Posted on 05/05/2003 7:58:14 AM PDT by Lance Romance
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20 minutes ago
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By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday it would spell out when the public has a right to information in law enforcement files, like recordings of emergency calls and pictures from crime scenes.
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The justices will consider next fall whether the government must release post-mortem pictures of former White House attorney Vincent Foster, resurrecting a 10-year-old controversy over Foster's suicide.
The high court will balance people's privacy interests, in this case involving Foster's family, against the rights of others under a public records law. The Bush administration had urged the court to review the case. At stake is "the privacy interest of millions of individuals, about whom personal and sensitive information is stored in government files," Solicitor General Theodore Olson told the court.
Foster's death, in the first year of Bill Clinton's presidency, spurred a legion of conspiracy theories that he was murdered in a White House cover-up. Foster was a kindergarten friend of Clinton and former law partner of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr headed one of the many investigations that determined Foster killed himself on July 20, 1993, at a Civil War-era park near Washington.
The justices will decide if a California attorney has a right to pictures of Foster's body. The attorney, Allan Favish, already has been given more than 100 pictures, including photos of Foster's car and the Virginia park site. He has posted some on a Web site.
Lower courts have split over the release of more explicit pictures.
An appeals court in California said that four of the pictures could be made public. A court in Washington said they could not because there was not compelling evidence of government misconduct.
One of the pictures, which shows Foster's hand holding a gun, has already been published in Time magazine. None of the photos show his face or the bullet wounds. He died of a single shot to the head from an antique revolver.
The Supreme Court had scheduled arguments in another government records case involving a weapons database this spring. Justices dismissed the case, however, when Congress passed a provision restricting the release of the information which included names of gun shops and gun owners whose weapons were used in crimes.
Olson, the Bush administration's Supreme Court lawyer, said justices should use this case to clarify when lower courts should allow the release of information under the Freedom of Information Act. The law allows reporters and others to get unclassified government records that officials would not otherwise release.
Olson said that five investigations concluded that Foster, who was depressed, killed himself. He said a sixth probe "by an unsatisfied private citizen" seemed unnecessary.
The public information law allows officials to withhold information that could cause "an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."
The attorney for the Foster family, James Hamilton, said the release of more photos would be damaging to the relatives, "invading their memory of a loved one, by subjecting them to harassment from any number of media outlets, and by leaving them vulnerable to the unwitting viewing of profoundly traumatic images."
He said that the rationale used to order the release of the photos could also be used to get information about the terrorist attacks, including voice mail messages left by people trapped in the World Trade Center.
The case is Office of Independent Counsel v. Favish, 02-954.
You can forget about that controversy. Mrs. Foster wasn't clear on which gun the FBI agents were asking her about. The gun at the park was blued. She thought they were asking her about a nickled one.
And do a text search for "Foster".
That will keep you occupied for the rest of the day!
Recently? Where have you been?
Paging Alamo Girl!
And who made enquiries about those numbers to the FBI gun database some months before Forsters demise....
and the quarter mill that "turned up"in widow Forsters bank accont....
enquiring minds still remember....,.
Free Republic achieved greatness hashing over Vince's murder. Perhaps noe we can pickup where we left off, and delving deeper into the evidence can find out what really took place.
I think it is the duty of Free Republic to actively collect the DNA of all the various players, have it tested and determine the truth for the historical record. After all are dead history will forever wonder. We are to blame for not putting the issue to rest.
Best of luck Allan.
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