Quoted: I think that there'll be a variety of threads that'll pop up about this 'cause it's an important case. Maybe this topic too will become as familiar as the "Where's The Search Button" ones, and may eventually be archived in the Jeopardy thread?
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President Bush has opposed city lawsuits against the gun industry.
Also involved in the court's considerations will be information about people who bought multiple weapons, which is kept in another ATF database. The government refuses to reveal names from that database as well.
"There is simply no reasonable expectation of privacy involved in the purchase of firearms. And the recovery of a firearm by the authorities in the course of a criminal investigation is even less private," the Supreme Court was told by Lawrence Rosenthal, Chicago's attorney.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson, in his filings, said the ATF has reasonable policies designed to balance privacy with security. He said the appeals court decision "would significantly intrude upon the privacy of hundreds of thousands of individuals _ including firearms purchasers, potential witnesses to crime, and others -- without meaningfully assisting the public to evaluate the conduct of the federal government."
ATF has varying rules for releasing information. Some is released after one year, some after two and some after five years. And some details, like names, are never made available.
Rosenthal said the information would let the public evaluate the performances of law agencies. He said information in sensitive cases is coded and would not be made public.
Larry H. James, representing the 300,000-member Fraternal Order of Police, said: "This case not just about the release of data information, it is about the actual lives" of officers.
"Significant interference with their work, and a threat to their very lives, is squarely presented in this case," he wrote in urging the court to review the case.
The case is United States Department of the Treasury v. City of Chicago, 02-322.
FYI---I found the search button.