Chicago PD Is A Fan Of Encryption, As Long As It Means Keeping Info Out Of The Public’s Hands

Back in 2014, the Chicago PD’s chief of detectives had this to say about Apple’s plan to roll out device encryption by default:

“Apple will become the phone of choice for the pedophile,” said John J. Escalante, chief of detectives for Chicago’s police department. “The average pedophile at this point is probably thinking, I’ve got to get an Apple phone.”

The implication was this: device encryption protects criminals. Ignored was the fact that it all protected non-criminals, a demographic that makes up a disproportionate amount of Apple’s user base.

While the Chicago PD hasn’t spent as much time decrying the increased deployment of device and communications encryption as, say, the FBI, it’s still a bit much to see the PD claim it needs to encrypt its dispatch channels just because some criminal might find this access useful.

This is how the Chicago PD has defended its move towards encrypted communications.

The City claimed several reasons for the switch, including minimizing disruptions by unauthorized users who transmit fake calls, preventing criminals from monitoring police, and maintaining the safety of first responders. 

Nice. It’s pretty much the same argument law enforcement tends to make against encryption: that no one should have it because sometimes bad people use it. In this case, it’s flipped but it’s still the same thing: the public shouldn’t have access to our communications because sometimes bad people misuse that access. So, encrypted communications are good for law enforcement, bad for everyone else… just because sometimes bad people do bad things.

You’ll also notice there’s no concern about the public’s safety included in this defense of diminished transparency. That’s because the public’s safety is the furthest thing from the PD’s mind when it comes to changing the rules in its favor. As NBC Chicago points out in its editorial against encrypting police radio transmissions, the roll out has already made city residents less safe.

A shooting took place at a courthouse and police district in Chicago last week in broad daylight. The perpetrators fired more than 40 shots and escaped on an expressway.  You did not see, hear, or read about that incident as it was happening. The City of Chicago prevented you from knowing about this dangerous incident by blocking all live scanner transmissions. This jeopardized the lives of everyone at that police department, everyone at that courthouse, everyone on that expressway.

Also last week, we learned that a man armed with a rifle was walking down the street in the city’s West Pullman neighborhood. He was later shot by Chicago Police. We were not able to alert the public as it was happening. All of this took place around dinnertime, as people returned home from work and children returned home from school. 

NBC Chicago also points out that it, along with every other media outlet in the city, has never been accused of disrupting service or abusing its access to radio transmissions. But it’s being treated no differently than the criminals the PD imagines are monitoring police radio chatter to stay one step ahead of the law.

Meanwhile, city residents will no longer be aware of dangerous situations unless law enforcement decides to tell them about it. This means that, in almost every case, residents won’t know danger exists until after the PD has neutralized the threat. That this process sometimes takes hours apparently doesn’t matter to the PD, which now has yet another way to control the narrative. Every police encounter will now be represented almost solely by statements by police PR reps, union bosses, or supervisors cleared to offer comment once they have confirmed all of the involved officers’ reports align with the PD version of the truth.

Here’s how NBC Chicago — and seven other Chicago press outlets — put it in the open letter to the city council, Chicago PD, and their readers and viewers:

[I]n our view, encryption and delays run counter to resounding calls for greater transparency in law enforcement. The City has also already taken the liberty of completely removing some of these recorded transmissions from its delayed broadcast, effectively causing certain police or fire incidents to vanish – as though they never happened. This is censorship in its purest form.

And that’s really what it is. It prevents the press from informing the public (or the public informing itself) about criminal activity and police interactions occurring in the city. It’s the PD — with the assistance of the mayor and city council — deciding speculation about threats to first responder safety somehow means the rest of the city’s residents should have to make do with less information, even if it puts their safety at risk.

That’s not how public service is supposed to work. The public comes first. Those who serve the public are expected to absorb the risks to ensure the public remains the priority. But that’s not what’s happening here. And this clumsy, one-sided embrace of encrypted communications shows what the city thinks about the people who sign its paychecks.