hearsay evidence at the end of my argument but i'd like to start by explaining why the services redactions under exemption six and seven see were improper because the vast majority of records at issue here were withheld persuing to those exemptions i'm and the service has the burden of proving that any exemptions of caught here the service withheld names under exemption six dollars and seven dollars see on that on the basis that it's for the officer concluded that these individuals could conceivably be subject to harassment squads but allowing the service to withhold these records on the mere speculation the mere theoretical possibility of grass is not what congress intended to enact oira is in this case is that right that's that's correct you're gone and even further than that there's nothing in the record that suggests that there's been any previous harassment of any individuals who imported an elephant or  parts or or any harassment of individuals whose names were disclosed pursuant to foil for their important while but parts you think you know you're welcome but there is even even in the absence of harass sake of argument that the service was worried about embarrassing or sworn that there's no evidence here that these people would be subject to embarrassment or scorn it's really notable that the service has provided no  on so there's no reason to think that these people are going to be are going to be subject to arrest you know if it's true that it's a relatively small universe you know really what public interest is your client advancing  y having access to or exposing their identities i really don't you know i don't really see much on the other side of the ledger either who get to a balancing yeah your honor well well you know as an initial know i would you know i would point to a couple things and you know in terms of public interest it's it's really critical to to know who is importing these while but the the service is the agency that congress has delegated to to be in charge it's upsetting the regulations governing governing the import of these wildlife parts into the country the services current regulations that are allowing these individuals to to import these parts and to use or not you know these are not static regulations they're subject to great you know a great deal of change group groups like ours complex safari club international are regularly petitioning the agency to change these regulations people who have been convicted of previous what crimes are these people who are involved in observation activities are the same individuals importing parts over and over and over again so it so that just a a given year to you so if you know that meet the foyer interest there is not an interest in discovering what other people do it's strictly limited to an interest in how the agency operates so i take it which your point is focusing not on credit find other people so we can discover about them but rather focusing on the agency i assume what you're saying is that that this information would be useful to see if the wrong with the agency that's what you would have to prove what it what are the allegations of the ties that to the agency that's the that's right here on in these these two things there are inextricably linked you know the the argument that we need we need these voyage information to see if the agency is in gaijin misconduct that would be true for any law enforcement agency would not swallow up the exemption of it's not  well your honor fish fish and wildlife service is is is the agency that is in charge of setting setting these regulations and it has it has different regulations and char you know in effect for for differen background are they involved in conservation have they can be in convicted of wildlife imes that is this is all informing the public's understanding of whether the current regulations that are at the service has put in place to governing the import of these animals that relevant consideration for us it's an interesting question your honor i mean i think the important thing that i would note here and what this court has previously recognized in brown v carrots is that when  requester is only seeking names and not seeking you know not seeking contact information at seeking addresses phone number or social media accounts that there is a much reduced concern of harassment you know and that's you know that's the is going to impact whether the service and current regulations are adequate what you know and what changes may or may not you know need to need to be made for those regulations you know that i mean just throwing it out it's going to could you submit a your organization needs or is this this is this the only way that you can get it well i think that that hypothetical request might satisfy one you know one narrow reason why we want the information but you know we against them that's what i could use some help with regard to the elephant or since a permit is required what marginal benefit would it be for you obviously it seems that you would oh you seventh's so is it is it is the border what is the marginal difference for friends of animals is it that you will now be able to see which individuals exercise and carry out their permits by actually importing and if so how often they do it if they could that could be iran or we you know we just we just don't we just don't know but i mean the key point is they don't have a privacy interest if the names are up and i would like to reserve understand what exactly is the is the practical difference between your current access to the to the permits the applications and the receipt of permits and the names on the you know see those documents fall that aren't you know there are attacks and we're able to you know rebel to match them up mean it's possible that there isn't much difference but but it's but it's possible that you know that there that there is a difference between what's already you know and what's and what we're asking for it if there's a difference it's only that the nd list you want would be a lesser included list of names from the larger group that you already have but you know that i mean that's that's part that's possible your honor you know i discussion of the record evidence for harassment because i think that's very important that this report actually made a finding on page four hundred and ninety nine dollars of the record that the agency's concerns about harassment were reasonable and not speculative the court  matter of law don't we because it's summary judgment have to be the evidence in the light most favorable to friends venables in doing so don't we have to credit the fact that a reasonable you know it's really how many instances of harassment do you need to demonstrate just so that there is a privacy interests here which would bring me to my next point which is that the question of a privacy interest isn't purely factual there's a real legal component to it and that's why it's important to recognize that this concept of privacy that's protected by force exemptions the supreme court has said is expansive it's not a cramped notion personal privacy encompasses an individual's right to control all of the information about himself information is private if it's restricted to a small group of people and not freely accessible to the public when that information was given it was given with the knowledge that it could be arguably obtain through would not transfer this information or sell it or give it to anyone unless it was required by law and even if it was required by law the agency was going to do everything in its power to guarantee that the privacy rights of the scimitar were protected and i you know suggests where these importers are exchanging the privilege of the for giving up this information it's an interesting one but even if we're going to analyze it from that perspective we have to think about the sort of violent contract that in caged with with the government and you know what sort of assurances of privacy that the government gave them this is you know another situation where the district court found that the government gave them assurances of privacy that the page four hundred and eighty eight dollars and then you know even if you look deeply into the record they can see actually testified that the submitter that's involved in the inception for issues they they had no idea despite you know seeing that notice that there was any chance that their information was going to be made public and i i mean you know maybe they're not lawyers that you know if they were to talk to any lawyers they would say you know when you submit anything to a state entity you're going to have subject to the open records act most likely if you submit something to the federal government you so i mean they may not know that but i don't know what would difference that makes well your honor i don't resumption which is that for you should be interpreted broadly to give citizens access to government information astutely pointed out that really can't be something that eliminates the privacy interest altogether because ultimately i think all information that's in it for the government is subject to for us so we if we say that you know the fox that this information individuals if they're importing they already have received a permit and my understanding is that if the b s is already published on their website for this time period all of the individuals names who have received permits for elephant ports right no your honor that's not correct so let me clarify the people whose names are in the public record are the people who received trophy permits from the fish and wildlife service the the number of products in the elephant response is incredibly small i tried to count them last night there's nine in the eight hundred and fifty page response the rest of the elephant response is documents that have never been released to the public and you know part of the reason that those permits are such a small part of the elephant response is that well most of the elephant in response is about commercial importers and so we actually have the name of the business and those cases it's the name of the individual who's associated with the business i think the example i that i think if you're going to put your own name in the title of your exotic animal import company you're probably ok with people knowing that you have port these animals so where does that isn't that the whole problem to get back to mr kurtz point is we really don't know whether or not these individuals have any hesitation about letting their day be no i mean you're you are making an assumption that this is as it is activity that could subject them to harassment my response to that would be the question about privacy interests is ultimately it's an objective one it's not a subjective one so that you know the government doesn't need to submit five thousand affidavits from every single one of these individuals whose names appear in these records to demonstrate that this is in fact something that they have a privacy interest in especially when you know the supreme court has told us that this is very much a situation where someone would have a privacy interest you know i think at the same time i would you know i would note that the th circuit has i think almost always found a personal privacy interest in foil cases when we're dealing with a list of names and i you know i i know mr have too many questions about privacy i would love to pivot to the public interest aspect because i think that is pivotal to this case kind of where the rubber meets the road with regard to public interest the supreme court in th has given it a very narrow definition and the context of foyer the purpose of lawyer is to open up agency action to the light of public scrutiny so disposer is only in the public interest if the documents shed light on what the government's done i actually w focus more specifically i mean to me there are several agency actions that might be put to light here one does the agency deal only with a few importers that are favored or that are politically connected  that are people that have been convicted in the past of violations is the agency's supervision of the people with whom it deals addict those are all things focusing on the agency which i think could be this idea that having information about the people who do this will help us figure out if there are some new or different regulations we need you know i mean if it's all the same people doing it or if there's something else problematic there but we have to draw the distinction between government records that shed light on what the government is doing versus government records that contain information about private citizens that could be useful for us in deciding what we want the government to do moving forward and the reason we have to draw that distinction is because if you think about it that nd category is enormous there is almost no information in the government's possession that you can say well this might be useful if we decide down the road we would like to fight it's not that the government didn't have a new that the the up with doesn't have an interest it is how strong is that in i mean i would argue that the are the you know the interest here is not strong because i think as as you sort of alluded to and as plaintiff has mentioned we don't know what the documents will show until we see them and so there you know that is again an argument that can be made about essentially everything in the government's possession but you know the other category that i think is kind of similar though i also want to just why it's very problematic is this idea that getting information about who the service allows to import these animals will kind of let us double check  that the service is doing their job properly and ultimately that's just another way of saying that the plaintiffs think that the government officials who are responsible here might you know might not be doing their job might be acting negligently might be being improperly influenced by th groups there is certainly a public interest in finding out that information however the supreme court was very clear in national archives versus favors that if that is the public interest that you are relying on you have to put forth at least some evidence to back up those suspicions and there is nothing in the record to support these unidentified suspicions that the plaintiff seems to have about the service not enforcing its records i would like to touch on just back our question also about the fact that you know a very small portion of these names are in the public domain and i think that there are two ways to analyze that question and one of them is i think the plaintiffs position that ok well these permits are already in the public domain and you know i think it's worth noting that the service it's not just that the permit applications are ready in the public domain but the service is permanent division has never had any objection to providing the permit applications and information about whether they were granted or denied to the plaintiffs so what we're fighting about ultimately is releasing those  appear in this law enforcement database and the correct way to analyze that situation as an o the the service is already released these in one context and those are kind of similar so we should release them here and i cited some case on my brief about this idea that we don't hold the agencies other disclosures against it and the reason for that is that we start hunnish ing the agency for releasing similar documents then we end up in the situation where we're creating all of these incentives for the agency to start with holding as much as what i will say that the difference in the services view is that exemption seven c doesn't apply to the permit applications so we're not enforcing exemptions seven c there however you know again i would urge the court not to hold the fact that it's the services burden to establish a privacy interest here and the service simply hasn't done the nd you know the fact the fact that the individuals provide this information voluntarily to the surface despite being warned that it could be disclosed pursuant to