My first big-time gig at the Staten Island Advance back in the 1990s was as an overnight cop and fire reporter.

The major part of my job was listening to police dispatch transmissions over a radio scanner and then driving as fast as I could to the scenes of murders, shootings, car accidents and fires.

It was the same way that generations upon generations of newspaper, television and radio reporters did their jobs in New York City.

But all that ended in 2023, when Mayor Eric Adams and police brass decided to encrypt NYPD transmissions. The days of hearing police transmissions over a simple radio scanner, which you could buy at Radio Shack, were over.

It’s hamstrung the press’ ability to do its primary job: to inform the public. That’s bad for the press and bad for the public.

It also c

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