Wisconsin Assembly Passes 911 Privacy Law

The Wisconsin legislature has passed a bill that would add 911 logging tapes to the list of records exempted from the state’s open records law, a response to lobbying by the family and boyfriend of murder victim Brittany Zimmermann, who was murdered in April 2008. Police say an intruder apparently entered her apartment, and Zimmermann was able to dial 911. The call was received by the Dane County comm center, but because of dispatcher errors, no officers responded to investigate the hang-up call. Zimmermann’s boyfriend later found her body inside the apartment and called police. No suspect has ever been publicly identified by police. The bill passed by the 67 to 30 says simply, “An audio recording of a call by a person dialing the digits “911” is not subject to inspection or copying” under the open records law. The bill is generally opposed by the state’s media, who believe that access to logging tapes help watch over government activities, including the performance of dispatchers. The bill must now be passed by the state Senate and signed by the governor. Read more about the bill’s passage. here, and download (pdf) a copy of AB 612 here.