Posted on 04/21/2006 11:14:52 AM PDT by Hal1950
NEWS MEDIA UPDATE - FIRST CIRCUIT - Freedom of Information
During nearly six years of litigation, investigators released nearly 600 pages of documents to the families of victims of the TWA flight that exploded shortly after takeoff from New York in 1996.
Families of some of the 230 victims killed aboard 1996's deadly TWA Flight 800 will not receive additional documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a federal appeals court has decided.
Ruling that the FBI's search satisfied its obligation to conduct a "reasonable" search for documents related to the families' request, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (1st Cir.) affirmed a lower court in determining on March 31 that the FBI fulfilled its duty to search for records.
Following the July 17, 1996, crash, a group of the victims' family members and other supporters teamed to independently investigate. Seeking information on behalf of the group, Graeme Sephton filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI in 1998 and filing the lawsuit in 2000 after the request went unanswered. Sephton, an engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, became involved with the case as a "concerned citizen" and over the nearly six years of litigation, it has become his hobby, he said.
"It seemed to me that a thing like Flight 800 where so many people had been killed and where there were hundreds of witnesses, that there was a good chance in a land where there was a watchdog media that we should be able to at least get it looked at very carefully and reevaluate it, Sephton said. "It turned out to be not so easy."
The group is considering whether to petition the entire First Circuit panel of judges to rehear the case, but Daniel J. Stotter, who represents the group, said a favorable ruling is unlikely. The two issues troubling him are that the court effectively held that an agency need not answer a FOIA complaint and that in determining the FBI conducted a "reasonable" search, it did not require the agency to affirmatively state it had "searched in all places reasonably likely" for the documents.
"It was like they were looking for forks and opened the plate drawer and said 'no forks here' but refused to open the fork drawer to look for them," Stotter said of the three-judge panel. "They refused to declare that they searched in all places reasonably likely, and instead said they searched in one place really carefully."
The Paris-bound Boeing 747 crashed about 10 minutes after its departure from New York, killing all on board. Several federal agencies investigated the crash, including the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board, and concluded that the crash was likely caused by an explosion in one of the fuel tanks.
Sephton's group requested forensic information from the FBI under FOIA, which located 21 pages of documents but withheld their release citing an ongoing investigation. Once the families sued, the FBI eventually gave up the 21 pages and added to it 550 pages of additional documents. The suit persisted because Sephton and the other family members and supporters had seen in the released documents mention of related documents which the FBI refused to turn over, Stotter said.
"What's clearly missing is that the agency referenced reports of tests or studies on the location of foreign objects . . . but we couldn't get those tests," he said.
The FBI produced sworn statements from several employees describing the searches they had conducted and explaining their processes. The U.S. District Court in Springfield, Mass., determined these searches met the "reasonableness" requirement, and ruled for the FBI in March 2005.
Calling the district court's opinion "cogent," the appeals court affirmed the ruling, agreeing that the FBI had satisfied its legal duty to conduct a "reasonable" search for the records sought. The appeals court quoted the lower court's opinion that its review of the FBI's statements collectively describe, "in a detailed and nonconclusory fashion, the structure of the agency's file system, the scope of the search performed, and the method by which it was conducted."
The appeals court's acceptance "with praise" of the lower court's analysis makes it "very difficult to get it reconsidered" by the entire court, Stotter said. "It's so uphill at this point, we can't really count on any changes to the outcome of this case."
Department of Justice spokeswoman Christina Sterling declined to comment, citing a DOJ policy prohibiting department lawyers from commenting on lawsuits.
In a related case, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. recently ruled similarly on a FOIA case related to Flight 800. Accuracy in Media, a media watchdog group, sued the National Transportation Safety Board, challenging its search for investigatory flight records.
AIM had asked for 14 categories of records from NTSB, some of which were produced in full while others were in redacted form and still others were withheld under FOIA exemptions and the Privacy Act. AIM did not challenge the use of the exemptions or the Privacy Act, but instead argued that NTSB's search was inadequate because it felt certain records "must" exist, and that the search had been conducted in "bad faith."
The court ruled that the NTSB had conducted a reasonable search and AIM's challenge as to the existence of additional records was "mere speculation," referring to the group's quest as a conspiracy theory. The court also dismissed the bad faith argument citing a lack of evidence.
(Sephton v. FBI; Accuracy in Media v. Nat'l Transportation Safety Bd., Requesters' counsel: Daniel J. Stotter, Bromley Newton, LLP, Eugene, Ore.) -- CZ
Exactly. But I think Clinton played a huge part in the cover-up. He never wanted to deal with terrorism.""
My thoughts exactly.
Clinton cannot even deal with Hillary on the warpath.....
"Who was on that plane that somebody in government wanted assassinated"
"LOL! Rather er stupid way to assassinate someone don't you think?"
No. Would that consideration stop some of the people we have in this world?""
Have you forgotten Ron Brown?????
If Flt 800 had just taken off, how could it have almost empty tanks????
""Exactly. But I think Clinton played a huge part in the cover-up. He never wanted to deal with terrorism.""
Bingo
1. he was afarid that confronting terrorism would hurt the economy and stock market-Dick Morris
2. He was afraid that Bob Dole's war hero status would cause people to rally to Dole if we ended up going to war ( i disagree, but that what Willy thought)
This is NORMAL. You only put fuel in the center tank if you absolutely have to. You always want the fuel in the wings. Hard to explain, but the plane flies more efficiently with fuel distributed throughout the wings rather than in the belly.
Notice one of the 737s that blew up hadn't had the center tank filled in like a month? Again, you only use that center tank if you have to for range or fuel reserve reasons, and if you do, that's the tank you drain first.
My dh is a military and an airline pilot...so thank you :)
""LOL! Rather er stupid way to assassinate someone don't you think?"
No. Would that consideration stop some of the people we have in this world?""
Have you forgotten Ron Brown?????"
Thank you. That's the one I couldn't remember.
Who was on that plane that somebody in government wanted assassinated?
LOL! Rather er stupid way to assassinate someone don't you think?
Was the mission accomplished?
Did the perps get away??
Thanks for the ping!
"Yes, of course it would."
~~~~~~
Just like the presence of children on the planes that hit the WTC stopped the hijackers -- right?
Riiiiiight...
Over the last 14 years, that respect and trust has been utterly destroyed. It's so bad that you even have to question the courts these days. Our justice system has certainly gone down hill.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Very Well Put!
I grew up listening to "The FBI in Peace and War" and "The Untouchables". The "G-Men" were truly my heroes.
Then, what I read and saw about Waco, Ruby Ridge, WTC 1, TWA 800, etc. very nearly destroyed my trust and admiration for "our" "glorious and honorable" law enforcement agencies.
But was my "up close and personal" investigation of their activites re OKBOMB that turned that trust into abhorrent disdain.
Now, I seriously doubt that I will live long enough to see that trust restored -- even if the FBI, the BATFE, the CIA, the Courts, and the DOJ -- for starters -- were totally disbanded today ...and were rebuilt from scratch by someone I trust explicitly.
In my sad experience, I fear the rot in those agencies is simply too deep and noxious. Now that those we once trusted to dig out and publish the truth have become the prime actors in destroying and hiding that truth, I fear that justice in our land has passed beyond reach...
Oh, I dunno, give NBC enough 747s and lots of sparklers and flares, they might get one to go for the cameras...it worked with the GM pickups, iirc.
Over the last 14 years, that respect and trust has been utterly destroyed.
Same here, but I'm a great-grandfather. I lost respect for them over Ruby Ridge. That was the start. Waco took things down another notch, especially from what I saw of the Congressional hearings, and by the time they were talking about OK City and in an all-fired hurry to destroy the crime scene, I smelled a few rats.
When they 'investigated' the Flight 800 incident, they laboriously yabbled about the number of man-hours involved, and the number of people they interviewed.
That is a fine cover-up for not asking the right people the right questions. It might play well enough with the average sofa spud catching the sound bytes on the nightly news, but it set off my BS alarm.
Especially when I was reading from non-mainstream sources that a multitude of people who saw 'something bright, leaving a trail (sometimes) heading up toward what became a fireball in the sky, and that these folks, by and large (well over 100 of them) were not being interviewed, even after contacting the agency.
At that point, I, for one, felt that the agency had gone from being a federal investigative arm to the folks who produced the supporting script for whatever the Clintons wanted us to hear.
While they are cleaning out the Clinton-era (leaker) people (moles) at CIA, maybe they should look at the FBI as well.
She was on her way out of the car (over the trunk) when he pushed her back in.
It got worse from there as the Shakespearian unfolding continued, with Oswald shot, Jack Ruby dying, etc.
The Warren Report delivered the conclusions only, unless you wanted to shell out for the full set of volumes, and even then much remains sealed to this day.
No. Ron Brown, KAL 007, and others.
Pretty minor collateral damage too (over water), if the target is important enough to the right people.
Make the 'crash' officially accidental and the most unfortunate demise becomes just another footnote.
There are so many problems with Ruby Ridge, Waco and the OKC Bombing that it's difficult to know where to start. The one common thread is that federal agencies were involved, and each one screwed up incredibly.
With Waco it went all the way to the White House. Janet Reno, Webster Hubble and I suspect the Clintons were in it up to their elboes.
Reno had been briefed that the gas they wanted to use was contraindicated for situations where there were small children. She signed off anyway.
These three events would have generated the anacronym FUBAR if it hadn't already been created.
Then TWA 800 came along. Can anyone remember the FBI and the CIA commandeering another airline crash investigation from the FAA? Can anyone remember the FBI fielding questions regarding a crash? Can anyone remember a CIA agent standing in the background at each press conference?
Nah, only the BATF and the FBI could team up to make the overall performance of the INS look good by comparison.
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