The Journal & Topics newspapers, Des Plaines, as part of an apparent on-going effort to hide news, are working to what it wrote July 31:”Now in the hands of local government, encryption is being used in a new way that leaves the public in the dark.”
The paper’s editors noted that a long freedom of citizens to monitor emergency work is no longer possible with government officials using words such as “public safety requires it” but refuse to give instances where public knowledge affected police-fire work.
“Our readers and the public have a right to know,” Managing Editor Todd Wessell wrote on the ability to scan emergency dispatching. He stated that the dispatches are “a source of information we monitor for our readers and the public.” In an editorial the paper notes that 911 calls are public information and that steps can be taken to ensure that at least the news media has access to all emergency “chatter.”
Along the same line, Quill magazine notes the effort on a national scale by government bodies to hide information with other journalistic organizations reporting on the curtain being placed over freedom of information led by a president who promised more transparency.