Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-05233/USCOURTS-caDC-11-05233-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Appellant
National Security Agency
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 20, 2012 Decided May 11, 2012

No. 11-5233

ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER,

APPELLANT

v.

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-01533)

Marc Rotenberg argued the cause for appellant. With 

him on the briefs was John Verdi.

Catherine Y. Hancock, Attorney, U.S. Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief 

were Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Douglas N. Letter, Attorney.

Before: BROWN and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and 

GINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN.

USCA Case #11-5233 Document #1373260 Filed: 05/11/2012 Page 1 of 12
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BROWN, Circuit Judge: Plaintiff-appellant Electronic 

Privacy Information Center (“EPIC”) filed a Freedom of 

Information Act (“FOIA”) request with the National Security 

Agency (“NSA”) seeking disclosure of any communications 

between NSA and Google, Inc regarding encryption and 

cyber security. NSA issued a Glomar response pursuant to 

FOIA Exemption 3, indicating that it could neither confirm 

nor deny the existence of any responsive records. EPIC 

challenged NSA’s Glomar response in the district court, and 

the parties cross-moved for summary judgment. The district

court entered judgment for NSA, and EPIC appealed. We 

affirm.

I.

EPIC’s FOIA request arose out of a January 2010 cyber 

attack on Google that primarily targeted the Gmail accounts 

of Chinese human rights activists.1

 1 Gmail is a “cloud-based” email program, meaning the data and 

applications of the user reside on remote computer servers operated 

by Google. Prior to January 2010, Google allowed Gmail users to 

encrypt the mail that passed through Google servers using 

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, but it did not provide 

encryption by default. 

 Google subsequently 

changed Gmail’s privacy settings to automatically encrypt all 

traffic to and from its servers. David Drummond, Google’s 

Senior Vice President for Corporate Development and Chief 

Legal Officer, stated that the company was notifying other 

companies that may have been targeted and was “also 

working with the relevant U.S. authorities.” David 

Drummond, A New Approach to China, Official Google Blog 

(Jan. 12, 2010), http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/newapproach-to-china.html. On February 4, 2010, the Wall Street 

Journal and Washington Post reported that Google had 

contacted the NSA immediately following the attack. Former 

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NSA director Mike McConnell commented in the Washington 

Post that collaboration between NSA and private companies 

like Google was “inevitable.” Mike McConnell, Mike 

McConnell on How to Win the Cyber-War We’re Losing, 

Washington Post (Feb. 28, 2010), 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022502493.html.

On February 4, 2010, EPIC submitted a FOIA request to 

NSA, specifically requesting three categories of records: 

1. All records concerning an agreement or similar basis 

for collaboration, final or draft, between the NSA and 

Google regarding cyber security;

2. All records of communication between NSA and 

Google concerning Gmail, including but not limited to 

Google’s decision to fail to routinely encrypt Gmail 

messages prior to January 13, 2010; and

3. All records of communications regarding NSA’s role 

in Google’s decision regarding the failure to routinely 

deploy encryption for cloud-based computing service, 

such as Google Docs.

NSA responded to EPIC’s request on March 10, 2010 by

invoking Exemption 3 of the FOIA and Section 6 of the 

National Security Agency Act2 to issue a Glomar response, in 

which the agency neither confirmed nor denied the existence 

of any responsive records.

 2 Section 6 of the National Security Agency Act provides that 

“nothing in this Act or any other law . . . shall be construed to 

require the disclosure of the organization or any function of the 

National Security Agency, [or] of any information with respect to 

the activities thereof . . . .” Pub. L. No. 86–36, § 6(a), 73 Stat. 63, 

64 (1959). 

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EPIC filed suit in the district court challenging NSA’s 

Glomar response.3

 The parties cross-moved for summary 

judgment. In support of its motion for summary judgment, 

NSA filed a declaration by Diane M. Janosek, NSA Deputy 

Associate Director for Policy and Records (the “Janosek 

Declaration”). The district court held that NSA was entitled 

to summary judgment because the Janosek Declaration was 

“both logical and plausible” and “contain[ed] sufficient detail, 

pursuant to Section 6, to support NSA’s claim that the 

protected information [sought by EPIC] pertains to” NSA’s 

organization, functions, or activities. Elec. Privacy Info. Ctr. 

v. NSA, 798 F. Supp. 2d 26, 31–32 (D.D.C. 2011). We review 

the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. See 

Larson v. Dep’t of State, 565 F.3d 857, 862 (D.C. Cir. 2009).

II.

The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a), 

provides that “[e]ach agency shall make available to the 

public” records in its possession unless the information is 

covered by one of Section 552(b)’s nine statutory exemptions. 

As relevant here, FOIA Exemption 3 shields from disclosure 

records that are “specifically exempted from disclosure by 

statute” if such statute either “requires that the matters be 

withheld from the public in such a manner as to leave no 

discretion on the issue” or “establishes particular criteria for 

withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be 

withheld.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3).

 3 EPIC initially filed an administrative appeal, arguing that NSA’s 

response was unlawful because the agency had failed to present 

factual evidence that the requested documents fell within Section 6, 

but filed suit in the district court prior to the resolution of that 

appeal. 

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In addition to withholding records that are exempt, an 

agency may issue a Glomar response, i.e., refuse to confirm 

or deny the existence or nonexistence of responsive records if 

the particular FOIA exemption at issue would itself preclude 

the acknowledgement of such documents. See Wolf v. CIA, 

473 F.3d 370, 374 (D.C. Cir. 2007).4 An agency may issue a 

Glomar response when “to answer the FOIA inquiry would 

cause harm cognizable under” an applicable statutory 

exemption. Id. The agency must demonstrate that 

acknowledging the mere existence of responsive records 

would disclose exempt information. Id. 

In Glomar cases, courts may grant summary judgment on 

the basis of agency affidavits that contain “reasonable 

specificity of detail rather than merely conclusory statements, 

and if they are not called into question by contradictory 

evidence in the record or by evidence of agency bad faith.” 

Gardels v. CIA, 689 F.2d 1100, 1105 (D.C. Cir. 1982). The 

supporting affidavit must justify the Glomar response based 

on “general exemption review standards established in nonGlomar cases.” Wolf, 473 F.3d at 374–75. “Ultimately, an 

agency’s justification for invoking a FOIA exemption is 

sufficient if it appears ‘logical’ or ‘plausible.’” Larson, 565 

F.3d at 862. NSA need not make a specific showing of 

potential harm to national security in order to justify 

withholding information under Section 6, because “Congress 

has already, in enacting the statute, decided that disclosure of 

NSA activities is potentially harmful.” Hayden v. NSA, 608 

F.2d 1381, 1390 (D.C. Cir. 1979). In reviewing an agency’s 

Glomar response, this Court exercises caution when the 

 4 The Glomar response takes its name from the Hughes Glomar 

Explorer, “a ship built (we now know) to recover a sunken Soviet 

submarine, but disguised as a private vessel for mining manganese 

nodules from the ocean floor.” Bassiouni v. CIA, 392 F.3d 244, 

246 (7th Cir. 2004). 

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information requested “implicat[es] national security, a 

uniquely executive purview.” Ctr. for Nat’l Sec. Studies v. 

Dep’t of Justice, 331 F.3d 918, 926–27 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 

NSA issued a Glomar response to EPIC’s request for 

records pertaining to the agency’s contact with Google, 

claiming that any responsive records would be exempt from 

disclosure under Exemption 3 and Section 6 of the National 

Security Agency Act, and that acknowledgement of the 

existence of such records would cause harm cognizable under 

the exemption. Because Section 6 of the National Security 

Agency Act “is a statute qualifying under Exemption 3,” 

Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C. v. NSA, 

610 F.2d 824, 828 (D.C. Cir. 1979), the only question is 

whether the withheld material satisfies the criteria of the 

exemption statute, i.e., whether acknowledging the existence 

or nonexistence of the requested material would reveal a 

function or an activity of the NSA. See Larson, 565 F.3d at 

868 (NSA “need only demonstrate that the withheld 

information relates to the organization of the NSA or any 

function or activities of the agency”). The agency bears the 

burden of proving that the withheld information falls within 

the exemption it invokes. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B); King v. 

Dep’t of Justice, 830 F.2d 210, 217 (D.C. Cir. 1987).

EPIC claims its request seeks some records that are not 

covered by Exemption 3 and Section 6 of the NSA Act—

specifically, unsolicited communications from Google to 

NSA, which would fall within the second category of 

information described in the request. In light of the broad 

language of Section 6, however, we find the Janosek 

Declaration provides adequate support for NSA’s Glomar 

response. As the Declaration explains, one of NSA’s primary 

cryptologic missions is its Information Assurance mission, 

under which NSA is tasked with protecting Government 

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information systems. Because the Government is “largely 

dependent on commercial technology for its information 

systems,” NSA also monitors commercial technologies 

purchased by the government for security vulnerabilities. 

Janosek Dec’l ¶ 6. If NSA concludes that vulnerabilities in 

those commercial technologies pose a threat to U.S. 

Government information systems, NSA may take action 

against the threat.

The Declaration further explains that if NSA disclosed 

whether there are (or are not) records of a partnership or 

communications between Google and NSA regarding 

Google’s security, that disclosure might reveal whether NSA 

investigated the threat, deemed the threat a concern to the 

security of U.S. Government information systems, or took any 

measures in response to the threat. As such, any information 

pertaining to the relationship between Google and NSA 

would reveal protected information about NSA’s 

implementation of its Information Assurance mission. The 

existence of a relationship or communications between the 

NSA and any private company certainly constitutes an 

“activity” of the agency subject to protection under Section 6. 

Whether the relationship—or any communications pertaining 

to the relationship—were initiated by Google or NSA is 

irrelevant to our analysis. Even if EPIC is correct that NSA

possesses records revealing information only about Google, 

those records, if maintained by the agency, are evidence of 

some type of interaction between the two entities, and thus 

still constitute an NSA “activity” undertaken as part of its 

Information Assurance mission, a primary “function” of the 

NSA. Moreover, if private entities knew that any of their 

attempts to reach out to NSA could be made public through a 

FOIA request, they might hesitate or decline to contact the 

agency, thereby hindering its Information Assurance mission.

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EPIC’s attempt to liken this case to Founding Church of 

Scientology, in which this Court found the agency’s affidavit 

too conclusory to support the NSA’s rejection of a FOIA 

request, see 610 F.2d at 833, is unpersuasive. The affidavits 

at issue in the two cases differ substantially in their level of 

specificity. In Founding Church of Scientology, the affidavit 

summarily stated, without further elucidation, that 

“[d]isclosure of specific information which may be related to 

a specific individual or organization . . . in the context of [the 

agency’s] singular mission would reveal certain functions and 

activities of the NSA . . . .” Id. at 831. Here, by contrast, the 

NSA’s affidavit describes which functions and activities 

would be implicated by disclosure, as well as how

acknowledging the existence or nonexistence of requested 

records would reveal those functions or activities. 

EPIC also attempts to distinguish this Court’s prior 

interpretations of Section 6 because those cases involved 

requests for records relating to the NSA’s classified 

intelligence gathering activities and sources. See, e.g.,

Larson, 565 F.3d at 867–69. EPIC contends that the same 

logic that requires secrecy in intelligence gathering does not 

apply to the NSA’s Information Assurance mission because it 

is public knowledge that the U.S. government uses Google 

applications and that NSA is investigating security 

vulnerabilities in Google’s commercial products. The 

language of the NSA Act, however, does not distinguish 

between the agency’s various missions, and does not invite 

this Court to do so. Rather, the statute broadly exempts any 

information pertaining to the agency’s “activities” or 

“functions.” NSA’s determination that certain security 

vulnerabilities in Google technologies pose (or do not pose) a 

risk to the government’s information systems constitutes an 

“activity” of the agency, as does a relationship between the 

agency and Google. 

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Moreover, NSA does not waive its protection under 

FOIA by disclosing basic information about its information 

assurance activities. The fact that limited information 

regarding a clandestine activity has been released does not 

mean that all such information must be released. See Students 

Against Genocide v. Dep’t of State, 257 F.3d 828, 836 (D.C. 

Cir. 2001). See also Wilner v. NSA, 592 F.3d 60, 69–70 (2d 

Cir. 2009) (holding that the President’s decision to make 

public the existence of an NSA intelligence-gathering 

program did not force the government to reveal the program’s 

operational details). A plaintiff asserting a claim of prior 

disclosure bears the burden of pointing to “specific 

information in the public domain that appears to duplicate that 

being withheld.” Wolf, 473 F.3d at 378. EPIC has failed to 

meet its burden because its blanket request for “[a]ll records 

of communication between NSA and Google concerning 

Gmail” covers a substantially broader swath of information 

than what NSA has voluntarily published on its website. 

General security guidance, even involving recommended 

security settings for Gmail, does not “appear[] to duplicate” 

private communications between NSA and Google; it does 

not even disclose whether the two entities have engaged in 

such communications.5

 5 EPIC’s claim that collaboration between Google and NSA was 

“widely reported in the national media and acknowledged by the 

former director of the NSA” is similarly unavailing. Appellant’s 

Br. 19. NSA has never officially acknowledged a collaborative 

relationship with Google, and the national media are not capable of 

waiving NSA’s statutory authority to protect information related to 

its functions and activities. See Frugone v. CIA, 169 F.3d 772, 

774–75 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (holding that only official 

acknowledgement from the agency from which the information is 

being sought can waive an agency’s protective power over records 

sought under the FOIA); Wolf, 473 F.3d at 378 (waiver of 

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III.

Subsection (b) of the FOIA provides that “[a]ny 

reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be provided to 

any person requesting such record after deletion of the 

portions which are exempt under this subsection.” 5 U.S.C. § 

552(b). In response to a FOIA request, agencies “must make 

a good faith effort to conduct a search for the requested 

records, using methods which can be reasonably expected to 

produce the information requested.” Nation Magazine, 

Washington Bureau v. U.S. Customs Serv., 71 F.3d 885, 890 

(D.C. Cir. 1995). “[E]ven if [the] agency establishes an 

exemption, it must nonetheless disclose all reasonably 

segregable, nonexempt portions of the requested record(s).” 

Roth v. Dep’t of Justice, 642 F.3d 1161, 1167 (D.C. Cir. 

2011).

EPIC argues that Section 552(b) requires NSA to search 

for responsive documents and conduct a segregability analysis 

prior to issuing a Glomar response. We rejected a similar 

argument in Wolf, and EPIC is no more persuasive. In Wolf, 

the requester claimed that de novo review of the agency’s 

response “requires the district court to order the Agency to 

search for responsive records and to submit a Vaughn index.” 

473 F.3d at 374 n.4. The Court disagreed, explaining that the 

requester’s argument “misunderstands the nature of a Glomar 

response, which narrows the FOIA issue to the existence of 

records vel non.” Id. When the agency takes the position that 

it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the requested 

records, “there are no relevant documents for the court to 

examine other than the affidavits which explain the Agency’s 

 

protection under the FOIA “cannot be based on mere public 

speculation, no matter how widespread”).

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refusal.” Id.; see also Wheeler v. CIA, 271 F. Supp. 2d 132, 

141 (D.D.C. 2003) (affirming a Glomar response when the 

agency did not identify “whether or to what extent it had 

conducted a search”). The same logic applies here. Because 

we find the Janosek Declaration sufficient to support NSA’s 

Glomar response, requiring NSA to conduct a search and 

segregability analysis would be a meaningless—not to 

mention costly—exercise.

EPIC claims this Court has upheld Glomar responses 

“only in cases where it is apparent from the record that the 

Agency first conducted a search and segregability analysis, 

and even disclosed or withheld specific responsive records,” 

Appellant’s Br. 25. This is inaccurate. In the cases cited by 

EPIC, the agency conducted a search and segregability 

analysis of its own volition prior to issuing the Glomar 

response. See, e.g., Larson, 565 F.3d at 861–62. In none of 

these cases, however, did the Court hold—or even imply—

that such a search and analysis is required. See People for the 

Am. Way Found. v. NSA, 462 F. Supp. 2d 21, 30 n.5 (D.D.C. 

2006) (“[A] Vaughn index is not required here, where it could 

cause the very harm that section 6 was intended to prevent.”). 

Likewise, EPIC’s assertion that “[a]gencies are not exempt 

from performing a segregability analysis, even in cases where 

they assert a Glomar response,” Appellant’s Br. 24, is also 

incorrect. Although EPIC cites Wolf in support of its 

proposition, that case expressly rejected EPIC’s argument in a 

footnote. See Wolf, 473 F.3d at 374 n.4. 

EPIC’s reliance on Jefferson v. Dep’t of Justice, Office of 

Prof’l Resp., 284 F.3d 172 (D.C. Cir. 2002), is also

misplaced. In Jefferson, the Court held that the Office of 

Professional Responsibility (“OPR”) was not entitled to make 

a Glomar response as to all of its files in the absence of an 

evidentiary showing to support that response. Id. at 179. But 

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that case turned on two factors not present here: (1) it applied 

Exemption 7(C), which protects only “records or information 

compiled for law enforcement purposes,” 5 U.S.C. § 

552(b)(7); and (2) not all records of the OPR are necessarily 

law enforcement records. Jefferson, 284 F.3d at 178–79. 

Because the request asked for “all records” pertaining to a 

particular AUSA, and not simply those compiled for law 

enforcement purposes, the Court held that Glomar response 

was inappropriate in light of OPR’s failure to show that all of 

the responsive records were covered by the Exemption, i.e., 

were compiled for law enforcement purposes. Id. at 179. 

Here, by contrast, it is apparent that any response to EPIC’s 

FOIA request might reveal whether NSA did or did not 

consider a particular cybersecurity incident, or the security 

settings in particular commercial technologies, to be a 

potential threat to U.S. Government information systems. 

Any such threat assessment, as well as any ensuing action or 

inaction, implicates an undisputed NSA “function”—its 

Information Assurance mission—and thus falls within the 

broad ambit of Section 6 of the National Security Agency 

Act.

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the district 

court is

Affirmed.

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