RSO opposes Senate bill to restore public police radio communications 

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department is negotiating with a California state senator on a bill that would restore public access to encrypted police radio traffic.

In recent years, after a Department of Justice mandate, police departments around California have encrypted their radio signals, blocking the public from hearing real time public safety updates.

SB 1000, proposed by Sen. Josh Becker (D-SD 13), would change that by requiring police agencies to make some of their radio traffic public again – and while RSO officials say they oppose the bill "as it is written," they're working on finding a compromise.

"We are trying to work with with Senator Becker on this and we are definitely not opposed to any other transparency concerns," said Sgt. Julio de Leon, RSO's legislative representative.

The bill would permit personal information like driver's licenses or criminal history to remain on encrypted channels, as well as tactical or undercover operations.

de Leon said it would be expensive to decrypt the Sheriff's Department radio channels – up to $2 million to $3 million in costs to the county.

The department is now negotiating directly with Senator Becker's team about what is written in the bill.

"Trying to find some alternatives, rather than completely decrypting our radio system, because that's just unreasonable," de Leon said.

The Sheriff's Department already uses non-radio methods of communicating sensitive information, like officer's laptops or tablets. But de Leon said that doesn't work across the board.

"(Officers) have someone in front of them, and it would be unsafe for them to go back to the car, or to pull out a tablet, and to start typing because it would divert their attention," he said.

RSO is also working to develop a public portal like this one from Palm Springs police with live incident updates on a minutes-long delay.

"We believe that a 5-minute delay is a reasonable compromise, but they're not too happy with the 5-minute delay," de Leon said. "We're going to continually work with with Senator Becker and his staff to come up with a compromise that would satisfy both their their concerns and our concerns as well."