Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-04-05323/USCOURTS-caDC-04-05323-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

---

AMENDED PER ORDER FILED NOVEMBER 3, 2005

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Filed November 2, 2005

No. 04-5301

WEN HO LEE,

APPELLEE

v.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

JEFF GERTH,

APPELLANT

Consolidated with

04-5302, 04-5321, 04-5322, 04-5323

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 99cv03380)

On Petitions for Rehearing En Banc

______

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, EDWARDS,** SENTELLE,

HENDERSON, RANDOLPH, ROGERS,** TATEL,** GARLAND,**

BROWN* AND GRIFFITH,* Circuit Judges. 

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 1 of 9
2

O R D E R

Appellants’ petitions for rehearing en banc in Nos. 04-

5302, 04-5321, 04-5322, and 04-5323, and the response

thereto were circulated to the full court, and a vote was

requested. Thereafter, a majority of the judges of the court in

regular, active service did not vote in favor of the petitions. 

Upon consideration of the foregoing, it is 

ORDERED that the petitions be denied. 

Per Curiam

FOR THE COURT:

Mark J. Langer, Clerk

BY:

Michael C. McGrail

Deputy Clerk

* Circuit Judges Brown and Griffith did not participate in this

matter.

** Circuit Judges Edwards, Rogers, Tatel, and Garland would

grant the petitions for rehearing en banc.

** A separate statement by Circuit Judge Rogers, dissenting

from the denial of rehearing en banc, is attached.

** A separate statement by Circuit Judge Tatel, with whom

Circuit Judge Garland joins, dissenting from the denial of

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 2 of 9
3

rehearing en banc, is attached.

** A separate statement by Circuit Judge Garland, with whom

Circuit Judge Tatel joins, dissenting from the denial of

rehearing en banc, is attached.

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 3 of 9
ROGERS, Circuit Judge, dissenting from the denial of rehearing

en banc:

The important First Amendment protections implicated in

these cases are obvious. Our decision in Zerilli v. Smith, 656

F.2d 705 (D.C. Cir. 1981), acknowledges as much. Until very

recently, in this case, Lee v. Department of Justice, 413 F.3d 53

(D.C. Cir. June 28, 2005), the court has not had occasion to

define the contours and describe with precision the standards

illustrated by Carey v. Hume, 492 F.2d 631, 639 (D.C. Cir.

1974), and Zerilli, 656 F.2d at 711, in particular as they apply in

discovery disputes arising from Privacy Act claims. Carey

provides no unambiguous guidance because it did not encounter

a claim under the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a) (2000), which

was first enacted in late 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-579, 88 Stat. 1896

(Dec. 31, 1974). Although Zerilli addressed both Privacy Act

and Fourth Amendment-based claims, 656 F.2d at 715, Zerilli

may be characterized as a decision resting upon the failure of the

appellants to meet the exhaustion requirement. See id. at 714;

see also id. at 718 (concurring opinion). That there are different

views regarding the proper application of Zerilli in Privacy Act

cases is evident. Compare, e.g., Petition for Panel Rehearing

and/or Rehearing En Banc of Appellant James Risen at 6; infra

Statement of Judge Tatel dissenting from denial of rehearing en

banc (“the panel never balanced the public and private

interests”) with Response of Appellee Wen Ho Lee to Petitions

for Panel Rehearing and/or Rehearing En Banc at 13; Lee, 413

F.3d at 56 (“Zerilli set out two guidelines to determine when a

plaintiff may compel a non-party journalist to testify to the

identity of his confidential sources.”). Regardless, the Petitions

for Rehearing now present significant issues, which meet the

applicable threshold for rehearing en banc, Fed. R. App. P.

35(a)(2), regarding both the standard for appellate review and

comprehensiveness of the necessary balancing analysis.

Therefore, I would grant the petitions for rehearing en banc.

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 4 of 9
*

 Bruno & Stillman, Inc. v. Globe Newspaper Co., 633 F.2d

583, 593-99 (1st Cir. 1980); Baker v. F & F Inv., 470 F.2d 778, 783

(2d Cir. 1972); Riley v. City of Chester, 612 F.2d 708, 715-16 (3d

Cir. 1979); LaRouche v. Nat’l Broad. Co., 780 F.2d 1134, 1139 (4th

Cir. 1986); Miller v. Transamerican Press, Inc., 621 F.2d 721, 725

(5th Cir. 1980); Cervantes v. Time, Inc., 464 F.2d 986, 992-93 (8th

Cir. 1972); Shoen v. Shoen, 48 F.3d 412, 415-16 (9th Cir. 1995);

Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 563 F.2d 433, 436-37 (10th Cir.

1977); United States v. Caporale, 806 F.2d 1487, 1504 (11th Cir.

1986). But see Storer Commc’ns, Inc. v. Giovan (In re Grand Jury

Proceedings), 810 F.2d 580, 584-85 (6th Cir. 1987); McKevitt v.

Pallasch, 339 F.3d 530, 533 (7th Cir. 2003).

TATEL, Circuit Judge, with whom GARLAND, Circuit Judge,

joins, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:

Over two decades ago, in Zerilli v. Smith, 656 F.2d 705, 711

(D.C. Cir. 1981), this circuit recognized that because “journalists

frequently depend on informants to gather news, and

confidentiality is often essential to establishing a relationship

with an informant,” “[c]ompelling a reporter to disclose the

identity of a source may significantly interfere with [the press’s]

news gathering ability.” Joining the overwhelming majority of

our sister circuits,*

 we therefore held that “a qualified reporter’s

privilege under the First Amendment should be readily available

in civil cases.” Id. at 712. That said, we recognized that even

the manifest interest in an unfettered press must sometimes give

way to the important interest in affording a litigant a fair

opportunity to right legal wrongs. Accordingly, we enunciated

a “balancing approach”: “[T]o determine whether the privilege

applies courts should look to the facts of each case, weighing the

public interest in protecting the reporter’s sources against the

private interest in compelling disclosure.” Id. But given the

First Amendment values at stake, we emphasized that “in all but

the most exceptional cases,” “the civil litigant’s interest in

disclosure should yield to the journalist’s privilege.” Id.

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 5 of 9
2

In this case, the panel never balanced the public and private

interests. Instead, it considered just two of what Zerilli calls the

“number of more precise guidelines [that] can be applied to

determine how the balance should be struck in a particular

case,” id. at 713—namely, whether the sources’ identities go “to

the heart of” the plaintiff’s claim and whether the plaintiff has

exhausted “every reasonable alternative source of information,”

Lee v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, No. 04-5301, slip op. at 11 (D.C.

Cir. June 28, 2005) (quoting Zerilli, 656 F.2d at 713). Because

the panel’s arid two-factor test allows the exigencies of even the

most trivial litigation to trump core First Amendment values, I

believe this case is of “exceptional importance” and merits the

full court’s attention. Fed. R. App. P. 35(a)(2).

Normally, when a litigant seeks to discover the fruits of a

journalist’s work, a privilege analysis limited to need and

exhaustion protects both the private interest in disclosure and the

public interest in newsgathering. By utilizing the traditional

tools of discovery to exhaust “every reasonable alternative

source of information,” the civil litigant seeking information that

goes “to the heart of the matter” can usually discover the same

facts that the journalist unearthed.

The situation is very different where the identity of a leaker

is itself “the heart of the matter”—as it is here; as it will be in

any Privacy Act case, see sep. op. (Garland, J., dissenting from

the denial of rehearing en banc); and as it was in In re Grand

Jury Subpoena, Judith Miller, 397 F.3d 964 (D.C. Cir. 2005),

where the grand jury was attempting to determine whether the

leaker had committed a felony. In such cases, a litigant’s

efforts, however exhaustive, are unlikely to identify the

reporter’s source. Lee’s unsuccessful attempt to uncover the

source (or sources) of the leaks in this case illustrates why:

Because the confidential exchange of information leaves neither

paper trail nor smoking gun, the great majority of leaks will

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 6 of 9
3

likely be unprovable without evidence from either leaker or

leakee. A test focused only on need and exhaustion will

therefore almost always be satisfied, leaving the reporter’s

source unprotected regardless of the information’s importance

to the public. See id. at 997 (Tatel, J., concurring). The panel’s

failure to “balance . . . [Lee’s] interest in compelled disclosure

[against] the public interest in protecting a newspaper’s

confidential sources” thus converts this rather ordinary Privacy

Act case—and any run-of-the-mill leak case like it—into a

“most exceptional case[]” in which, contrary to Zerilli, the

reporter’s interest must give way. Zerilli, 656 F.2d at 712.

The outcome here illustrates the risk of limiting our inquiry

to only need and exhaustion. Without slighting Lee’s private

interest in receiving compensation for governmental

malfeasance, his claim pales in comparison to the public’s

interest in avoiding the chilling of disclosures about what the

government then believed to be nuclear espionage. This case is

thus very different from In re Grand Jury. Not only was that a

criminal case, but there we held that the grand jury’s interest in

securing the name of a source suspected of committing a felony

outweighed any applicable privilege. In re Grand Jury, 397

F.3d at 973. Lee’s private interest in this civil suit implicates no

similarly critical concerns, and it’s hard to imagine how his

interest could outweigh the public’s interest in protecting

journalists’ ability to report without reservation on sensitive

issues of national security. Instead of explaining why he

believes his private litigation interest is sufficiently weighty to

tip the scale in his favor, Lee asserts only that “[t]here is simply

no countervailing interest to ‘balance.’” Respondent’s Br. 14.

Lee is wrong. As Zerilli holds, the countervailing interest is the

value, rooted in the First Amendment, of an “unfettered press”

that ensures that citizens are “able to make informed political,

social, and economic choices.” Zerilli, 656 F.2d at 711.

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 7 of 9
GARLAND, Circuit Judge, with whom TATEL, Circuit Judge,

joins, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:

The significance of the court’s decision in this case should

not be underestimated. In many cases involving leaks of

government information concerning identifiable individuals,

those individuals will have viable claims under the Privacy Act.

Moreover, the Act is not limited to private individuals. It is

equally available to public officials -- and to former public

officials -- whether they have been accused of corruption or

merely of incompetence. It would, for example, be available to

former officials seeking to learn who leaked the information that

forced them to resign in their administration’s own Watergate.

Barring an unexpected confession by the leaker, in most

such cases the subject of the leak will be able to satisfy the

centrality and exhaustion requirements cited in the court’s

opinion. Thus, if the reporter’s privilege is limited to those

requirements, it is effectively no privilege at all. Plaintiffs

wielding Privacy Act suits will routinely succeed in putting

reporters who receive whistleblower leaks to the choice of

testifying or going to jail. And bridled by nothing other than

plaintiffs’ private interests, the more such strategies succeed, the

more they will be employed. Indeed, where former officials

have themselves been indicted, they may find that issuing thirdparty subpoenas to reporters in Privacy Act suits usefully

supplements criminal discovery.

All of this is inconsistent with the commitment we made in

Zerilli, where we promised that, “when striking the balance

between the civil litigant’s interest in compelled disclosure and

the public interest in protecting a newspaper’s confidential

sources, we will be mindful of the preferred position of the First

Amendment and the importance of a vigorous press.” Zerilli v.

Smith, 656 F.2d 705, 712 (D.C. Cir. 1981). As we explained:

“[I]f the privilege does not prevail in all but the most

exceptional cases, its value will be substantially diminished.

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 8 of 9
2

Unless potential sources are confident that compelled disclosure

is unlikely, they will be reluctant to disclose any confidential

information to reporters.” Id. And if our case law has that

consequence, it will undermine the Founders’ intention to

protect the press “so that it could bare the secrets of government

and inform the people.” New York Times Co. v. United States,

403 U.S. 713, 717 (Black, J., concurring). 

The only way to render the reporter’s privilege effective in

the face of Privacy Act claims is to include the requirement,

adopted in Zerilli and detailed in Judge Tatel’s dissent, see sep.

op. at 2-3 (Tatel, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en

banc), that the court “weigh[] the public interest in protecting

the reporter’s sources against the private interest in compelling

disclosure,” Zerilli, 656 F.2d at 712. Because that requirement

is absent from the court’s opinion, I would grant the petition for

rehearing en banc.

USCA Case #04-5323 Document #902800 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 9 of 9