Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, spoke to KARE 11 about the Minneapolis Police Department encrypting radio communications, along with potential citizen concerns for the restriction of information.
From the story:
Minneapolis will cease public broadcasts of its police radio communications starting in May and shift to online dashboards for the public to track emergency incident responses. ...
University of St. Thomas criminal law professor Rachel Moran says police departments across the country are deciding to encrypt their radios due to privacy concerns and she suspects many more departments will soon join this trend.
“This is somewhat of a close call in terms of what is the best way to protect public safety,” Professor Moran said.
“Some of the information that comes across a police scanner is information that is traditionally protected, like the potential names of alleged victims and home addresses. However, there are people who have very justified concerns about Minneapolis Police Department behavior, and if they believe being able to listen to scanner traffic allows them to keep an eye on what the police are doing then they are going to be upset,” said Moran.
