-the-job officers. We urge the PAPD to pick up the phone. Realtime reporter interviews and media coverage hold government agencies accountable, and eliminating such communication violates the public’s right to transparency. v
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