IIRC that was because the Predator video feeds were intended to be viewed in-theatre by officers right there on the front, and military protocol around encryption keys would have made it so no one at the front would have been able to decrypt the feed.
Considering they were designed in the early 90s, i.e. before public-key cryptography took off with SSL, that explanation always seemed plausible to me.
IIRC that was because the Predator video feeds were intended to be viewed in-theatre by officers right there on the front, and military protocol around encryption keys would have made it so no one at the front would have been able to decrypt the feed.
Considering they were designed in the early 90s, i.e. before public-key cryptography took off with SSL, that explanation always seemed plausible to me.