Source: http://concussioninc.net/?p=11651
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 18:22:55+00:00

Document:
Below is the full text of the final order of U.S. District Court Senior Judge Charles R. Breyer in the Freedom of Information Act case Muchnick v. Department of Homeland Security, regarding release of the immigration records of George Gibney. The facsimile of the 10-page document can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/gibneyfoiafinalorder.pdf.
For years, O’Rourke sexually abused young female swimmers in an infamous “chamber of horrors.”Id. He ultimately pleaded guilty to 29 counts of sexual abuse in 1998. Id.
Muchnick requested documents under the FOIA from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), a subdivision the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), in February 2015.See Muchnick Decl. Exs. A-C (dkt. 17-1, 2 & 3). He asked for visa and green card files on Gibney. SeeEggleston Decl. (dkt. 16) at 4. DHS conducted a search and identified 102 pages of responsive documents in Gibney’s Alien File (“A-file”). See id. A-files contain, among other things, documents surrounding “the processing and adjudication of applications and petitions submitted for citizenship, asylum, and other immigration benefits.” See 76 Fed. Reg. 70739-01 (Nov. 15, 2011).
DHS produced four pages and withheld the other 98 pages under several FOIA exemptions. SeeEggleston Decl. at 4. DHS moved for summary judgment and created a Vaughn Index to justify the withholding. See Mot. (dkt. 15) at 16-20. Because the Vaughn Index did not meet Ninth Circuit standards, the Court denied the motion and ordered DHS to produce a better one. See Order (dkt. 21) at 6-7. The Court also ordered DHS to demonstrate why it could not redact exempt portions of withheld documents and disclose the rest. See id.
Vaughn Indexes exist because the “lack of knowledge by the party seeking disclosure” in a FOIA case “seriously distorts the traditional adversary nature of our legal system.” Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820,824 (D.C. Cir. 1973). DHS compromised the adversarial process when it filed its initial, inadequate Vaughn Index. See Wiener, 943 F.2d 972, 978 (9th Cir. 1991). Its supplemental VaughnIndex, in all candor, fares little better.
Muchnick counters that Wiener, 943 F.2d at 985-86, compels a contrary result. See Opp’n at 17. Not so.Wiener held that the FBI did not establish a “rational nexus” between a legitimate law enforcement purpose and documents compiled about John Lennon’s antiVietnam War activities. See 943 F.2d at 985-86. The dispute hinged on whether investigating “possible violations of the Civil Obedience Act” was a bona fide law enforcement objective or a pretext for unconstitutional surveillance of the late Beatles singer. See id. Here, by contrast, there can be no doubt that DHS compiled George Gibney’s A-File for legitimate law enforcement and adjudicative purposes. Exemption 7(C) is in play.
See U.S. Dep’t of Justice v. Reporters Comm. For Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 756 (1989);Gosen, 75 F. Supp. 3d at 286-87. The only public interest that matters is how disclosure will shed light “on an agency’s performance of its statutory duties or otherwise let citizens know what their government is up to.” U.S. Dep’t of Defense v. Fed. Labor Rel. Auth., 510 U.S. 487, 497 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). So information for information’s sake will not do. What is more, “the identity of the requesting party has no bearing” under the FOIA, so the rights of the press are “no different” from those of anyone else. Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 771.
As already discussed, DHS compiled everything in Gibney’s A-File “for law enforcement purposes.”See supra Part III.B.1. And under Exemption 7(E), DHS does not have to disclose any information that would reveal “techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions” – full stop. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E). DHS may also withhold information that reveals “guidelines” for enforcement – but only if doing so would “risk circumvention of the law.” See Hamdan v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 797 F.3d 759, 778 (9th Cir. 2015).
DHS argues that doing so would reveal “the specific types of information sought by immigration officials in conducting background checks,” and therefore that disclosure would be inappropriate. Mot. at 11 (quoting Supp. Vaughn Index). That argument proves too much. Cf. Rosenfeld v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 57 F.3d 803, 815 (1995) (“If we were to follow such reasoning, the government could withhold information under Exemption 7(E) under any circumstances . . . simply by saying that the ‘investigative technique’ at issue is . . . the application of the practice to particular facts . . .). So long as DHS redactshow it obtained information about Gibney, disclosing what if found out would not disclose a law enforcement technique, procedure, or guideline. That is all the more true given that the allegations here are no secret.
DHS is ORDERED to disclose substantive information contained in the A-File about Gibney’s alleged crimes, decisions about immigration benefits he sought, and the dates any documents containing such information were created. DHS may continue to withhold identifying information about third parties other than Gibney, as well as Gibney’s past addresses, salary history, A-number, and the like. It may also continue to withhold portions of documents revealing the investigative procedures used to obtain information about Gibney, but not the information itself.
Based on the foregoing, DHS has properly redacted or withheld some documents but not others. The Court has separated those two categories and highlighted what DHS must disclose to comply with this order.

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