Journalism
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The move to encrypt police scanner communications puts the public – and the newsrooms that serve them by seeking and reporting the truth – at risk.
The research hub fighting police radio encryption
Your city's police radio just went dark. Here's what you can do.
More than 50 US cities have encrypted their police radios since 2020, cutting the public out of communications that have been open for 92 years. This site documents the evidence, the case studies, and the playbooks that work.
What you'd see vs. what you get now ↓
What brings you here?
Scanner listeners
Did your scanner go quiet?
What encryption actually does to a scanner, why no decoder exists, and which agencies in your area are still in the clear.
Journalists
Covering a breaking story?
Real-time scanner access is how newsrooms verify incidents and keep reporters safe.
Activists
Fighting encryption in your community?
Proven tactics from communities that successfully stopped or reversed encryption.
Fire & EMS
Concerned about interoperability?
Police encryption creates dangerous communication gaps with emergency services.
Policymakers
Evaluating encryption proposals?
Evidence-based analysis of costs, benefits, and alternatives.
This isn't a hypothetical. People lived it.
Two Illinois Shootings. What the Newsrooms Said.
Scanners in Use July 4, 2022
Highland Park, Illinois
A gunman fired on the Fourth of July parade, killing seven people. Chicago's major newsrooms later wrote that "the media and the public turned to police scanners and reporting informed by police scanners to take cover, to stay safe, to locate the missing." The case study sets out what the published record does and does not show.
Read Full Case Study → Public Left in Dark Ongoing
Chicago, Illinois
During 2022, Chicago moved its police radio zones to encrypted channels and told the press and public they would get only a 30-minute delayed feed. Chicago's newsrooms wrote that the city removed some recorded transmissions from that feed, "effectively causing certain police or fire incidents to vanish - as though they never happened."
"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." — Open letter from a coalition of Chicago news organizations, published by FOX 32, Dec. 12, 2022Read Full Case Study →
The Slippery Slope
Not just police anymore
In Toms River, New Jersey, encryption has spread to fire departments. Fire chiefs across the county formally opposed it. Officials did it anyway, then issued gag orders to silence dissent. In 2026, an open-records request surfaced an alleged "White Power" broadcast on a town fire channel, and officials called the matter closed.
If fire departments can encrypt, what's next?
Read the Toms River case study →Advertisement
The Evidence Is Clear
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No Named Case of Harm
When a newspaper asked Palo Alto for three years of reports of crimes aided by a police scanner, the city had none on record. We know of no named, documented case of scanner access harming an officer; a 2022 CISA paper cites only anonymized examples.
See the analysis → 2
Proven Alternatives Exist
Hybrid systems protect tactical operations while keeping routine dispatch public. Palo Alto reversed their encryption using this model. Full encryption is a policy choice, not a security requirement.
Explore solutions → 3
Growing Coalition Against Secrecy
The Society of Professional Journalists, ACLU, fire departments, and transparency advocates are united against blanket encryption. Even some police officials admit it goes too far.
Read perspectives →Voices for Transparency
Voices for Transparency
Journalists, civil liberties experts, and community members speak out about why public access to police communications matters.
Industry Expert
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We've never had a law enforcement agency present us with evidence that we've put officers in danger by what we do.
Journalism
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Losing that access would inhibit our reporting because we would be late to the scene…and depending more on what the police share.
Community
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Open radio traffic has alerted us to severe collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists, and provided more granular detail than might be available otherwise.
Government
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Public safety agencies must determine what type of information should be encrypted and the method of encryption; recognizing that not all public safety communications need to be encrypted.
Your Community Could Be Next
Encryption decisions happen fast—often before the public knows. Get the tools to fight back.