GOV. KATHY HOCHUL SHOULD 'DEFEND DEMOCRACY' BY SIGNING THE 'KEEP POLICE RADIO PUBLIC ACT' INTO LAW
JOURNALISTS DEPEND ON LISTENING TO POLICE RADIO BROADCASTS TO KEEP THE PUBLIC INFORMED BUT POLICE ARE MAKING THEM SECRET
MALONE, NEW YORK OPINION
Dec. 11, 2025
When public officials have the power selectively control the release of information rightly belonging to the People, they block Americans from finding the real truth.
Simply stated, they become censors.
But America's Founders didn't trust Government to control and define "The Truth." They didn't want bureaucrats to separate fact from fiction on our behalf. Instead, the Founders devised and enacted a Constitution that prohibits censorship and secret government.
For almost 100 years, journalists in New York used police scanners to listen to police radio broadcasts on publically-owned airwaves. They used what they heard to find and report about newsworthy events like crimes, fires and other emergencies—keeping the public informed.
For example, a scanner allowed New York Daily News photographer Ken Murray to beat the NYPD to bystander video of police killing Eric Garner in 2014 and preserve public access to it, as reported by The Free Lance.
Journalists monitoring scanners saved lives during the Highland Park parade mass shooting in 2022 and the Virginia Beach Municipal Center mass shooting in 2019. They kept locked-down Bostonians informed during the hunt for the marathon bombers in 2013. And public police radio transmissions revealed the police response to the Uvalde, Texas school mass shooting in 2022 was not what Government officials claimed.
But now police across the Nation are using technological advances in radio technology to make their long-public broadcasts secret with digital encryption.
In 2022, The Free Lance revealed the NYPD was planning to encrypt its transmissions. NYPD precincts started going dark in 2023, as The Free Lance also revealed.
Transmissions by the State Police and some County Sheriffs in New York have also gone dark. In rural counties, journalists and residents have been reduced to relying on Facebook groups like the "Franklin County Live Scanner Feed" to remain informed. But social media groups cannot replace professional reporting based on facts—as anyone who spends more than a minute on social media sloshing through false claims and disinformation knows.
CLICK HERE TO SEND A MESSAGE TO GOV. KATHY HOCHUL SAYING YOU SUPPORT THE “KEEP POLICE RADIO PUBLIC ACT” OR CALL THE GOVERNOR AT 1-518-474-8390 | Office hours: 9:00am to 5:00pm
That's why State Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-12) introduced the "Keep Police Radio Public Act" in 2023.
“Preserving access to law enforcement radio is critical for a free press, use by violence interrupters, and the freedoms and protections afforded by the public availability of this information,” Sen. Gianaris said at the time. “As encrypted radio usage grows, my legislation would strike the proper balance between legitimate enforcement needs and the rights and interests of New Yorkers.”
The state Assembly passed the bill by a vote of 85-to-65 in May and the Senate followed in June by a vote of 38-to-22. In keeping with New York's practice of not sending all the bills passed by the state legislature to the Governor for her signature at the same time, the Keep Police Radio Public Act wasn't sent until Monday.
Gov. Hochul has until New Year's Eve to sign the bill into law—or kill it with a "pocket veto" by simply not signing it.
If that happens, the bill can still become a law if at least two-thirds of the members of the state Senate and Assembly vote to override the Governor's veto. While supporters have a two-third supermajority in the Senate, they do not have a two-third supermajority in the Assembly—as the May vote shows. That means if Gov. Hochul vetoes the bill, it will likely die.
The "Keep Police Radio Public Act" is supported by a wide-range of news publications, including the New York Daily News, City & State news blog, the Orleans Times Herald, AM New York, the Advance Media NY Editorial Board, hyper-local New York City news blog W42ST.nyc and, now, The Free Lance News.org.
Todd Maisel, a former New York Daily News photographer and past president of the New York Press Photographers Association, has led the charge against secret police radio broadcasts with an AMNY editorial in 2019.
The group he helped organize to support the bill, the New York Media Consortium, includes the New York Press Photographers Association, New York Press Club, National Press Photographers Association, American Society for Professional Photographers, Radio Television Digital News Association, New York News Publishers Association, News Media Alliance, New York State Broadcasters Association, Deadline Club, New York Press Association, Professional Journalists Association, News Guild of New York, Kingston News Guild, Buffalo News Guild and the Albany News Guild.
Having covered crime and police for two decades, in my experience police rarely release information other than self-congratulatory Facebook posts. Oftentimes, police don't even release information to the press when all we're doing is calling to confirm facts gathered from other sources.
When cops control the narrative in this way they control "The Truth." That's not the way it's supposed to work—at least not in America.
Government, as noted in the beginning, is not supposed to control what information gets added to the proverbial "Marketplace of Ideas" required for a vibrant Democracy.
If Gov. Hochul really wants to “fight Trump” and “defend Democracy,” she’ll sign the "Keep Police Radio Public Act" into law to keep the public informed and increase their trust of police and Government.
Send tips or corrections to jasonbnicholas@gmail.com or, if you prefer, thefreelancenews@proton.me
