Bill would impede public’s right to know

Popular or not, this is a stand we take on behalf of the public’s right to know with House Bill 1310.

State Rep. Joe Hackett is long gone from Harrisburg. But the Republican’s work is still reverberating through the state Capitol.

Hackett, R-161, championed House Bill 1310, which would provide specific exemptions from the state’s Right to Know Law. The legislation would prohibit release of “identifying information” in 911 calls, including the name, telephone number, address and location of any call or caller.

When Hackett left the Legislature to return to Delaware County and his job as a county detective, the legislation was picked up by Rep. Maria Donatucci, D- 185, of Philadelphia, who also represents a slice of eastern Delaware County.

This week the Senate Veterans Affairs & Emergency Preparedness Committee unanimously approved themeasure and sent it to the Senate floor. It could be acted on as early as next week.

We fully understand the concerns of victims’ organizations about the release of information that might identify 911 callers.

Becausewe share their concerns about victim safety, we don’t release the names of sexual assault, sexual abuse or domestic violence victims. Only on the very rare occasion when a victim of domestic or sexual violence insists on being identified do we do so.

But we believe, as the Pennsylvania News Media Association does, that geographical information relating to 911 calls is essential to news reporting.

And barring the release of that information, as House Bill 1310 seeks to do, would be a needless restriction on the public’s right to know.

Opposing House Bill 1310 is an uphill climb for us, as the bill was passed overwhelmingly in the state House, with the support of the Lancaster County delegation.

We ask both members of the state House and Senate to reconsider their support for this measure.

Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law already protects most records relating to 911 calls, “except where an agency or court finds that the public interest in disclosure outweighs any interest in nondisclosure,” the PNA points out.

But the Right to Know Law expressly makes 911 time-response logs— records that show the time and location of 911 calls and the corresponding emergency response— public records.

The public’s right to have access to the time-response logs has been reaffirmed by the Commonwealth Court, which “recognizes that there is a significant public interest in learning how much time elapsed between the receipt of a 911 call and the arrival at the scene of police, fire, or ambulance services,” Paula Knudsen, the PNA’s director of government affairs and legislative counsel, says, in a statement.

In order to evaluate the adequacy of the emergency response, the Commonwealth Court has confirmed that address or cross-street information in time-response logs should be public information.

As the PNA explains, House Bill 1310 seeks to override the court decision by blocking access under the state’s emergency services statute to any identifying information in emergency dispatch calls.

Again, we understand the concerns about a 911 caller’s privacy.

But when reporting on an incident that requires emergency response, a news organization needs to answer more than the what and when of a situation.

It needs to report on where, and perhaps, why.

If the response time to a crime or fire seems slow, and someone has been seriously injured because of that seemingly delayed response, readers would want to know why it occurred— as would the injured person and his family— and how such a delay might be avoided in future emergencies.

And if, say, the site of the emergency was in a particular area, and a pattern of slow responses to that area became apparent, that would be amatter of public interest and concern.

Without geographical information, however, no one ever would know.

To withhold basic information about emergencies would not only run counter to current law, but the attempt would be futile. People take to social media now when emergencies occur in their neighborhoods. News reporters and citizens get the information via police scanners. In some areas, including Lancaster County, citizens can get 911 live incident apps for their smartphones.

“Creating a blanket exemption for ‘identifying information,’ as provided in this bill, is both unnecessary and overbroad,” the PNA says. We agree. Popular or not, this is a stand we take on behalf of the public’s right to know. Most of us who have had to call 911 have found the response to be quick and excellent. Should there come a time, however, when help is slow to come, it would be this newspaper’s job to investigate why. To do so, we’d need the information that House Bill 1310 is seeking to put out of reach.

- Some information in this editorial first appeared on Lancaster Online.