Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-530.pdf
Page Number: 24

20 

NASA v. NELSON 

Opinion of the Court 

sions  also  stated  that  a  “statutory  or  regulatory  duty  to
avoid  unwarranted  disclosures”  generally  allays  these 
privacy concerns.  Whalen, supra, at 605; Nixon, supra, at 
458–459.  The  Court  in  Whalen,  relying  on  New  York’s
“security  provisions”  prohibiting  public  disclosure,  turned 
aside a challenge to the collection of patients’ prescription
information.    429  U. S.,  at  594,  and  n. 12,  600–601,  605. 
In  Nixon,  the  Court  rejected  what  it  regarded  as  an  even
“weaker” claim by the former President because the Presi-
dential  Recordings  and  Materials  Preservation  Act  “[n]ot
only . . . mandate[d] regulations” against “undue dissemi-
nation,” but also required immediate return of any “purely
private” materials flagged by the Government’s archivists. 
433 U. S., at 458–459. 

Respondents  in  this  case,  like  the  patients  in  Whalen 
and former President Nixon, attack only the Government’s 
collection  of  information  on  SF–85  and  Form  42.    And 
here,  no  less  than  in  Whalen  and  Nixon,  the  information 
collected is shielded by statute  from “unwarranted disclo-
sur[e].”  See  Whalen,  supra,  at  605.  The  Privacy  Act,
which  covers  all  information  collected  during  the  back-
ground-check process, allows the Government to maintain
records  “about  an  individual”  only  to  the  extent  the  re-
cords  are  “relevant  and  necessary  to  accomplish”  a  pur-
pose  authorized  by  law.  5  U. S. C.  §552a(e)(1).    The  Act 
requires  written  consent  before  the  Government  may
disclose  records  pertaining  to  any  individual.    §552a(b).
And the Act imposes criminal liability for willful violations
of  its  nondisclosure  obligations.    §552a(i)(1).   These  re-
quirements,  as  we  have  noted,  give  “forceful  recognition”
to  a  Government  employee’s  interest  in  maintaining  the 
“confidentiality of sensitive information . . . in his person-
nel files.”  Detroit Edison Co. v. NLRB, 440 U. S. 301, 318, 
n. 16  (1979).    Like  the  protections  against  disclosure  in 
Whalen  and  Nixon,  they  “evidence  a  proper  concern”  for 
individual  privacy.  Whalen,  supra,  at  605;  Nixon,  supra,