The public right to know is at issue here — or, more accurately, the right to find out.
Honolulu is now one of many cities where communications by first responders are no longer available to the news media and others monitoring the public broadcast bands on easily purchased scanner equipment.
Last week, the Honolulu Police Department encrypted its radio channels, which means the media and others in the public are unable to hear the transmissions that enable timely reports on critical events, such as criminal activity in progress as well as fire and Emergency Medical Services.
The Honolulu Fire Department, HPD and EMS are now using a new, $15 million P25 Motorola digital system to replace the old analog broadcasts. The new system also will be used by the city’s ocean safety, information technology, environmental services, parks and recreation and facilities maintenance agencies, as well as the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
The argument in favor of the new system is it allows first responders to hear uninterrupted transmissions, including private medical information in the instance of EMS, and with greater efficiency. But this is an enormous change to practices that have supported the public for decades, including the many citizens unaware of how information that they need gets disseminated.
And so far, promises to deliver data by a timely, alternative route have not been fulfilled. Currently there are mail notifications that go out to the media only, and not necessarily right away.
A case in point: A woman was beaten to death the night of Feb. 15 outside the Kapolei Police Station, but no alert went out until 11:50 a.m. the next day. Even then, HPD described it as a “criminal investigation,” not a homicide.
Between the time the email system went live Feb. 16 and the end of the week, only 12 alerts were posted. That degree of incompleteness, inaccuracy and untimeliness is wholly unacceptable to residents who do need to know what’s going on, public-safetywise, in their communities.
The new system is part of a national trend toward digital transmissions that started a decade ago. Honolulu has joined the ranks of cities such as Denver, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., where police department have made similar transitions.
But shielding the information from the media is not a requirement, either. In cities such as Las Vegas, police have struck private agreements with news agencies, authorizing them to buy their own P25 receivers. The department stipulated that news organizations do not alter them or use them in any way other than monitoring the police channels.
Denver offers decryption licenses at $4,000, plus insurance costs, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which also cited an exception provided for a time to journalists by California’s Eastern Riverside County Interoperable Communications Authority.
The point is, there should be an accommodation negotiated here as well. Mayor Rick Blangiardi said that, while he had no plans yet to make an exception for this city, he would review the HPD email system and keep an “open mind” about providing access to the communications.
One might hope that Blangiardi, a former television news executive, would understand the importance of prompt news alerts. When there is criminal activity or an emergency affecting any neighborhood, those neighbors should be made aware as soon as possible, and not when the first responders decide to let information through the filter.
The mayor last week said that he has asked his administration to be “transparent, open and accessible.” He has the opportunity to demonstrate that commitment here.
