Why Are 911 Calls Made Public?

I have never understood why 911 calls and transcripts are made public? What public necessity resides in an emergency phone call usually made during the course of events which are often quite traumatic or life and death matters being made available to everyone?

The only thing I found was an opinion piece by the Attorney General of Florida Bill McCollum cited the “Florida Emergency Telephone Act” which states:

“Any record or information obtained by a public agency or a public safety agency for the purpose of providing services in an emergency and which reveals the name, address, or telephone number of any person requesting emergency service or reporting an emergency by accessing an emergency telephone number ‘911’ system is exempt from the provisions of s. 119.07(1), except that such record or information may be disclosed to a public safety agency. The exemption applies only to the name, address, or telephone number of any person reporting an emergency while such information is in the custody of the public agency or public safety agency which receives the initial ‘911’ telephone call. . . .”

That basically states that information gotten from the call except for name, address and telephone number can be made public but still does not answer why such is necessary.

Anyone with any idea or if you want to point me in the right direction, feel free to let me know and I’ll put up an update and give proper credit of course.

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