Opinion ID: 2241272
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The 911 Calls

Text: The Fire Department does not now oppose disclosure of the words spoken in the 911 calls by 911 operators, or by the eight men whose families are seeking disclosure. Thus, the only issue before us is whether the disclosure of words spoken by other callers would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Supreme Court and the Appellate Division both held that it would, and, in view of the extraordinary facts in this case, we agree. We first reject the argument, advanced by the parties seeking disclosure here, that no privacy interest exists in the feelings and experiences of people no longer living. The privacy exception, it is argued, does not protect the dead, and their survivors cannot claim privacy for experiences and feelings that are not their own. We think this argument contradicts the common understanding of the word privacy. Almost everyone, surely, wants to keep from public view some aspects not only of his or her own life, but of the lives of loved ones who have died. It is normal to be appalled if intimate moments in the life of one's deceased child, wife, husband or other close relative become publicly known, and an object of idle curiosity or a source of titillation. The desire to preserve the dignity of human existence even when life has passed is the sort of interest to which legal protection is given under the name of privacy. We thus hold that surviving relatives have an interest protected by FOIL in keeping private the affairs of the dead ( cf. National Archives and Records Admin. v Favish, 541 US 157 [2004]). The recognition that surviving relatives have a legally protected privacy interest, however, is only the beginning of the inquiry. We must decide whether disclosure of the tapes and transcripts of the 911 calls would injure that interest, or the comparable interest of people who called 911 and survived, and whether the injury to privacy would be unwarranted within the meaning of FOIL's privacy exception. Public Officers Law § 87 (2) (b), which creates the privacy exception, refers to section 89 (2), which contains a partial definition of unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, but section 89 (2) (b) is of little help here; it says only that [a]n unwarranted invasion of personal privacy includes, but shall not be limited to six specific kinds of disclosure. None of the six is relevant to this case, and so we must decide whether any invasion of privacy here is unwarranted by balancing the privacy interests at stake against the public interest in disclosure of the information. The privacy interests in this case are compelling. The 911 calls at issue undoubtedly contain, in many cases, the words of people confronted, without warning, with the prospect of imminent death. Those words are likely to include expressions of the terror and agony the callers felt and of their deepest feelings about what their lives and their families meant to them. The grieving family of such a caller  or the caller, if he or she survived  might reasonably be deeply offended at the idea that these words could be heard on television or read in the New York Times. We do not imply that there is a privacy interest of comparable strength in all tapes and transcripts of calls made to 911. Two factors make the September 11 911 calls different. First, while some other 911 callers may be in as desperate straits as those who called on September 11, many are not. Secondly, the September 11 callers were part of an event that has received and will continue to receive enormous  perhaps literally unequalled  public attention. Many millions of people have reacted, and will react, to the callers' fate with horrified fascination. Thus it is highly likely in this case  more than in almost any other imaginable  that, if the tapes and transcripts are made public, they will be replayed and republished endlessly, and that in some cases they will be exploited by media seeking to deliver sensational fare to their audience. This is the sort of invasion that the privacy exception exists to prevent. We acknowledge that not everyone will have the same reaction to disclosure of the 911 tapes. The intervenors in this case, whose husbands and sons died at the World Trade Center, favor disclosure. They may feel, as other survivors may also, that to make their loved ones' last words public is a fitting way to allow the world to share the callers' sufferings, to admire their courage, and to be justly enraged by the crime that killed them. This normal human emotion is no less entitled to respect than a desire for privacy. Recognizing this, the Fire Department does not challenge the lower courts' rulings that the words of the eight relatives of the intervenors be disclosed, and has assured us that it will honor similar requests made in the future by the families of other September 11 callers. That commitment must be kept. Surviving callers who want disclosure are also entitled to it (Public Officers Law § 89 [2] [c] [ii]). But the privacy interests of those family members and surviving callers who do not want disclosure nevertheless remain powerful. On the other hand, there is a legitimate public interest in the disclosure of these 911 calls. In general, it is desirable that the public know as much as possible about the terrible events of September 11. And more specifically, as the Times and Dwyer point out, the public has a legitimate interest in knowing how well or poorly the 911 system performed on that day. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which had access to the tapes and transcripts at issue here, identified significant flaws in the system's performance (9/11 Commission Report, at 286-287, 295, 304, 318, available on the Internet at ), cached at ), and more public scrutiny might make these problems better understood. But the parties seeking disclosure here do not request only particular calls that may be relevant to this subject; they seek complete disclosure of all the 911 calls. We are not persuaded that such disclosure is required by the public interest. Those requesting it have not shown that the information that will be disclosed under our ruling  including the words of the 911 operators, and of callers whose survivors seek, or who themselves seek, disclosure  will be insufficient to meet the public's need to be informed. We conclude that the public interest in the words of the 911 callers is outweighed by the interest in privacy of those family members and callers who prefer that those words remain private.