Disclaimer: Am not United States of American.
However, why in America are 911 calls made publicly available? I assume it isn’t strictly FOI as some seem to be made public/appear in the media not long after the fact?
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Broadly speaking 911 calls are public record. And can be obtained by request and shared or broadcast freely without any permissions or other legal rights
Some States have fairly broad and transparent government communication laws. Basically meaning that some government communications are relatively easily accessible. One reason is to keep the government from, intentionally or unintentionally, hiding things from the public. Sometimes triggered by outrage over some incident that people believe could have been avoided if only the people had known about it.
Emergency services are public services, paid for with tax money of some sort. Thus, they must be transparent about what they do with the money. If we can’t know if someone called for help, maybe cops never drove anywhere, bought beers for the cost of fuel and spent entire shift watching football instead… and such.
Local laws might vary, but you can also do FOIA requests in those cases and such.
In publicized 911 calls, personal information is still usually censored, unless it’s publicly known who called (for example, if call is used in public court case and such). And sometimes it’s simply needed. Say, cops go somewhere and shoot someone. Get accused of police violence. Then say that initiall 911 call claimed suspect armed with a bomb vest or something. Well, court and jury has to hear the call, and it gets publicized.
Generally, witnesses to serious crime and *anything* to do with children is censored, everywhere – not just US.
Imagine if they aren’t. Some city where the police just ignores all the calls from black people or something then says “no we don’t” and there is no way for anyone to verify anything.
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