Media Has Not Had to Resort to Lawsuits to Obtain Access to 911 Tapes in Wake of Hurricane Katrina

Emergency officials and police have willingly started to release 911 tapes of calls made during Hurricane Katrina. The stories written as a result demonstrate just the beginnings of the horror that was this terrible storm and its aftermath. See here for a CBS news transcript or here for another link. These releases contrast with other treatments of 911 communications in Louisiana such as the ongoing lawsuit over the tape related to the accident of the late Fox McKeithen, Louisiana’s Secretary of State. Although McKeithen died in July, Gannett Newspapers, which lost round one before a trial court judge, is pursuing the case before an appeals court, arguing the public’s right to know. The East Baton Rouge EMS takes the position that HIPPA protects information contained in the tape from such disclosure.