I never want to forget what happened on 9/11, but not sure I want to read what The New York Times will print, eventhough they say it won't be anything too morbid. If they glorify the rescue teams as they say they are, it will be nice, but reliving it, I don't know.
New York Times argues for release of 9-11 transcripts
By The Associated Press
08.24.03
Editor??s note: Superior Court Judge Sybil R. Moses on Aug. 22 ordered the release of the transcripts, saying the Port Authority was bound by the agreement it made last month with The New York Times. The Port Authority said Aug. 25 that it would not appeal the judge??s decision.
HACKENSACK, N.J. ?? The New York Times argued last week that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey should release transcripts of radio transmissions and calls to its police made on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
The agency owned the World Trade Center.
The newspaper is asking state Superior Court Judge Sybil R. Moses to enforce an agreement it reached last month with the Port Authority under which the agency was to release the transcripts in exchange for the newspaper dropping its open-records lawsuit, said David McCraw, a lawyer for the newspaper.
When the Port Authority changed its mind July 30, the newspaper went back to court, McCraw said.
Moses heard over an hour of argument on Aug. 21, but did not say when she might rule, he said.
Port Authority spokesman Greg Trevor said the agency believed that transcripts, and not recordings, would spare families the impact of hearing voices of loved ones broadcast by the news media.
But once officials began to transcribe the information, they found the reading ??has the same emotional impact,? Trevor said.
??Although we greatly appreciate the public??s right to know, our first responsibility is to the families of the heroes of September 11th. We feel very strongly that it would be very inappropriate, insensitive and inhumane to release this information to the media,? Trevor said.
Trevor said the authority is working with grief counselors with families whose loved ones identify themselves on the tapes. The authority will arrange for families to hear the recordings if they wish, he said.
Trevor said there are many people on the tapes who don??t identify themselves. The authority??s greatest fear is that a family member would hear one of these conversations in the news media and recognize the voice of a loved one who died in the attack, he said.
Trevor said the authority is still transcribing some 400 hours of tape.
McCraw said the newspaper is interested in the transcripts to explore how emergency services functioned and to tell the stories of heroism.
??This is not about finding out the dying moments of anyone. This is not about morbid prying,? McCraw said.
He said the settlement gave the agency time to have families listen to the tapes or read the transcripts, and required the newspaper to let the agency know when it was going to publish a story on the transcripts.
The settlement said the newspaper reserved its right to pursue further legal action regarding the tapes, and required the Port Authority to determine if its freedom-of-information rules allow it to release its written reports on 9-11 emergency response, McCraw said.
He said the newspaper??s initial request was made in March 2002.
The Port Authority maintains that as a bistate agency it is not subject to either New Jersey??s Open Public Records Act or New York??s Freedom of Information Law, McCraw said.
Instead, the agency has an internal policy that is similar to the federal Freedom of Information Act, he said.
However, he noted that the Port Authority last year released a 73-minute recording of radio communications from firefighters in the stricken World Trade Center after the Times took the matter to court. The voices and names of a number of firefighters are on the recording, which was found several weeks after the attack in 5 World Trade Center, where radio transmissions are monitored.
