If it was the People's right to know, it would be in the Constitution.
Hmm...
By that logic, the Internet, telephones, television, radio, cell phones, ham radio - well, pretty much everything not mentioned in the constitution specifically - falls outside of the domain of the constitution. The "right to know" is, in fact, a part of the 5th and 9th Amendments, and the right to privacy is (supposedly) covered in the 4th amendment.
I'll tell you why I favor the release of 911 tapes.
It's because of a woman named Brenda who lived not far from me.
Brenda had cerebral palsy, and was confined to her bed.
Brenda smoked in bed, not a great idea, but smoking isn't illegal in your own home.
Well, one day, Brenda found herself in bed, and the bed was on fire. She called 911. The operator - who took a call for a WORKING FIRE - put her on hold. She burned to death.
From an incident report:
http://www.911dispatch.com/db/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2340&Itemid=484"After the answer delay was discovered, there was speculation the delay might have contributed to her death. An investigation into the incident led to the Bucks County 911 center, where officials said on Feb. 13th that 10 dispatchers were on-duty and performing no work tasks when the 911 came in--they had "no reasonable explanation" for not answering the 911 call, officials said. Four supervisors on-duty at the time took no action to correct the situation, county officials said. County director of emergency communications Brent Wiggins told reporters that Orr's call rang six times, and that her call was put on hold for another 27 seconds by the male dispatcher. Wiggins appeared at a press conference to give a timeline of the events, the findings of the investigation and corrective actions. "
About a year later, stung by the news reports, and further screw-ups on the part of the 911 dispatchers here, Bucks Emergency communications attempted to block the release of 911 tapes to the media. Yes, it's ugly to have 911 calls as "entertainment" but you have to take a lot of bad to make sure there's accountability from your public services. I can assure you that the level of "1984" style surveillance on citizens in this country is most unwelcome when the cameras and recorders are turned back on the watchers. I could go on about a lot of subjects about the constitution and how powder and projectiles are the way to keep the government in check and I'll counter that perhaps the most powerful weapon in the battle for personal freedom is the cheap digital camera:
Cop Fired After Shoving Bicyclist to the Ground:
http://www.truveo.com/YouTube-Video-Forces-NY-Cop-Off-The-Job/id/288230386942773129Cops Shoot Unarmed Man in the Back
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Video_shows_police_shooting_man_laying_0105.htmlCop Beat 15 Year Old Girl for "assault" with a cell phone:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7917295.stmIt's not just cops (my brother is a cop, I don't have an "thing" for catching bad cops, it's just these are in the news now).
I worked in Public service for 6 years as a volunteer firefighter. I was willing to accept a higher level of scrutiny (in fact I wish there was even more of it in general) when I was the president of the fire company, I welcome scrutiny while performing services, I think that an informed and intelligent populace who watches - closely - over how the services we all pay for are delivered is a free society.
Secrecy is almost always bad policy in government, there are very few situations where the public does not have a "need to know" anything they want about anything their elected and appointed and hired government workers are up to.