Several bills working their way through the General Assembly seek to chip away at the state’s Open Records Act.
House Bill 449, Rep. Micah Gravely, R-Douglasville: Would ban the release of audio of 911 tapes if a caller dies during the recording. Status: Passed committee, eligible for House floor.
House Bill 796, Rep. John Carson, R-Marietta: Would ban the release of personnel and payroll records of private contractors doing work on public buildings. Status: In subcommittee, unlikely to move.
House Bill 828, Rep. Ronnie Mabra, D-Fayetteville: Would bar the release in bulk of motor vehicle accident reports. Status: In committee.
House Bill 845, Rep. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough: Would ban the release of mug shots unless the person arrested is convicted. Status: In committee.
House Bill 935, Rep. Tommy Benton, R-Jefferson: Would add retirement systems of local governments and school systems to the list of retirement programs exempt from releasing many of its records. Status: In committee.
A raft of bills that erode pieces of Georgia’s sunshine laws and would block public access to a variety of records are gaining ground in the General Assembly.
Mug shots, 911 calls, accident reports and more would all be kept beyond the public’s purview under a variety of proposals lawmakers are considering this year.
It’s a massive erosion of the public’s right to know, First Amendment advocates say, while the bills’ supporters say there is no concerted effort but individual attempts to protect vulnerable Georgians from abuse.
Take 911 calls. Rep. Micah Gravely, R-Douglasville, wants to ban the release of audio of 911 tapes if the caller dies during the recording. His House Bill 449 passed the Judiciary Committee this week and could reach the House floor in the next few days.
Gravely said his bill was prompted by a woman’s death in 2009. She died during that year’s horrific flooding and was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher at the time. A news outlet later used the Open Records Act to get a copy of the tape.
“This young lady was careened over Sweetwater Creek,” Gravely told the committee. “She made a 911 call. Inevitably her death was captured on the audio recording of the call. An open records request was submitted by a news agency, much to the horror of the family of the young lady and her husband.”
Judiciary Committee Chairman Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, said the bill is "very, very limited," but he said "it's important if you have a lot of emotional things happen."
There are people who have a legitimate need to hear those tapes, Willard said, “but not the public as a whole.”
The bill would still allow a transcript of a call to be released, Gravely said.
Hollie Manheimer, executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, said the bill does not allow the public to monitor the performance of emergency operators and first responders.
In a similar vein, Rep. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, wants to bar public release of booking photographs unless a person is convicted. Strickland said the bill's purpose is to prevent websites from posting mug shots of people who are not convicted of a crime.
His HB 845 follows a 2013 bill that made it a state law that these websites must agree to remove photographs of people who were never convicted. The problem, Strickland said, is the sites are refusing to comply and many are moving overseas to avoid prosecution or simply change names whenever threatened.
“I do not believe there is legitimate public interest in viewing these photographs,” Strickland said. There are exceptions, he said, like for public safety.
At a committee hearing this week, a lobbyist for Turner Broadcasting Systems said he understand the problem but said Strickland’s bill is too broad.
“Any time you limit the public’s access to information you have to be very careful,” lobbyist Arthur “Skin” Edge said. Just because you have bad actors you have to balance that with the public good. If it’s close, you have to come down on the side of the public’s right to know.”
Critics of the bill say it removes the public’s right to know whether a neighbor has been accused of a crime or to be able to identify someone charged with violent acts who might be free on bond.
Ragen Marsh, a lobbyist for the Georgia Press Association, told lawmakers that mug shots help identify potentially dangerous people. Imagine someone with a common name is arrested and released on bond. If there are five John Smiths in the community, the mug shot helps identify the one who could be a threat, Marsh said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ronnie Mabra, D-Fayetteville, has bipartisan support for HB 828. Mabra wants to block certain doctors and attorneys from hiring "runners" to drum up business from traffic accidents. These freelancers scour police records in bulk for names and contact information for accident victims and deliver the information or the victims for a fee.
Mabra wants to make it harder for unscrupulous individuals from getting copies of bulk records, for example, an entire month’s reports. There are already restrictions on who can get the records, but there is a specific exception that allows the media access. Mabra’s bill keeps that exception but says only reports that are at least 60 days old would be available.
“These runners sometimes impersonate media, they get a badge and say I want the records,” Mabra said.
If the available records are 2 months old, it’s less likely runners can drum up business, he said.
There may not be a concerted effort to chip away at Georgia’s sunshine laws, but the effect is the same, said Manheimer of the First Amendment Foundation.
Lawmakers worked with her and media officials in 2012 to overhaul the Open Records Act. It is “unfortunate,” she said, that “some legislative efforts seem to ignore that the purpose of the open government laws is to make the government’s business open and accessible to citizens.”
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