[W8lrc] A Brief History of Listening In on Police Radios

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Last Friday night, thousands defied New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s curfew order and marched in the rain, the fifth
evening in a week marked by beatings
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/nyregion/nyc-protests-george-floyd.html>
 and mass arrests
<https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/calls-to-end-nyc-curfew-grow-as-cops-arrest-essential-workers-alongside-protesters/2448178/>
after
dark. It was now common for police to leapfrog ahead of the crowd, assemble
a chokepoint, and ambush with mass arrests on bridges, plazas, and narrow
streets. (The official term is “kettling
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/nyregion/police-kettling-protests-nyc.html>.”)
In real time, a voice issued a series of warnings, as though watching from
a helicopter. “If you are on ANY bridge crossing into Manhattan right now
from Brooklyn, TURN AROUND AND GO BACK,” they said. “They are waiting at
the other end and will arrest everyone upon arrival.” Another, to a group
of protesters at Grand Army Plaza: “They have you surrounded. If you
haven’t already, please write emergency contacts on your body.” To those
marching on Nostrand Avenue, they advised people who can’t afford to be
arrested to “LEAVE NOW!” and to essential workers who’d been told they’d be
allowed to travel: “DO NOT BELIEVE THEM.”

The voice is @NYPDScanner1 <https://twitter.com/NYPDScanner1>, one of
several recently-formed Twitter accounts listening in to police scanners
and transcribing them for protesters throughout the country. Downloads for
scanner apps such as Police Scanner, Scanner Radio, and 5-0 Radio Police
Scanner have skyrocketed
<https://www.axios.com/police-scanner-apps-record-downloads-33354228-ee1c-4ba7-9ee4-70c2c82838ff.html>
since
Minneapolis and then the nation rose up on May 26th; on Friday night, 5-0
Radio Police Scanner alone showed thousands of concurrent listeners on the
NYPD citywide channels. Police radio frequencies have, themselves, became a
protest site in Chicago, when hackers reportedly jammed scanners with
“Chocolate
Rain
<https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/889nw4/hackers-jammed-chicago-police-scanners-with-internet-classic-chocolate-rain>”
and “Fuck tha Police
<https://www.nme.com/news/music/anonymous-hack-chicago-police-radios-to-play-nwas-fuck-tha-police-2680017>
.”

That we can legally eavesdrop on police communications with now practically
ancient technology feels miraculous. While the police can not only track
<https://gizmodo.com/your-phone-is-a-goldmine-of-hidden-data-for-cops-heres-1843817740>
protesters’
locations long after they’ve gone home but even scan their faces in order
to pluck those with outstanding warrants
<https://www.aclunc.org/docs/20161011_geofeedia_baltimore_case_study.pdf> out
from a crowd, they make concerted efforts to hide themselves, from taping
over their badges to concealing disciplinary records
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/nyregion/police-records-50a.html>. So
why in God’s name are they broadcasting their movements?

Briefly, at the dawn of one-way police radio in the 1920s, anyone with a
run-of-the-mill radio could tune in to police communications alongside
commercial stations. According to a 1942 paper
<https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3140&context=jclc>
from
the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the FCC begrudgingly allowed
it, only on the condition that police played something for the at-home
listeners as well:

“It is interesting to note that the Federal Radio Commission was to be
found in opposition to the plans of the Detroit police. In the year 1923
the Detroit Police Department secured license to operate on the broadcast
band station KOP, but before the police could broadcast any call they were
required to include an entertainment feature on the broadcast. As a result
they played the tune ‘Yankee Doodle’ before making calls to officers on
patrol.”

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/a-brief-history-of-listening-in-on-police-radio-1844062808
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