Pa. Bill Would Restrict Public Access to Information about Where 9-1-1 Calls Originated
By Jon Rutter, Lancaster News
Original publication date: June 26, 2011
If you call 911 here, Lancaster County-Wide Communications workers have your number.
In some cases, they know your name. They know your address.
How much information they must surrender upon request to reporters — or the public — is not entirely clear.
But under a new legislative proposal, any information that would allow the public to identify the callers’ vicinity would be withheld in most circumstances.
Delaware County Republican Rep. Joe Hackett introduced House Bill 1174 last month in response to a February Commonwealth Court decision upholding a request for 911 information by the York Daily Record.
In that case, the newspaper asked the county for response time logs that included the location of cross streets near 911 incidents.
Freedom of information groups are vehemently opposing the attempt to restrict the state’s 3-year-old Right to Know Law.
Deborah Musselman, government affairs director for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association in Harrisburg, says the proposal would make it harder to track 911 response times, lessening the accountability of the agencies.
First responders across the state are among the bill’s backers, said Don Konkle, executive director of the Pennsylvania Fire & Emergency Services Institute in Harrisburg.
State police support the measure, according to state police Press Secretary Jack J. Lewis.
So does the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Potential stalkers and batterers go looking for their victims, said the coalition’s legal director, Ellen Kramer.
Victims go “to extreme lengths” to escape. They change their appearance. “They go underground.” This bill would help them protect themselves, Kramer said.
And it would encourage eyewitnesses to report crimes and other emergencies, said Timothy Baldwin, deputy director of Lancaster County-Wide Communications.
“It would give people an added measure of security.”
As noted in an online report by PNA’s media law counsel, Melissa Melewsky, Commonwealth Court reversed a York County Court of Common Pleas decision last winter “by finding that 911 times response logs are required to contain destination address or cross street information.”
PNA’s Musselman contends that the state’s open record law already provides security by exempting personal phone numbers from being released.
Also, she said, agencies are allowed to hold back records that, if disclosed, might trigger invasion of privacy or harm to a 911 caller.
Under both HB1174 and current law, agencies may give out names, numbers and addresses of 911 callers if a court determines that the information is in the public interest.
Public access to 911 cross street information is vital for the purpose of monitoring the job performance of emergency responders, according to Musselman, who cited a 1994 homicide case in which several 911 operators in Philadelphia were fired after they mishandled calls reporting the beating of teenager Eddie Polec.
Musselman said it’s “unlikely” that abused women are endangered under the Right to Know Law.
“When she’s calling 911, he’s there” because stalking has already taken place, Musselman said.
PNA’s Melewsky said passage of HB1174 could reduce the amount of data posted on the Lancaster County-Wide Communications website, which currently shows cross street information for emergency calls.
“I think certainly that’s the goal of the legislation,” Melewsky said.
Baldwin, the Lancaster County-Wide Communications deputy director, noted that “the current law prohibits the release of audio recordings and transcripts of audio recordings unless ordered by a court.”
Recordings and transcripts of 911 calls are often used by attorneys during trials.
Right-to-know law impacts more than abused women or citizens reporting drug deals down the street, however.
People who see their neighbors violating a burn ban, for example, might call in if they can be sure of anonymity, said Robert Bowman, a longtime firefighter in Manchester and Mount Wolf, York County.
Bowman, who wrote a letter to the editor in favor of HB1174, added that he’s never been involved in a privacy issue in more than 50 years of fire service.
Still, he said, “We’re getting a little too liberal in these areas. I know the public needs to be aware, but I feel that we’re pushing a little too far sometimes.”
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