Berkeley council votes to allow police scanner encryption

I'm low-key bummed about this decision . As a fan of citizen journalism and community involvement, I think limiting public access to scanner activity is a major bummer . I mean, who doesn't love being able to stay informed during emergencies or knowing what's going on in their city? It's like having eyes and ears on the streets .

I get that officer safety and security are important, but can't we find a balance between those things? Maybe there's a way to implement encryption while still keeping some channels open for public access? I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I think it's worth exploring .

I'm also curious to see how this affects our ability to hold police accountable . As a community, we need to know what's going on in our city and be able to talk about it openly. This decision feels like a step back in that regard, and I hope the city can find a way to make it work better for everyone .

I think its a shame that the council made this decision . I mean, don't get me wrong, officer safety is super important, but shouldn't we still have some transparency going on? Like, if there's a emergency or something, people should be able to know what's happening without having to dig through lines of code . And what about the community? We're trying to build trust with our police department here, not push them further away . I get that encryption is needed, but can't we find some other way to make it work? Like, maybe a system where you have to request access to scanner activity or something? Just feels like we're taking away a tool that could be used for good instead of letting it be taken away from us .

I'm kinda worried about what's going on here... So we're basically saying that police radio comms are off-limits to the public now? It makes me wonder, like, what's gonna happen when there's an emergency and nobody can get info from the scanner. Won't that just put people in harm's way or make them wait longer for help? And it also feels kinda shady when the police are all about encrypting their comms but not really providing any transparency on what's going down. It's like they're hiding something and we're just gonna have to take their word for it... That doesn't sit right with me