Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-97-05199/USCOURTS-caDC-97-05199-0/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 February 2, 1999 Decided March 12, 1999

No. 97-5199

Eduardo J. Frugone,

Appellant

v.

Central Intelligence Agency,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the District of Columbia

(No. 96cv01248)

Bernard Fensterwald, III, argued the cause and filed the

brief for appellant.

Elizabeth Ross Withnell, Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With her on

the brief were Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig

Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Before: Ginsburg, Henderson and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Ginsburg.

Ginsburg, Circuit Judge: Eduardo Frugone, who claims to

have been employed by the Central Intelligence Agency,

asked that agency to provide him with documents related to

his employment. The CIA denied his request, refusing either

to confirm or to deny that it had any information about him.

Frugone then sued the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. s 552, to force it to disclose the information

he sought. The district court granted summary judgment for

the agency on the ground that its response was justified

under Exemptions 1 and 3 to the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. ss 552(b)(1)

and (b)(3). Frugone now appeals, contending that the Government waived its right to withhold the relevant documents

when the Office of Personnel Management sent him a series

of letters that, he alleges, confirmed his status as a former

employee of the CIA. We affirm the judgment of the district

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court.

I. Background

Frugone, a resident of Chile, says he worked for the CIA

for 15 years as a "covert employee." In an effort to secure

retirement benefits from the Government, he contacted the

OPM in 1990. OPM employees wrote him several letters

explaining that, because his records were in the custody of

the CIA, his inquiries should be directed there. A letter from

the OPM Office of Retirement Programs, for example, informed him that "[s]ince your records are currently maintained by the CIA Retirement and Disability System ... we

have forwarded a copy of your correspondence to them."

Frugone then wrote to the CIA directly. In response, he

received a letter from the director of an otherwise unidentified "Office of Independent Contractor Programs," which said

that though Frugone had paid Social Security taxes in the

past, he had not paid them in enough calendar quarters to

make him eligible for benefits. The letter did not identify the

employment with respect to which Frugone had participated

in the Social Security system.

Not satisfied with this answer, Frugone filed a FOIA

request with the CIA for all records pertaining to himself or

to projects with which he was involved while employed by the

agency. When the CIA informed him that it would not be

able to respond to his application within the ten day period

then prescribed by 5 U.S.C. s 552 (a)(6)(A)(i), Frugone filed

this lawsuit. Shortly thereafter, he received a letter from the

CIA formally denying his request. The agency explained

that "except in those instances wherein we have officially

acknowledged a relationship with an individual, we are unable

to so acknowledge."

The CIA then moved for summary judgment, arguing that

its refusal either to confirm or to deny Frugone's employment

was warranted under Exemptions 1 and 3 of the FOIA*

because a more definitive response would contravene the

National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C. s 403-3(c)(6), the

Central Intelligence Act of 1949, id. s 403g, and Executive

Order No. 12,958, 3 C.F.R. 333 (1996). In opposing summary

judgment, Frugone made clear that the only issue before the

court was whether the CIA may give a so-called "Glomar"

response, see Phillippi v. CIA, 546 F.2d 1009, 1011 (D.C. Cir.

1976) (CIA refused to confirm or deny existence of information regarding research vessel Glomar Explorer), where "another Executive Branch agency ... has ... already confirmed that [Frugone] was employed by CIA in the past."

The district court granted the Government's motion for summary judgment "for essentially the reasons advanced by [the

CIA]," and Frugone appealed.

II. Analysis

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We begin by noting the modesty of both the legal argument

Frugone advances and the relief he seeks. No longer does he

__________

* The FOIA does not apply to matters that are:

(1)(A) specifically authorized under criteria established by an

Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national

defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact properly classified

pursuant to such Executive order; [or] ...

(3) specifically exempted from disclosure by statute ... provided that such statute (A) requires that the matters be withheld

from the public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on

the issue, or (B) establishes particular criteria for withholding

or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld....

demand all records concerning himself and any projects with

which he was purportedly associated; he would now be

satisfied with an acknowledgment that the CIA employed him

at one time and that it currently has custody of his personnel

file. Moreover, he does not deny that under Exemptions 1

and 3 the CIA could, in the usual case, refuse to make even

those disclosures. Instead, his sole claim on appeal is that

because in this case the OPM acknowledged the existence of

his relationship with the CIA, so too must the CIA.

Newly limited though it is, Frugone's claim still does not

succeed. His argument begins and ends with the proposition

that the Government waives its right to invoke an otherwise

applicable exemption to the FOIA when it makes an "official

and documented" disclosure of the information being sought.

Fitzgibbon v. CIA, 911 F.2d 755, 765 (D.C. Cir. 1990). That

observation is inapplicable to the present case, however, for

we do not deem "official" a disclosure made by someone other

than the agency from which the information is being sought.

See, e.g., id. at 765-66 (CIA could refuse to disclose classified

information even if already reported in congressional committee report); Afshar v. Department of State, 702 F.2d 1125,

1133 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (same, regarding information reported

in book by former CIA official); Phillippi v. CIA, 655 F.2d

1325, 1330-31 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (same, regarding information

reported in book by former Director of Central Intelligence);

Salisbury v. United States, 690 F.2d 966, 971 (D.C. Cir. 1982)

("[B]are discussions by this court and the Congress of [the

National Security Agency's] methods generally cannot be

equated with disclosure by the agency itself of its methods of

information gathering"); accord, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. v.

Colby, 509 F.2d 1362, 1370 (4th Cir. 1975) ("It is one thing for

a reporter or author to speculate or guess that a thing may be

so or even, quoting undisclosed sources, to say that it is so; it

is quite another thing for one in a position to know of it

officially to say that it is so").

Frugone protests that in each of our prior cases the

information at issue reached the public by way of the Congress or the media; a different result would have obtained, he

suggests, had the initial disclosure been made by an agency of

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the Executive Branch, such as the OPM here. Neither law

nor logic supports that position, however.

In Military Audit Project v. Casey, 656 F.2d 724 (1981),

this court rejected a claim that because the National Science

Foundation had already issued a memorandum describing the

function of the once-secret vessel Glomar Explorer, the CIA

could not invoke an otherwise applicable exemption to the

FOIA with respect to the same information. Because CIA

officials stated in affidavits that confirmation of the purpose

of the craft would remove any "lingering doubts" that a

foreign intelligence service might have on the subject, and

that the perpetuation of such doubts may be an important

means of protecting national security, release of the requested material would still have had national security significance.

Id. at 745. Even if the NSF memorandum was correct,

therefore, we concluded that its disclosure did not affect the

CIA's right to invoke Exemptions 1 and 3 of the FOIA. See

id. at 742-45.

The rationale of our decision in Military Audit Project

applies with equal force to the present case. The CIA has

again submitted an affidavit persuasively describing, both

generally and with reference to this case, the untoward

consequences that could ensue were it required either to

confirm or to deny statements made by another agency. If,

for instance, the CIA were officially to admit that it had

employed Frugone (assuming it had), that could cause greater

diplomatic tension between Chile and the United States than

do the informal, and possibly erroneous, statements already

made by the OPM; alternatively, if the CIA were officially to

deny that it had employed Frugone (assuming it had not),

that would lessen the burden facing a foreign intelligence

agency attempting to track the CIA's covert activities abroad.

Whatever the true state of affairs, therefore, the CIA avers

that requiring it to break its silence upon the subject of

whether it had employed Frugone would harm the interests

of the United States.

Mindful that courts have little expertise in either international diplomacy or counterintelligence operations, we are in

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no position to dismiss the CIA's facially reasonable concerns.

See id. at 745 (government affidavits regarding harm that

disclosure could cause to national security entitled to "substantial weight"). Consequently, we cannot treat the statements of the OPM upon which Frugone relies as tantamount

to an official statement of the CIA.

Not only is Frugone's argument foreclosed by precedent, it

is also difficult to square with the National Security Act,

which requires the Director of Central Intelligence to "protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure." 50 U.S.C. s 403-3 (c)(6). Common sense suggests

that the DCI must have authority to maintain secrecy commensurate with this responsibility. If Frugone were right,

however, then other agencies of the Executive Branch--

including those with no duties related to national security--

could obligate agencies with responsibility in that sphere to

reveal classified information. We think it very unlikely that

the Congress intended the FOIA to create such an anomalous

result. Accordingly, we hold that only the CIA can waive its

right to assert an exemption to the FOIA.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district

court is

Affirmed.

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