Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-04-05406/USCOURTS-caDC-04-05406-0/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 13, 2006 Decided August 22, 2006

No. 04-5406

JOHN DAVIS,

APPELLANT

v.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 88cv00130)

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

appellant.

Heather Graham-Oliver, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued

the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, and Michael J. Ryan, Assistant U.S.

Attorney. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered

an appearance.

Before: RANDOLPH and GARLAND, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

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1

See Oxford English Dictionary Online, http://www.oed.com

(defining “Google” as “to use the Google search engine to find

information on the Internet”).

GARLAND, Circuit Judge: This case involves four

audiotapes recorded more than twenty-five years ago during an

FBI corruption investigation in Louisiana. The plaintiff, an

author, seeks release of the tapes under the Freedom of

Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552. There are two

speakers on the tapes, one a “prominent individual” who was a

subject of the FBI’s investigation, and the other an “undercover

informant” in that investigation. The only question on this

appeal is whether the FBI has undertaken reasonable steps to

determine whether the speakers are now dead, in which event

the privacy interests weighing against release would be

diminished.

The FBI has not been able to determine whether either

speaker is dead or alive. It says it cannot determine whether the

speakers are over 100 years old (and thus presumed dead under

FBI practice), because neither mentioned his birth date during

the conversations that were surreptitiously recorded. It says it

cannot determine whether the speakers are dead by referring to

a Social Security database, because neither announced his social

security number during the conversations. And it declines to

search its own files for the speakers’ birth dates or social

security numbers, because that is not its practice. The Bureau

does not appear to have contemplated other ways of determining

whether the speakers are dead, such as Googling them.1

We conclude that the FBI has not “made a reasonable effort

to ascertain” whether the two speakers, on whose behalf it has

invoked a privacy exemption from FOIA, are living or dead.

Schrecker v. Dep’t of Justice, 349 F.3d 657, 662 (D.C. Cir.

2003) (“Schrecker II”). As a consequence, there is a serious

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2

The convictions were later overturned on collateral review. See

United States v. Marcello, 876 F.2d 1147 (5th Cir. 1989).

“‘question whether the Bureau’s invocation of the privacy

interest represented a reasonable response to the FOIA

request.’” Id. (quoting Summers v. Dep’t of Justice, 140 F.3d

1077, 1085 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (Williams, J., concurring)). We

therefore reverse the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s

FOIA complaint and remand for further proceedings.

I

This is the fourth time we have considered an appeal arising

out of the FOIA dispute between Davis and the FBI. In 1986,

Davis submitted a FOIA request for all audiotapes recorded

during an FBI criminal investigation known as “BRILAB.”

That investigation, conducted during 1979-80, concerned

bribery and racketeering activities among organized crime

figures, politicians, and labor unions in Louisiana. The

investigation led to the indictment of five individuals, two of

whom were ultimately convicted -- including reputed Mafia boss

Carlos Marcello.2

 Portions of more than 130 BRILAB tape

recordings were played at the defendants’ 1981 trial. Davis

sought the tapes as background for a book he subsequently

published in 1989. See JOHN H. DAVIS, MAFIA KINGFISH:

CARLOS MARCELLO AND THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F.

KENNEDY (McGraw-Hill 1989).

After the government refused to release the tapes, Davis

brought suit pursuant to FOIA. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).

The government contended that each tape was properly withheld

under one or more statutory exemptions, but the district court

concluded that material “unconditionally revealed in open court

. . . enter[s] the public domain beyond recall for all time” and

therefore cannot be withheld under FOIA. Davis v. Dep’t of

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Justice, No. 88-0130, Order at 3 (D.D.C. May 6, 1991).

Although the government argued that it was no longer possible

to determine which of a “play list” of 163 taped excerpts had

actually been played in the courtroom, the district court held that

the government bore the burden of showing that the tapes had

not entered the public record and must “suffer the consequences

of the impasse.” Id. at 4. The court ordered release of all the

tapes.

On appeal, this court reversed. See Davis v. Dep’t of

Justice, 968 F.2d 1276, 1282 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (“Davis I”). We

held that, while the ultimate burden of persuasion remains on the

government, “a party who asserts that material is publicly

available carries the burden of production on that issue.” Davis

I, 968 F.2d at 1279 (emphasis omitted). We then remanded to

give Davis an opportunity to show that the tapes he sought, or

portions of them, were played at the trial. Id. at 1282.

In an effort to meet his burden under Davis I, Davis

produced docket entries and transcripts from the Marcello trial.

In response, the FBI released 157 of the 163 tapes and said it

would have released another tape but could not find it. The FBI

continued to withhold the five remaining tapes on the basis of

FOIA Exemption 7(C), which permits an agency to withhold

otherwise disclosable records if they were “compiled for law

enforcement purposes” and their release “could reasonably be

expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal

privacy.” See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C). The district court

sustained the FBI’s actions. See Davis v. Dep’t of Justice, No.

88-0130, Order at 15 (D.D.C. Oct. 16, 1997).

Davis appealed a second time. In Davis II, we upheld the

district court’s determination that the FBI’s search for the

missing tape was adequate. See Davis v. Dep’t of Justice, 1998

WL 545422, at *1 (D.C. Cir. July 31, 1998) (“Davis II”). We

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again remanded, however, this time for the court to determine

“whether any of the five tapes withheld in their entirety . . .

contains material that can be segregated and disclosed without

unwarrantably impinging upon anyone’s privacy.” Id. 

On remand, the FBI determined that it could release one of

the five tapes because the principal speaker on the tape had died.

But the Bureau concluded that the remaining four tapes were

wholly subject to Exemption 7(C), because it could not

determine whether the speakers on those tapes were living or

dead. See Decl. of Scott A. Hodes ¶¶ 5, 7 (Nov. 24, 1998).

Citing an FBI affidavit, see id. ¶ 7, the district court held that the

“defendant has made adequate efforts to establish that the

speakers on these tapes are not deceased.” Davis v. Dep’t of

Justice, No. 88-0130, Order at 2 (D.D.C. Sept. 15, 2000). 

Once again, Davis appealed. In Davis III, we summarily

reversed the district court and again remanded the case. See

Davis v. Dep’t of Justice, 2001 WL 1488882, at *1 (D.C. Cir.

Oct. 17, 2001) (“Davis III”). “The FBI’s affidavit,” we held,

was “insufficient to determine the extent of the Bureau’s efforts

to ascertain whether putative beneficiaries of Exemption 7(C)

are alive or dead.” Id. As a consequence, we were “unable to

say ‘whether the Government reasonably balanced the interests

in personal privacy against the public interest in release of the

information at issue.’” Id. (quoting Schrecker v. Dep’t of

Justice, 254 F.3d 162, 167 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (“Schrecker I”)).

Citing our recent opinion in Schrecker v. Department of Justice,

we remanded so that “the FBI may document what sources 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).’” Id. (quoting Schrecker I, 254 F.3d at 167).

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Following our remand order, the FBI filed two more

affidavits, spelling out the steps it took to determine whether the

speakers were dead or alive, and declaring that those steps did

not establish that the speakers on the tapes were deceased. See

Second Decl. of Scott A. Hodes (Feb. 26, 2002); Third Decl. of

Scott A. Hodes (July 11, 2002). We detail those steps in Part

II.A below. The FBI’s filings make clear that there are only

“two speakers on the audiotapes at issue.” Def.’s Mot. for

Recons. at 3 (citing Fourth Decl. of Scott A. Hodes ¶ 4 (Aug. 7,

2002)). According to the government, the four tapes come from

the FBI’s undercover investigation of a “prominent individual,”

and the speakers are that “prominent individual and the

undercover informant.” Appellee’s Br. 11 (citing affidavits). 

In July 2002, unsatisfied with the government’s efforts, the

district court ordered the FBI to advise each of the two speakers,

“by first class mail[,] . . . of defendant’s obligation pursuant to

this Order to [release the tapes] unless the speaker objects

thereto in writing within 30 days.” Davis v. Dep’t of Justice,

No. 88-0130, Order at 1 (D.D.C. July 23, 2002). More than a

year later, after this court issued a subsequent opinion in the

Schrecker case, see Schrecker II, 349 F.3d at 657, the

government asked the district court to reconsider that order. On

August 31, 2004, the court granted the motion to reconsider,

“relieve[d] the government from undertaking the additional

tasks mandated” in its July 2002 order, and granted summary

judgment in favor of the FBI. Davis v. Dep’t of Justice, No. 88-

0130, Order at 1 (D.D.C. Aug 31, 2004).

Davis then filed his fourth notice of appeal, challenging

both the district court’s grant of summary judgment dismissing

his FOIA complaint, and an earlier order denying his motion for

an award of attorney’s fees. We consider the former in Part II

and the latter in Part III. We “review de novo a decision

granting summary judgment to an agency claiming to have

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complied with FOIA.” Schrecker II, 349 F.3d at 661-62. We

also review de novo a district court’s attorney’s fees

determination, like the one at issue here, that “rests on an

interpretation of the statutory terms that define eligibility for an

award.” Edmonds v. FBI, 417 F.3d 1319, 1322 (D.C. Cir. 2005)

(internal quotation marks omitted).

II

FOIA Exemption 7(C) exempts law enforcement records

from release “to the extent that” release “could reasonably be

expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal

privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C). In deciding whether the

release of particular information constitutes an “unwarranted”

invasion of privacy, an agency must balance the privacy interest

at stake against the public interest in disclosure. See

Department of Justice v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the

Press, 489 U.S. 749, 777 (1989); Schrecker I, 254 F.3d at 166.

We have recognized “that the privacy interest in nondisclosure

of identifying information may be diminished where the

individual is deceased.” Schrecker II, 349 F.3d at 661. Indeed,

the “fact of death, . . . while not requiring the release of

information, is a relevant factor to be taken into account in the

balancing decision whether to release information.” Id. (quoting

Schrecker I, 254 F.3d at 166). Consequently, “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.” Schrecker I, 254 F.3d at 167.

The government’s obligation in this regard is to “ma[k]e a

reasonable effort to ascertain life status.” Schrecker II, 349 F.3d

at 662. Its “efforts must be assessed in light of the accessibility

of the relevant information.” Id. As we said in Schrecker II,

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3

We measure the reasonable sufficiency of the government’s

effort on the basis of the aggregate of the steps it took, not on the basis

of any individual step alone.

there “‘would be a question whether the Bureau’s invocation of

the privacy interest represented a reasonable response to the

FOIA request . . . if the Bureau has, or has ready access to, data

bases that could resolve the issue.’” Id. (quoting Summers, 140

F.3d at 1085 (Williams, J., concurring)) (emphasis added in

Schrecker II). In short, “the proper inquiry is whether the

Government has made reasonable use of the information readily

available to it, and whether there exist reasonable alternative

methods that the Government failed to employ.” Schrecker II,

349 F.3d at 662.

A

The government’s affidavits and pleadings declare that the

FBI took three steps to determine whether the two speakers on

the tapes were deceased. The Bureau reports that, because those

individuals’ deaths could not “be ascertained” by these methods,

“the four tapes were withheld in full pursuant to exemption

b(7)(C).” Second Hodes Decl. ¶ 8. Of course, “[t]he failure to

discover the information sought is not conclusive evidence that

the agency has failed to make a reasonable effort.” Schrecker II,

349 F.3d at 662. Here, however, the government’s own

declarations provide that evidence.3

1. The government describes the first method it employed

in the following paragraph from its principal affidavit:

The FBI has institutional knowledge of the death of

certain individuals from the processing of prior FOIA

requests or internal records. The FBI relies on this

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4

Subsequently, the FBI did conduct one search of its internal

records. According to another affidavit, the FBI searched a specific

index in its Criminal Justice Information Service Division for the

names of the speakers. However, “the only individuals . . . within the

index[] are those whose fingerprints are taken from corpses by law

enforcement personnel.” Third Hodes Decl. ¶ 4. There was no reason

-- or at least none has been offered -- to suggest that a search of this

index was likely to be productive, and apparently it was not.

institutional knowledge, as well as Who Was Who, a

book of famous individuals [who have died].

Second Hodes Decl ¶ 5. From this description, it appears that

the government’s first step involved resort to two different

sources: institutional knowledge and Who Was Who.

If the FBI truly used its “institutional knowledge” to

determine whether the speakers were dead or alive, this first step

might well be reasonable. But the Bureau’s method of accessing

that knowledge is so constrained as to render it effectively

useless. Although the affidavit could be read as suggesting that

the FBI uses its “internal records” to determine an individual’s

status, the same affidavit indicates that the Bureau did not search

any records that were not themselves “responsive” to Davis’

FOIA request -- that is, it did not search any records other than

the audiotapes themselves. See Second Hodes Decl. ¶¶ 6, 7.4

Needless to say, the tapes themselves disclose nothing on this

point, other than that the speakers were alive when they were

speaking sometime during 1979-80. 

The only other piece of “institutional knowledge”

mentioned in the FBI’s description is knowledge gained from

“the processing of prior FOIA requests.” Second Hodes Decl.

¶ 5. We have no idea what that means. On its face, however, its

utility must depend upon there having been a prior FOIA request

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5

Marquis Who’s Who, LLC, Home Page, http://www.

marquiswhoswho.com.

involving the same individuals. The FBI does not suggest that

there had ever been such a request.

If the FBI’s reference to its institutional knowledge means

anything more than what we have just described, we cannot

determine that from the affidavit the Bureau filed. What we said

of an earlier affidavit in this case, one that made a similar

reference to the FBI’s “institutional knowledge,” remains

equally true regarding this affidavit’s treatment of that subject:

“The FBI’s affidavit is insufficient to determine the extent of the

Bureau’s efforts to ascertain whether putative beneficiaries of

Exemption 7(C) are alive or dead.” Davis III, 2001 WL

1488882, at *1. Indeed, with respect to the FBI’s reliance on its

institutional knowledge, it appears that the Bureau has “been

completely passive on the issue, taking death into account only

if the fact has happened to swim into [its agents’] line of vision.”

Summers, 140 F.3d at 1085 (Williams, J., concurring); see also

Schrecker I, 254 F.3d at 167 (reversing and remanding the

district court’s judgment regarding the applicability of

Exemption 7(C) because the FBI’s affidavit was too vague to

determine if the agency had taken “certain basic steps to

ascertain whether an individual was dead or alive”).

The other source mentioned in the FBI’s affidavit is Who

Was Who, a multi-volume set of books published periodically by

Marquis Who’s Who, LLC. Each new volume “includes the

biographies of the most prominent and noteworthy people who

have died since the publication of the previous edition.”5

 It is a

select company: of the more than 7.2 million Americans who

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6

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Deaths:

Final Data for 2002, NAT’L VITAL STAT. REP., Oct. 12, 2004, at 1;

CDC, Deaths: Final Data for 2001, NAT’L VITAL STAT. REP., Sept.

18, 2003, at 1; CDC, Deaths: Final Data for 2000, NAT’L VITAL

STAT. REP., Sept. 16, 2002, at 1.

died during 2000-02,6 for example, no more than 4000 are

portrayed in the Who Was Who volume covering that period.

See 14 WHO WAS WHO IN AMERICA, 2000-02 (2002). How one

earns a place in it is unclear, although Marquis reports that most

of the entries were originally listed with the subjects’ permission

in its sister Who’s Who in America publication, and that many

of the biographies “have been scrutinized and revised by

relatives or legal representatives of the deceased Biographee.”

Id. at vi. All of this suggests both considerable self-selection

and considerable lag time.

The government describes one of the two speakers at issue

here as a “prominent individual” and the other as an “undercover

informant.” Appellee’s Br. 11. The latter seems unlikely to

qualify for the distinction of a Who Was Who entry, and we have

no way of knowing whether the former was prominent enough

to qualify. Accordingly, we cannot conclude that the FBI’s first

method -- reference to its institutional knowledge and to Who

Was Who -- was reasonably calculated to determine whether the

speakers on the tapes were living or dead.

2. The government describes the second method it

employed as follows:

When birth dates are provided in responsive records,

and these dates indicate the individual would be over

100 years of age, the name and/or any other identifiers

will be released. Although the FBI is aware that many

individuals live to be older than 100 years of age, . . .

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7

Although a tape might also reveal a speaker’s birth date if that

date were inscribed on the outside of the cassette that holds the tape,

the government provides no information as to whether that is ever the

case.

the FBI has consistently relied upon the 100-year rule

in all of its FOIA processing.

Second Hodes Decl. ¶ 6 (emphasis added). The key to the utility

of the FBI’s 100-year rule is the clause that we have italicized.

As explained above, when the FBI refers to “responsive

records,” it means those records -- and only those records --

actually sought in the FOIA request. In this case, the only

responsive records were the audiotapes, and “there were no birth

dates on these tapes.” Second Hodes Decl. ¶ 6. Therefore, the

affidavit concludes, since “no birth dates were provided in the

responsive records, the FBI did not assume death of the

individuals speaking on these tapes.” Id.

The reasonableness of this second method obviously

depends upon the probability that the responsive records will

contain the individual’s birth date -- as might well be the case if

the records sought by the FOIA requester were FBI investigative

reports or personnel files. But unless the FBI has tape recorded

a birthday party, it seems highly unlikely that the participants in

an audiotaped conversation would have announced their ages or

dates of birth.7

 Accordingly, this second method was also

destined to fail, as it did.

3. The third method the FBI used was the following:

If a social security number is revealed on the

responsive records, the FBI, in its administrative

discretion, may check the Social Security Death Index

(SSDI) -- a database maintained by a third party on the

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Internet. This website is maintained by a private

individual, and the FBI cannot verify or vouch for the

accuracy of this index, which the website purchases

from the Social Security Administration.

Second Hodes Decl. ¶ 7 (emphasis added). Once again, the rub

is that the FBI will not even check the Social Security Death

Index unless the speaker’s social security number is revealed on

responsive records. See id. (declaring that the “FBI does not

research third-party names internally to discover social security”

numbers). As expected, the FBI reports that, because “[t]his

case concerns audio tapes,” and “[a]s no social security numbers

are on the tapes at issue, this website [the SSDI] was not

checked.” Needless to say, no one announces his or her social

security number in ordinary conversation -- not even at a

birthday party. Accordingly, the Bureau again utilized a method

that could not help but fail in the circumstances of this case.

4. As we have discussed, none of the three methods used by

the FBI had any likelihood of discovering whether the two

individuals, whose conversations were captured by the

audiotapes in question, were living or dead. Indeed, if the FBI

limits itself to those methods in the future, it is doubtful that it

will ever be able to discover the status of a speaker on an

audiotape. Although futility alone may not render the FBI’s

efforts unreasonable, it surely is an important factor in the

equation. 

The other factor we must consider is “whether the

Government has made reasonable use of the information readily

available to it, and whether there exist reasonable alternative

methods that the Government failed to employ.” Schrecker II,

349 F.3d at 662. As we have said, the question is whether “the

Bureau has, or has ready access to, data bases that could

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8

See, e.g., Blanton v. Dep’t of Justice, 64 Fed. Appx. 787, 788

(D.C. Cir. 2003) (noting that the FBI maintained “informant files”

relating to an investigation); Perri v. United States, 53 Fed. Cl. 381,

395-96 (2002) (noting that the FBI maintained a “137 (Confidential

Informant) File” and a “270 (Cooperative Witness) File” in an

undercover operation); Meeropol v. Meese, 790 F.2d 942, 947 (D.C.

Cir. 1986) (noting that the FBI maintained “subject files” regarding

eleven named principals).

9

See Wheeler v. Dep’t of Justice, 403 F. Supp. 2d 1, 4 (D.D.C.

2005) (noting that, through ELSUR, “the FBI maintains information

on all subjects whose electronic and/or voice communications have

been intercepted by the FBI since January 1, 1960,” and that ELSUR

can be searched by name, “date of birth, place of birth and social

security number”); see also Campbell v. Dep’t of Justice, 164 F.3d 20,

resolve the issue.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We

now consider some of the alternatives the FBI failed to employ.

Turning first to the FBI’s internal records, we cannot

conclude that the government “made reasonable use” of its own

information in this case. The flaw in the government’s 100-year

rule and Social Security Death Index methodologies -- at least

as far as audiotapes are concerned -- is that the Bureau refused

to look anywhere but in the tapes themselves to discover the

speakers’ birth dates or social security numbers. This meant

that, even if those personal identifiers were present in other FBI

records, the FBI would not have found them. In this case, it is

not unlikely that such other records do exist. In an FBI

undercover operation like BRILAB, for example, one would

expect to find investigative reports that list the various players

(witnesses, informants, subjects, targets) and identifying

information about them.8

 The FBI’s Electronic Surveillance

(ELSUR) indices also may well contain the necessary personal

identifiers for the two individuals, whose voices were captured

by electronic surveillance.9

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29 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (remanding with instructions that the FBI search

its ELSUR records).

The FBI has neither denied that it has such records nor

suggested that it would be difficult to access them in this case.

To the contrary, yet another FBI affidavit explains that the

Bureau’s Central Records System (CRS) contains “all pertinent

information which it has acquired in the course of fulfilling its

mandated law enforcement responsibilities,” and makes clear

that much of that system can be searched by an individual’s

name. Fourth Hodes Decl. ¶ 7. For example, with respect to

FBI Headquarters: 

Communications directed to FBIHQ from the various

field offices . . . are filed in the pertinent case files and

indexed to the names of individuals, groups, or

organizations which are listed in the case caption(s) or

title(s) as a subject(s), a suspect(s), or as a victim(s).

Therefore, for example, a search made in this index to

locate records concerning a particular individual

would be made by searching the name of that

individual in the index. 

Id. ¶ 8 (emphasis added). And similarly, with respect to FBI

field offices:

Access to the CRS files at FBI field divisions is also

afforded by the General Indices (automated and

manual), which are likewise arranged in alphabetical

order, and consist of an index on various subjects,

including the names of individuals and organizations.

Searches made in the General Indices to locate records

concerning a particular subject, such as John Doe, are

made by searching the subject requested in the index.

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Indexing functions have been automated by field

divisions.

Id. ¶ 9 (emphasis added). 

It is plain, then, that the FBI could have searched its files by

the names of the two speakers -- one the subject of a criminal

investigation, the other an informant -- to determine whether

records in those files disclose their dates of birth or social

security numbers (or even their deaths). But the FBI did not do

so. See Second Hodes Decl. ¶¶ 6, 7. The Bureau gave no reason

at all for not searching its records for the speakers’ birth dates,

and only one reason for not searching for their social security

numbers: 

The FBI does not research third-party names internally

to discover social security [numbers] because to do so

would violate these third parties’ privacy rights. The

records that may possess these individual[s’] social

security numbers were created for law enforcement

purposes; they were not created for the purpose of

ascertaining whether individuals contained in FBI

records are still alive.

Second Hodes Decl. ¶ 7. We expressly rejected this precise

rationale (asserted by the same FBI declarant) in Schrecker II,

saying: “We fail to see how the purpose for which an internal

record was created bears on whether searching the record for an

individual’s social security number would violate that

individual’s privacy.” 349 F.3d at 664.

Turning from the FBI’s own databases to those it “has

ready access to,” id. at 662 (internal quotation marks omitted),

we have to ask why the FBI limited itself to Who Was Who. The

fact that the Bureau uses such an outside source indicates that

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17

10That is particularly so here, since an FBI affidavit declared that

the Bureau knew the “prominent individual” at issue was alive as

recently as 1994. Decl. of Robert A. Moran ¶ 19 (Oct. 21, 1994).

(How the FBI knew the individual was living in 1994, but could not

determine whether he was living or dead by 1998, remains a mystery.)

there is no bar to its doing so. And apparently the biographies

of the decedents contained in those books make it possible to

determine that the “John Doe” for whom the FBI is searching is

the same John Doe whose death is there reported. See infra Part

II.B.

But if that is so, one has to ask why -- in the age of the

Internet -- the FBI restricts itself to a dead-tree source with a

considerable time lag between death and publication, with

limited utility for the FBI’s purpose, and with entries restricted

to a small fraction of even the “prominent and noteworthy”?

Why, in short, doesn’t the FBI just Google the two names?

Surely, in the Internet age, a “reasonable alternative” for finding

out whether a prominent person is dead is to use Google (or any

other search engine) to find a report of that person’s death.10

Moreover, while finding a death notice for the second speaker --

the informant -- may be harder (assuming that he was not

prominent), Googling also provides ready access to hundreds of

websites collecting obituaries from all over the country, any one

of which might resolve that speaker’s status as well. See, e.g.,

http://www.legacy.com (hosting the obituary sites of more than

275 newspapers, including three Louisiana papers); http://www.

obituarycentral.com (containing a directory of links to online

obituaries and death notices in every state). 

We do not suggest that the FBI must use one, or any, of the

search methods outlined above. But when the only search

methods the FBI did employ were plainly fated to reach a dead

end (in a manner of speaking), and when there appear to be

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reasonable alternatives that the government failed to consider,

there is a serious “question whether the Bureau’s invocation of

the privacy interest represented a reasonable response to the

FOIA request.” Schrecker II, 349 F.3d at 662 (internal

quotation marks omitted). This a question that has not yet been

answered, and that the district court must address on remand.

B

The government does not dispute that the steps the FBI took

to determine whether the speakers on the audiotapes were dead

could not reasonably be expected to answer that question. Nor

does it contend that resort to any of the alternatives identified

above would be burdensome on the facts of this case. Instead,

its argument is simply that “the steps taken by the FBI here were

the same taken by the FBI in Schrecker II,” and that because we

affirmed the grant of summary judgment for the government

there, we must do so here as well. Appellee’s Br. 9; see Oral

Arg. Tape at 29:15-34:12 (confirming the government’s view

that the FBI does not have to search for the speakers’ birth dates

or social security numbers, even if it knows they can quickly be

found by a name search, because “there is no obligation under

Schrecker to conduct additional searches” of nonresponsive

records). That is a serious misreading of Schrecker II.

It is true that the three methods the FBI employed to

determine whether individuals mentioned in responsive records

in Schrecker II were dead are the same as those it employed in

this case. See Schrecker II, 349 F.3d at 660. It is also true that

we affirmed summary judgment in that case, holding, in

particular, that the Bureau did not have to examine

nonresponsive internal records for the mentioned individuals’

birth dates or social security numbers. Id. at 663-65. But

Schrecker II did not purport to affirm a set of search

methodologies as per se sufficient to satisfy the “reasonable

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efforts” standard. Id. at 662. To the contrary, we noted that the

“‘adequacy of an agency’s search is measured by a standard of

reasonableness, and is dependent upon the circumstances of the

case.’” Id. at 663 (quoting Truitt v. Dep’t of State, 897 F.2d

540, 542 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (additional quotation marks omitted).

And we expressly “cautioned . . . that it would be inappropriate

for the court to mandate ‘a bright-line set of steps for an agency

to take in this situation,’” because FOIA requires “‘both

systemic and case-specific exercises of discretion and

administrative judgment and expertise.’” Id. at 662 (quoting

Johnson v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, 310 F.3d 771,

776 (D.C. Cir. 2002)).

Our determination in Schrecker II, that in that case the FBI

had reasonably decided to examine only responsive records for

birth dates and social security numbers, is distinguishable from

this case in two important respects. First, Schrecker involved a

FOIA request not for audiotapes, but for documents. Although

there is virtually no chance that a speaker will announce those

personal identifiers during an oral conversation, there is a

reasonable probability that they will be contained in responsive

documents. Indeed, in Schrecker II itself, the FBI found the

birth dates and social security numbers of at least some of the

mentioned individuals in a search of responsive pages. 349 F.3d

at 663, 664.

Second, at issue in Schrecker II were 113 names appearing

in over 24,000 responsive documents, making a search of

nonresponsive documents for personal identifiers “unduly

burdensome.” Id. at 664. That burden was magnified by the

fact that the 113 names were not those of the subjects of an FBI

investigation, but rather were merely mentioned in documents

relating to that investigation. This meant that “any name-based

search would likely encounter . . . duplication” of common

names, “making verification difficult or impossible.” Id. It also

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meant that the prospects of success were “dubious.” Id. Under

those circumstances, we held that to “require the Government to

shoulder such a potentially onerous task . . . goes well beyond

the ‘reasonable effort’ demanded in this context.” Id.

But Davis’ FOIA request entails no such burden. Here,

there are only two names and only four responsive records.

Those two names belong to the prominent subject of a major

FBI investigation, and to the FBI’s own undercover informant.

Given the Bureau’s knowledge of their biographies, even if

those individuals have common names, verification that a namebased search has produced records that relate to them would be

neither “difficult [n]or impossible.” Id. While there may be

thousands of John Does, there are unlikely to be thousands

connected with the BRILAB investigation. And given the fact

that the FBI maintains name-specific records regarding its

subjects and informants, see Fourth Hodes Decl. ¶¶ 8, 9 (quoted

supra Part II.A.4); cases cited supra notes 8 & 9, here a namebased search would not have “dubious prospects of success.”

Schrecker II, 349 F.3d at 664. 

Indeed, the request in this case looks less like the one at

issue in Schrecker II and more like one that Schrecker II

expressly distinguished. The latter involved another FOIA

request by Ellen Schrecker, for documents relating to Joseph

Fischetti, a Chicago-based organized-crime figure. As we

explained, “Fischetti was the sole subject of that FOIA request,

not one of a multitude of third parties appearing in responsive

documents.” Id. at 664 (emphasis in original). The request in

Schrecker II was different, we said, because “[w]hile it may be

reasonable to pursue internal research to determine whether a

single subject is the same individual shown by the [Social

Security Death Index] to be deceased, . . . it would be unduly

burdensome to require the Government [to] do so for the large

number of third parties appearing in documents responsive to

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11We note the possibility that a FOIA requester could attempt to

circumvent this distinction by slicing a single request for many names

into multiple requests of one name each. We are confident, however,

that a district court would be able to see through such a ruse.

Schrecker’s request.” Id. Davis’ request, involving only two

names in four audiotapes, is far closer to the Fischetti request

than to the one we dismissed in Schrecker II.11

To repeat what we said at the beginning of this subpart,

there is no “bright-line set of steps for an agency to take in this

situation.” Id. at 662 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Rather, the “adequacy of an agency’s search is measured by a

standard of reasonableness, and is dependent upon the

circumstances of the case.” Id. at 663 (internal quotation marks

omitted). In determining whether an agency’s search is

reasonable, a court must consider the likelihood that it will yield

the sought-after information, the existence of readily available

alternatives, and the burden of employing those alternatives. In

this case, the methodology employed by the agency was

extremely unlikely to produce the needed information, and it

appears -- although we do not know for certain -- that there are

readily available alternatives that would not impose an undue

burden on the government. We remand to permit the agency an

opportunity to evaluate the alternatives, and either to conduct a

further search or to explain satisfactorily why it should not be

required to do so.

III

Finally, we address Davis’ request for an award of

attorney’s fees, which the district court denied on the authority

of this circuit’s decision in Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers

International Union, AFL-CIO v. Department of Energy, 288

F.3d 452 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (“OCAW”). See Davis, Order at 2

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12At issue in Buckhannon were provisions of the Fair Housing

Amendments Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3613(c)(2), and the Americans with

Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12205.

(July 23, 2002). The district court’s denial was correct. OCAW

forecloses a decision in Davis’ favor.

FOIA provides that a district court “may assess against the

United States reasonable attorney fees . . . reasonably incurred

in any case under this section in which the complainant has

substantially prevailed.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E) (emphasis

added). In Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West

Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources, 532 U.S.

598 (2001), the Supreme Court construed the attorney’s fees

provision of two other statutes that permit courts to award fees

to a “prevailing party.”12 The Court rejected the plaintiffs’

contention, which it characterized as the “catalyst theory,” that

“a plaintiff is a ‘prevailing party’ if it achieves the desired result

because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the

defendant’s conduct.” Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 601. Rather,

the Court ruled that, for a litigant to be a “prevailing party,”

there must have been a “judicially sanctioned change in the legal

relationship of the parties.” Id. at 605. “[E]nforceable

judgments on the merits and court-ordered consent decrees,” the

Court said, suffice to create such a change. Id. at 604.

In OCAW, this circuit extended the holding of Buckhannon

to the fee-shifting provision of FOIA. 288 F.3d at 454-57. The

OCAW court concluded that “the ‘substantially prevail’

language in FOIA [is] the functional equivalent of the

‘prevailing party’ language found in” the statutes interpreted in

Buckhannon. Id. at 455-56. It “therefore h[e]ld that in order for

plaintiffs in FOIA actions to become eligible for an award of

attorney’s fees, they must have ‘been awarded some relief by [a]

court,’ either in a judgment on the merits or in a court-ordered

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13See OCAW, 288 F.3d at 458 (holding that an order directing the

government to review documents by a specified date did not qualify

the plaintiffs as “prevailing,” because it did “not order[] the [agency]

to turn over any documents” or “disallow any of the [agency’s]

justifications for exempting documents, or portions of documents,

from disclosure”).

consent decree.” Id. at 456-57 (quoting Buckhannon, 532 U.S.

at 603) (emphasis added).

Davis’ problem is that, although to date he has received a

total of 158 tapes from the government, none were produced as

the result of a “judgment on the merits” or a “court-ordered

consent decree.” Id. at 457. It is true that, in 1991, he did

secure such a judgment from the district court, directing the FBI

to release 163 tapes. But that judgment was reversed by this

court in Davis I, and the government’s subsequent release of 157

of those tapes -- after the FBI determined that they had been

played at the trial -- was not made pursuant to any judgment or

order. Similarly, although Davis II remanded for the district

court to determine whether any of the remaining tapes contained

material that could be segregated, Davis II, 1998 WL 545422, at

*1, such a remand is insufficient to satisfy the OCAW test.13 The

FBI’s subsequent release of an additional tape (after determining

that the speaker was dead) similarly was not pursuant to a

judgment or order. 

Davis appears to recognize the futility of his effort to

distinguish OCAW, as his brief devotes considerably more pages

to arguing that OCAW was wrongly decided than to arguing that

it can be distinguished. See Appellant’s Br. 24-28. The former

is an argument that we cannot entertain, because “[o]ne

three-judge panel . . . does not have the authority to overrule

another three-judge panel of the court.” LaShawn A. v. Barry,

87 F.3d 1389, 1395 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc). We therefore

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conclude that the district court correctly determined that it could

not grant Davis’ request for attorney’s fees.

IV

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s

denial of attorney’s fees, but we reverse its grant of summary

judgment dismissing Davis’ FOIA complaint. The case is

remanded with directions that the FBI evaluate alternative

methods for determining whether the speakers on the requested

audiotapes are dead, and that thereafter the district court

determine whether the FBI’s chosen course is reasonable.

So ordered.

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