DUBLIN — The cause of a recent technical glitch that kept dozens of law enforcement agencies across the East Bay from hiding their radio communications from the public remains a mystery, authorities said Friday morning.
No timeline exists for when police departments and sheriff’s offices across Alameda and Contra Costa counties will end public access to their radio feeds, because they don’t know why the system didn’t work this week as planned, said David Swing, the head of the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority. The former Pleasanton police chief spoke during a board meeting Friday for the entity, adding that technicians planned to conduct tests in Martinez on a backup radio channel to try to root out the issue.
“Based on what I’m seeing, it’s difficult to explain, because it’s inconsistent,” Swing said of the technological issues.
The work comes two days after nearly ever law enforcement agency in the East Bay tried to fully encrypt their radio chatter, making it inaccessible to the broader public’s ears for the first time in decades.
The effort has garnered considerable pushback from police accountability advocates, First Amendment organizations, some local defense attorneys and even a Bay Area state senator. All of them have condemned the move as a blow to transparency and the public’s ability to understand crime as it happens in their community, along with how police act when they respond to it.
David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said he hoped the delay would prompt law enforcement agencies to reconsider the switch. The radio feeds provide “really essential information” to the public in real time, while helping keep them up to speed during natural disasters and other public safety crises.
“It’s a real blow to transparency of government activity,” said Snyder, adding that open radio traffic can “help journalists tell the public the real story, not just the PR story” presented by police leaders.
The local change is part of a broader movement across California, with agencies in San Jose and San Francisco already having pulled public access to their radio channels. The California Highway Patrol also plans to fully encrypt their communications throughout the state, though a date has yet to be set, Lt. Matt Gutierrez, an agency spokesperson, said. The CHP has yet to purchase the required technology for that move, he said.
The East Bay switch garnered little attention until recent months, as the Oakland Police Department prepared to shield its radio feed. The agency is in the unique position of operating under the oversight of a federal judge and court-appointed monitor, following numerous scandals over the past 20-plus years.
On Friday, Walnut Creek City Councilwoman Cindy Silva questioned Swing about increased media attention on the issue, asking if he was “talking to the other chiefs to make sure we’re all singing from the same hymnal.”
Law enforcement officials claim the secrecy is needed to protect private information, while also keeping officers safe, in case criminals listen in. A 2020 directive by the California Department of Justice ordered law enforcement agencies to work harder at protecting that data, such as Social Security and driver’s license numbers. Still, it did not require wholesale encryption of police radio channels.
“That’s what this is all in response to,” said Jon King, Moraga’s police chief and the authority’s board chair, during an interview earlier this week. He said recordings of those communications could still be made public upon request, though their release may be delayed while investigations remain open. “We are accountable to the public, and will continue to be so,” he added.
At least one Bay Area agency — the Palo Alto Police Department — has unencrypted their radio traffic in recent years, citing the ability to use other means to protect that information. The city is squarely in the district of Democratic state Sen. Josh Becker, who has tried repeatedly in past years to pass legislation aimed at significantly limiting encryption technology among police and sheriff’s offices.
In the East Bay, only the Berkeley Police Department has said it would avoid fully removing public access to its live radio communications, once the technical snafu is solved.
The problem arose as the East Bay communications authority tried using the new encryption system on individual police agencies early Wednesday morning, beginning with the University of California Police Department, Swing said. The system appeared to work, and officers’ communications there could no longer be heard by the general public.
Yet “intermittent loss of radio communications” began about an hour or two after the authority tried encrypting the radio feeds of a second agency, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, Smith told the authority’s board. More “inconsistent and intermittent radio issues” popped up when the authority later tried encrypting the Oakland Police Department’s radio channels that morning, he added.
All of the radio feeds have since been unencrypted while the authority works to figure out what went wrong, Swing said.
The authority’s representatives have been working with Motorola to learn if the issue stemmed from that company. They also are examining whether it stemmed from an issue between two radio transmission sites.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.