During a D.C. Council hearing on Friday, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier cited new police radio scanning technologies and constantly emerging threats as reasons underpinning MPD’s recent decision to encrypt radio communications.

About six months ago, I downloaded an iPhone app that allowed me to listen in on police radio communications. I rarely caught much of interest, but if you listened for long enough, something newsworthy could come in over the airwaves. But over the last two weeks, it’s been radio silence, as a D.C. policy encrypting police radio finally took effect.