Texas Counties and Cities Continue Move to Encrypted Radio Communications

posted on 4.29.2024

In the past month, Bell County, and cities there as well as the City of Austin have joined the ranks of other Texas counties and municipalities in encrypting emergency radio communications.

Media statements often cite a desire to protect personal and tactical information from being broadcast to the public.

For decades first responder emergency radio communications could be received via commercially available police radio scanners, a newsroom technological mainstay.

Encrypted communications featuring codes protected from disclosure by Texas' 2001 anti-terrorism law, however, make such devices near useless.

As TAB has noted in our interviews with local newspapers and broadcast outlets, there is a balance that must be struck for accountability purposes.

The public's inability to monitor radio communications in real time, in most cases, negates the ability to monitor how county and city resources funded by taxpayers are being utilized.

It is a vital component to ensure public trust.

Having to rely solely on information doled out by public information offices should not be the default answer.

As TAB said in an interview with the Austin American-Statesman, going to encryption means newsrooms are dependent on local government being told what is going on by first responders.

"By and large, many people who do work in local government are very good at doing that. But that's not always the case," TAB said.

The move to encryption is not new, however, and has been happening across the country for many years.

The 9/11 New York City terrorist attacks hastened the move to radio encryption and, in fact, Congress made federal dollars available for communication system upgrades that allowed such encryption.

The Radio Television Digital News Association has taken on the topic as a major focus.

"While RTDNA acknowledges the need for encryption in certain sensitive scenarios, such as hostage situations, we vehemently argue that incidents like neighborhood shootings or the emergence of plumes of smoke should remain accessible to the public," the organization said in response to the City of Baltimore's move to radio communication encryption.

A San Antonio Solution

Bexar County has had encrypted radio communications for more than three decades.

The difference there is San Antonio's enlightened first responders know the value of transparency.

For more than 30 years, Bexar County has allowed local newsrooms to purchase the same radio terminals used by local first responders to receive and transmit communications, so newsrooms can receive most encrypted radio communications.

The newsroom versions, however, have the transmission capabilities disabled.

San Antonio newsroom bear the cost of the equipment and local government provides the personnel to install the encryption codes used to receive the radio communications.

When local government encrypted communications went digital in recent years, San Antonio newsrooms purchased new terminals and local officials again installed the encryption codes.

The San Antonio example was the basis for language TAB secured in the 2001 Texas anti-terrorism statute that said the confidential encryption codes could not be used as a basis for denying the purchase of the same government used encrypted radio terminals.

In other words, if your local government is receptive to trying what San Antonio local governments allow, there is no law that prevents them from doing so.

Other local governments around the country have taken a similar approach to what Bexar County does.

To TAB, this seems the logical and responsible approach to ensuring governmental transparency while protecting certain sensitive radio communications.

Questions? Contact TAB's Michael Schneider or call (512) 322-9944.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.