Making Calls Public
In recent years, 9-1-1 calls have aired on news broadcasts.
Ohio Senator Tom Patton introduced a bill in 2009 which would have banned the broadcasting of 9-1-1 calls, requiring the use of transcripts instead. Patton believed that people would be reluctant to make calls because of possible retaliation or threats against those who called. He intended to seek proof of this idea to satisfy those who did not believe him, or that broadcasting 9-1-1 calls hurt investigations. The Ohio Fraternal Order of Police supported the bill because broadcasts of 9-1-1 calls just "sensationalized". Ohio Association of Broadcasters director Chris Merritt said government did not have the right to decide how public records were used. Other opponents of such a ban point out that recordings hold dispatchers accountable and show when they are not doing their jobs properly, in a way transcripts cannot.
A bill signed by Alabama governor Bob Riley on April 27, 2010 requires a court order before recordings can be made public. Alaska, Florida, Kentucky and Wisconsin also had bills banning the broadcasts. Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wyoming already banned the broadcasts.
In April 2011, the Tennessee Senate passed a bill banning broadcasts of calls unless the caller gave permission.
North Carolina law defines 911 recordings as public records, but an exception allows officials to release either transcripts or distorted voices.
Read more about this topic: 9-1-1
Famous quotes containing the words making, calls and/or public:
“So near along life’s stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin; and the voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these uncontaminated sources.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of facts which filled them.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“I did not find Liverpool ugly. Her stately public buildings, broad streets, public squares, and noble statues redeem her from the charge.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)