Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-05033/USCOURTS-caDC-00-05033-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 895
Nature of Suit: Freedom of Information Act of 1974
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 19, 2001 Decided June 26, 2001

No. 00-5033

Ellen W. Schrecker,

Appellant

v.

U.S. Department of Justice,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 95cv00026)

James H. Lesar argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellant.

Michael J. Ryan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With him on the briefs were Wilma A.

Lewis, U.S. Attorney at the time the briefs were filed, and R.

Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney.

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Before: Williams, Ginsburg and Garland, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Ginsburg.

Ginsburg, Circuit Judge: Ellen Schrecker appeals the

judgment of the district court rejecting her claims that the

Federal Bureau of Investigation violated the Freedom of

Information Act, 5 U.S.C. s 552, by failing to conduct an

adequate search for information responsive to her FOIA

request, and that both the FBI and the National Labor

Relations Board violated that Act by improperly withholding

responsive information they had located. See Schrecker v.

U.S. Dep't of Justice, 74 F. Supp. 2d 26 (D.D.C. 1999). We

reverse with respect both to the adequacy of the search and

to one aspect of Schrecker's claim regarding Exemption 7(C)

of the FOIA. With respect to her other claims, we affirm.

I. Background

In October 1988 Schrecker filed a FOIA request seeking

information regarding Gerhard Eisler and Clinton Jencks,

suspected communists whom the FBI had investigated in the

1940s and 1950s. The FBI released some documents to

Schrecker and withheld others pursuant to various exemptions to the FOIA. In 1994 Schrecker filed a new request for

the same information and, less than two months later, initiated this lawsuit.

In 1998 the district court directed the FBI to reprocess all

responsive material. Schrecker v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 14

F. Supp. 2d 111, 117 (D.D.C. 1998) ("Under the FBI's own

admission, a 'significant portion,' of its withholdings may have

been inappropriate.... [T]his court orders that the defendant reprocess all withholdings and submit appropriate affidavits regarding any future withholdings"). After reprocessing the responsive material, the Government prepared a

Vaughn index stating, with respect to a sample of the disputed material, its basis for withholding each item. Subsequently, the district court granted the Government's motion for

summary judgment.

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II. Analysis

Upon appeal Schrecker argues that the Government conducted an inadequate search for documents and improperly

withheld information pursuant to a number of exemptions to

the FOIA.

A. Adequacy of Search

Schrecker argues the FBI conducted an inadequate search

because it did not search for "ticklers." As this court explained in Campbell v. United States, 164 F.3d 20, 27 n.1

(1998):

A "tickler" is a duplicate file containing copies of documents, usually kept by a supervisor. Such files can be of

interest to a FOIA requester because they could contain

documents that failed to survive in other filing systems

or that include unique annotations.

The Government acknowledges both that there were at one

time ticklers for certain FBI files responsive to Schrecker's

request and that it did not search for them, but it argues that

it did not need to do so because ticklers are not indexed to

the FBI's Central Records System. We are not a little

dismayed by the Government's position, for we rejected this

self-same argument in Campbell. Id. at 28 (holding that

where FOIA request includes ticklers and agency's initial

search reveals that responsive ticklers existed at one time,

then a search for ticklers is presumptively necessary). As

the Government must know, this panel is bound not only by

good sense but also by circuit law to reject this argument

once again. See, e.g., Brewster v. Commissioner of Internal

Revenue, 607 F.2d 1369, 1373-74 (D.C. Cir. 1979) (panels

bound to follow circuit precedent until en banc court or

Supreme Court overrules that precedent).

Next the Government argues it need not search for the

ticklers responsive to Schrecker's request because, under

FBI policy during the time it investigated Eisler and Jencks,

ticklers were to be retained for only 60 days. The Government acknowledges that the FBI granted requests to retain

some ticklers past the 60 day mark, but it explains that even

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those documents were retained "with the understanding that

they will be disposed of as soon as they no longer serve a

useful purpose." See, e.g., Memoranda to Mr. Boardman

from A.H. Belmont re: Retention of Ticklers, Domestic Intelligence Division, dated August 5 and November 9, 1955.

Schrecker points out, however, that there is no evidence the

reprieved documents were ever destroyed despite the FBI's

practice of "recording the destruction of records." The Government does not rebut this argument and, without such

evidence, the standard "no longer serv[ing] a useful purpose"

is simply too vague to obviate the need for a search. Under

that standard, the ticklers might well be extant in the files of

some cautious bureaucrat.

Finally, the Government argues that searching for ticklers

would be unduly burdensome. We readily acknowledge that

"there are some limits on what an agency must do to satisfy

its FOIA obligations." Nation Magazine, Washington Bureau v. U.S. Customs Serv., 71 F.3d 885, 891-892 (D.C. Cir.

1995) (holding search through 23 years of unindexed files

would impose unreasonable burden upon agency). Schrecker

claims, however, and the Government does not deny, that in

other cases the FBI has managed to locate ticklers:

For example, in connection with the FBI's investigation

into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a

file of several hundred tickler copies was maintained by

FBI Supervisor Richard Long.... In another instance,

the FBI processed some twenty volumes of ticklers

compiled in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Nor does the Government deny that the Bureau retains the

files of higher-level supervisors after they depart, or that in

the past it has managed to locate ticklers in the files of such

higher-ups. It is not improbable, therefore, that the Bureau

both has the files of some supervisors who received ticklers in

the Eisler and Jencks investigations and that those files are

indexed and include the responsive ticklers. Schrecker observes further that "[s]ome of the files of the high supervisory

officials listed on the Eisler and Jencks records as recipients

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of ticklers may already have been processed for public release

and can be searched for ticklers pertaining to these cases."

In response to this observation, the Government raises the

prospect that a search for ticklers might "compel[ ] an

agency-wide, desk-to-desk, manual search for ticklers," but it

points to nothing in the record to suggest that the search

actually required will be unduly burdensome. Accordingly,

we reverse the judgment of the district court on this claim.

B. Exemption 1

Exemption 1 to the FOIA permits an agency to withhold

information if it is "specifically authorized under criteria

established by an Executive order" to do so "in the interest of

national defense or foreign policy." 5 U.S.C. s 552(b)(1). In

this case, Schrecker argues that the FBI erred in withholding

information pursuant to Exemption 1 because, among other

things, it withheld documents related to the identity of confidential sources under the theory that "[a]ll sources, dead or

alive, active or inactive, must be protected for all time because otherwise current and potential sources will fear revelation of their identities at some point." According to Schrecker, this rationale for withholding is too broad because it would

"recreate[ ] the presumption of damage to national security

due to disclosure of an intelligence source which EO 12958

eliminated."

The Government responds that it did not apply a presumption but, rather, pursuant to Executive Order 12958 considered the potential harm of releasing information about the

sources implicated in this case and concluded the information

should be withheld in order to protect national security.

Specifically, the Government's declarant, Scott Hodes, testified that he:

personally and independently.... determined that the

remaining portions of classified information ... are exempt from automatic declassification pursuant [to] EO

12958, s 3.4(b) as the release of the specific information

should be expected to reveal the identity of a confidential

human source ... or reveal the identity of a human

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intelligence source when the unauthorized disclosure of

that source would clearly and demonstrably damage the

national security interests of the United States.... [by

harming] the FBI's ability to ... continuously recruit

sources for current and future use.

Second Hodes Declaration at 13-14; see also Third Hodes

Declaration at p p 3, 7.

While the affidavit is not entirely free of ambiguity, we

think it is most naturally to be read, as the Government

suggests, to say the FBI considered each source -- confidential or otherwise -- and determined in each case that release

of the information in question would damage national security

by dissuading current and future sources from cooperating.

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment with regard to information related to the identity of intelligence sources.

C. Exemption 7(C)

Exemption 7(C) permits an agency to withhold information

compiled "for law enforcement purposes" if that information

"could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted

invasion of personal privacy." 5 U.S.C. s 552(b)(7)(C). In

determining whether release of particular information is an

"unwarranted" invasion of privacy, an agency must balance

the type of privacy interest at stake against the public

interest in release of the type of information involved. See

U.S. Dep't of Justice v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the

Press, 489 U.S. 749 (1989).

Schrecker argues that in this case the FBI improperly

withheld information pursuant to Exemption 7(C) in part

because it failed to conduct an adequate investigation into

whether the individuals whose privacy might be invaded are

deceased. As the FBI concedes, the death of the subject of

personal information does diminish to some extent the privacy

interest in that information, though it by no means extinguishes that interest; one's own and one's relations' interests

in privacy ordinarily extend beyond one's death. See, e.g.,

Swidler & Berlin v. U.S., 524 U.S. 399, 406 (1998) ("the

attorney-client privilege continues after death"); Accuracy in

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Media, Inc. v. National Park Serv., 194 F.3d 120, 121 (D.C.

Cir. 1999) (noting precedent under FOIA holding privacy

interests continue after death). The fact of death, therefore,

while not requiring the release of information, is a relevant

factor to be taken into account in the balancing decision

whether to release information.

The FBI explained as follows its efforts to establish death

in this case: "if we were aware that an individual was 100

years of age or older, or we were able to determine from Who

Was Who or from other readily available information that

individuals were deceased, we released their identities." Second Hodes Decl., p 40. Upon inquiry at oral argument, the

Government represented that the "other readily available

information" to which the quoted affidavit refers includes the

Social Security database and the agency's internal records.

Although we find support in the record for the latter, we

cannot fairly read the vague wording used by the declarant

under oath as a statement that the Bureau consulted the

Social Security database. Without confirmation that the Government took certain basic steps to ascertain whether an

individual was dead or alive, we are unable to say whether the

Government reasonably balanced the interests in personal

privacy against the public interest in release of the information at issue. We therefore reverse this aspect of the judgment; on remand the Government may document what "other

readily available information" it consulted, and the district

court can decide in the first instance whether the Government

did all it should have done, and whether it may withhold the

disputed information pursuant to Exemption 7(C).

Relatedly, Schrecker argues that the Government failed to

weigh the privacy interests of the people it assumed were

alive, opting instead for a per se rule of withholding. The

Government denies using a per se rule and points us to the

Second Hodes Declaration at p 40:

In asserting this exemption, each piece of information

was scrutinized to determine the nature and strength of

the privacy interest of any individual whose name and/or

identifying data appears in the documents at issue. In

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withholding the information, the individual's privacy interest was balanced against the public's interest in disclosure. In each instance where information was withheld,

it was determined that individual privacy interests were

not outweighed by any public interest.

Although the next few sentences of the declaration appear to

state general principles rather than relate how the facts of

this case were weighed in the balance, the quoted passage

establishes that "in each instance where information was

withheld," the agency considered the private and public interests at stake. We therefore affirm the judgment of the

district court with regard to this claim.

III. Conclusion

Schrecker raises a number of other arguments against the

Government's invocation of various exemptions to the FOIA,

all of which we reject for substantially the reasons given by

the district court. See Schrecker, 74 F. Supp. 2d 26. With

respect both to the adequacy of the search for ticklers and to

the applicability of Exemption 7(c), we reverse the judgment

of the district court and remand this matter for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.

So 

ordered.

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