I pass on this email from Marcy about Tuesday’s vote on cell phone 911 calls even though I know not one thing about it.

Hi Friends, there’s a vote on Tuesday to give 911 Operators access to cell phone locations.

I have a very good friend who has been a 911 Operator for over 20 years and I asked her if I should vote yes for this bill. It is her opinion that this is NOT a good idea.

The job of a 911 Operator is intense at best. They field hundreds of calls every day and many of them are erroneous or repetitious and more of them are simply unnecessary. Example, when a car accident happens they receive a cell phone call from everyone who passes by. They receive an abundance of cellular phone calls daily. What this bill would do is simply make this 911 Operator have to call the cellular server to locate the position, and by the time they are able to dispatch an officer to that location….it’s most likely that the person would be 15 miles down the road from the location that was pinpointed. My friend cited several other problems in addition that I won’t go into here. But made me realize that not only would this bill make her life hell, but also take valuable time away from real distress calls. Tho it is good in theory, it won’t work in application.

I don’t know if I’m explaining all of this very clearly. But I wanted to make you aware that 911 Operators do not see this bill as something that will aid them in their jobs to help those in distress calling for help. Please send this on, so that maybe we can stop this bill from passing on Tuesday.

Thanks,
Marcy