KSA 45-221

Thanks to Kansas State Representative Lance Kinzer for responding. His message to me, by e-mail:

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"Thanks for contacting me. To be honest with you the issue you raise it not one that I had considered previously. On the one hand I generaly default to favoring public acess to government records. On the other hand your point is well taken, indeed on more than one occassion I have felt angry at the media for feeling the need to play tapes of people who are confronting circumstances of extreme traedy. It seems to me at the very least to be in poor taste. In the last legisaltive session a pretty major review of the Kansas Open Records act was undertaken by the legislature and I do not recall this issue coming up. My thought would be that KSA 45-221 would need to be ammended to create a new open records act exception in order to stop release of these tapes. A quick search did not reveal any Kansas case law on this subject so I do not know if any Kansas police department has ever attempted to withold a 911 tape or not."

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Representative Kinzer does bring up several good, strong points. I, too, am generally in favor of public access to government records. I am requesting copies of KSA 45-221 to get started, and hopefully a hyperlink can be established for reference.