Post by Steve Gardner on Jan 27, 2008 20:28:17 GMT
A vital record of events as they unfolded. From the site...
The Memory Hole has obtained 9/11 documents previously withheld by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. These transcripts of phone calls and radio transmissions, and copies of police reports, were finally released under a federal order resulting from a lawsuit brought by the New York Times. The Times originally sought the actual recordings but eventually settled for transcripts.
After the documents had been released to the media, a spokesperson for the Port Authority told The Memory Hole that it would not be able to get this material. "We're screening pretty carefully," she said on the phone, adding that the only way we'd see these documents would be to get our hands on a set already released to a media outlet. She also said, without prompting, that the Port Authority will never put these public documents online.
After invoking the Port Authority's freedom of information policy, we were able to get the material, but only after paying $500 (a ridiculous 25 cents per page). Thanks to the generosity of contributors, we were able to cough up the money.
For more background, check out this CNN article:
Frantic conversations between trapped people and authorities during the moments before the World Trade Center towers collapsed on September 11, 2001, are revealed in transcripts of radio and telephone transmissions and in handwritten notes that were released Thursday....
The transcripts were released by the agency that built and ran security at the World Trade Center -- the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
A good portion of the documents are from handwritten and typed notes of Port Authority police and civilian employees recounting afterward what had happened....
The rest of the documents are transcriptions of conversations over nearly 100 telephone lines and civilian radio channels....
The documents were released after a ruling from Judge Sybil R. Moses as a result of a lawsuit filed by the New York Times seeking access to the 2,000 pages of documents.
