Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/32/440.html
Timestamp: 2020-08-14 22:57:49
Document Index: 661225311

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 6260', '§ 6250', '§ 6253', '§ 15025', '§ 6254', '§ 552', '§ 403', '§ 6255']

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation v. Deukmejian :: :: Supreme Court of California Decisions :: California Case Law :: California Law :: US Law :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › California Case Law › Cal. 3d › Volume 32 › American Civil Liberties Union Foundation v. Deukmejian
George Deukmejian, Attorney General, Richard D. Martland and Anthony L. Dicce, Deputy Attorneys General, for Defendants and Appellants. [32 Cal. 3d 443]
The first issue presented by this appeal is the definition and scope of the exemption for "intelligence information" in section 6254, subdivision (f). We agree with the trial court that this exemption should not be read so broadly as to preclude discovery of any information in intelligence files which relates in some manner to criminal activity. We believe, however, that the court erred in limiting the statutory protection to personal identifiers and material which might disclose confidential sources. The term "intelligence information," even if read narrowly so as to further the Act's objective of expanded public disclosure, should protect information furnished in confidence, even if that information does not reveal the identity of a confidential source. Thus the "intelligence information" exemption severely limits the information subject to disclosure, but does not entirely protect the index cards and printouts. [32 Cal. 3d 444]
The ACLU also sought to inspect and copy computer printouts from the Interstate Organized Crime Index (IOCI). The IOCI printouts, in contrast to the LEIU index cards, contain entries based solely on information [32 Cal. 3d 445] that is a matter of public record. fn. 3 Existing IOCI printouts are still being used by law enforcement agencies but no new information is being added to them. The printout entries include, among other information, an individual subject's name, physical characteristics, criminal record, crime-related and noncrime-related associates, occupation, and residence.
At trial, the department claimed the records in question were protected by section 6254, subdivision (f) of the Act, which permits the state to withhold "[r]ecords of complaints to or investigations conducted by, or records of intelligence information or security procedures of, the office of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, and any state or local police agency, or any such investigatory or security files compiled by any other state or local police agency ... for correctional, law enforcement or licensing purposes ...." (Italics added.) The department also claimed an exemption under section 6255, which permits an agency to avoid disclosure of materials by showing that "on the facts of the particular case the public interest served by not making the record [32 Cal. 3d 446] public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record."
[1] The trial court first rejected the department's claim of exemption under section 6254, holding that the exemptions in that section were confined to (1) personal identifiers, fn. 5 i.e., information which might reveal the names of those who were the subjects of the cards and printouts, and (2) information which might reveal the names of confidential sources who gave the department the card and printout data. The trial court further found that "[p]ublic revelation of the information other than personal identifiers and confidential sources ... is in the public interest and the public interest weighs in favor of disclosure. Revelation of this information will inform interested members of the public of the type of information which the defendants develop and gather." Although the trial court initially concluded that separation of exempt from nonexempt information on the LEIU cards and the IOCI printouts would be unduly burdensome, on motion to modify the judgment the court reversed its decision and found that the burden of segregating nonexempt information was outweighed by the public interest in access to that information. The trial court therefore rejected the claimed exemption under section 6255, fn. 6 and accordingly entered judgment requiring disclosure, among other matters, of the LEIU index cards and the IOCI printouts, excluding personal identifiers and data which would reveal confidential sources. [32 Cal. 3d 447]
The Act, enacted in 1968, replaced a confusing mass of statutes and court decisions relating to disclosure of governmental records. (See Shaffer, et al., A Look at the California Records Act and Its Exemptions (1974) 4 Golden Gate L.Rev. 203, 210-213.) The Act begins with a declaration of rights: "In enacting this chapter, the Legislature, mindful of the right of individuals to privacy, finds and declares that access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state." In the spirit of this declaration, judicial decisions interpreting the Act seek to balance the public right to access to information, the government's need, or lack of need, to preserve confidentiality, and the individual's right to privacy. (See Black Panther Party v. Kehoe (1974) 42 Cal. App. 3d 645, 651-652 [117 Cal. Rptr. 106]; American Federation of State, etc. Employees v. Regents of University of California (1978) 80 Cal. App. 3d 913, 915-916 [146 Cal. Rptr. 42].)
The Act was modeled on the 1967 federal Freedom of Information Act (81 Stat. 54), and the judicial construction and legislative history of the federal act serve to illuminate the interpretation of its California counterpart. (See Northern Cal. Police Practices Project v. Craig (1979) 90 Cal. App. 3d 116, 120 [153 Cal. Rptr. 173]; Cook v. Craig (1976) 55 Cal. App. 3d 773, 781 [127 Cal. Rptr. 712]; Black Panther Party v. Kehoe, supra, 42 Cal. App. 3d 645, 652.) As enacted in 1967, the Freedom of Information Act exempted "investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes." (See former 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(7).) fn. 7 The California Act, enacted in 1968, elaborated on this exemption, [32 Cal. 3d 448] barring disclosure of "[r]ecords of complaints to or investigations conducted by, or records of intelligence information or security procedures of, the office of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, and any state or local police agency, or any such investigatory or security files compiled by any other state or local police agency, or any such investigatory or security files compiled by any other state or local agency for correctional, law enforcement, or licensing purposes ...." fn. 8
When a series of federal decisions held that under the 1967 law all documents in a law enforcement investigatory file were exempt, fn. 9 Congress amended the Freedom of Information Act to narrow and clarify the exemptions from disclosure. (See Pratt v. Webster (D.C.Cir. 1982) 673 F.2d 408, 417; Climax Molybdenum Co. v. N. L. R. B. (10th Cir. 1976) 539 F.2d 63, 64; Poss v. N. L. R. B. (10th Cir. 1977) 565 F.2d 654, 657.) The act, as amended in 1974, limited the exemption to "investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such records would (A) interfere with enforcement proceedings, (B) deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, (D) disclose the identity of a confidential source and, in the case of a record compiled by a criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation, or by an agency conducting [32 Cal. 3d 449] a lawful national security intelligence investigation, confidential information furnished only by the confidential source, (E) disclose investigative techniques and procedures, or (F) endanger the life or physical safety of law enforcement personnel; ..." (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7).) Since the 1974 amendments were adopted to reinstate the scope of the exemption as intended in the original act (see Climax Molybdenum Co. v. N. L. R. B., supra, 539 F.2d 63, 64), and since the California law was modeled upon that original act, we may use the amendments to guide the construction of the California Act.
[2b] We believe, however, that the definition adopted by the trial court is too narrow. We do not dispute its exemption of "personal identifiers"; such an exemption would be required, if not by the express terms of the Act, by the right of privacy established in article I, section [32 Cal. 3d 450] 1 of the California Constitution. Indeed, in view of the substantial harm that could be inflicted by a public revelation that an individual was listed in an index of persons involved in organized crime, or even listed as an "associate" of someone involved in organized crime, we think the exclusion of personal identifiers must be viewed broadly. Not only names, aliases, addresses, and telephone numbers must be excluded, but also information which might lead the knowledgeable or inquisitive to infer the identity of the individual in question.
The foregoing construction of section 6254, subdivision (f) will bring that exemption into approximate alignment with the exemption in section 552, subdivision (b)(7) of the amended federal act. We recognize, of course, that California has not enacted any amendments to the Act comparable to the 1974 federal amendments, but then the California Legislature faced no overly restrictive court decisions such as those [32 Cal. 3d 451] which impelled the federal amendments. As we have explained, the 1974 federal amendments were intended to restate and clarify the original purpose of the federal act, and since that purpose -- public access to records except where access must be limited to protect privacy or confidentiality -- corresponds to the purpose of the California Act, we believe the two statutes should receive a parallel construction.
Our interpretation of subdivision (f) also derives from the fact that the Act imposes no limits upon who may seek information or what he may do with it. In the present case the ACLU seeks information to test the operation of the LEIU index and the IOCI printouts and to determine if those police intelligence systems are being misused. In other cases, however, information may be sought for less noble purposes. Persons connected with organized crime may seek to discover what the police know, or do not know, about organized criminal activities (cf. Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Abramson (1982) 456 U.S. 615, fn. 12 [72 L. Ed. 2d 376, 387, 102 S.Ct. 2054]); persons seeking to damage the reputation of another may try to discover if he is listed as an organized crime figure or as an associate of such a figure; other persons may simply try to put the state to the burden and expense of segregating exempt and nonexempt information and making the latter available to the public. In short, once information is held subject to disclosure under the Act, the courts can exercise no restraint on the use to which it may be put. (See Black Panther Party v. Kehoe, supra, 42 Cal. App. 3d 645, 656.)
We note, by way of contrast to the unrestricted seeking and use of information acquired under the Act, the discovery procedures employed under Evidence Code section 1040. This section serves essentially the same purpose as the "intelligence information" exemption of section 6254, subdivision (f) -- the protection of confidential information. Under section 1040, however, a court will uphold disclosure only if the public interest in disclosure outweighs the necessity for preserving confidentiality (see Shepherd v. Superior Court (1976) 17 Cal. 3d 107, 124, 126 [130 Cal. Rptr. 257, 550 P.2d 161]); in making this decision the court can consider the needs and interests of the particular litigants (id., at p. 126), and can in some cases impose protective orders to limit the use and dissemination of the information.
If, for example, the ACLU had sought to discover LEIU or IOCI records in a pending suit, the trial court, after ascertaining the bona fides of the request, could permit inspection under section 1040 subject [32 Cal. 3d 452] to protective limitations on use or publication of the information. Since the provisions of the Act do not "affect the rights of litigants ... under the laws of discovery of this state" (§ 6260), the limitations on disclosure in section 6254 would not restrict discovery sought in connection with such a civil action. In bringing a request under the Act, however, the ACLU stands in no better position than any member of the public who seeks to inspect LEIU or IOCI records for whatever reason he may have (cf. Brown v. Federal Bureau of Investigation (2d Cir. 1981) 658 F.2d 71, 75), and is subject to the restrictions of section 6254.
Section 6255 has no counterpart in the federal Freedom of Information Act, and imposes on the California courts a duty which does not burden the federal courts -- the duty to weigh the benefits and costs of disclosure in each particular case. We reject the suggestion that in undertaking this task the courts should ignore any expense and inconvenience [32 Cal. 3d 453] involved in segregating nonexempt from exempt information. Section 6255 speaks broadly of the "public interest," a phrase which encompasses public concern with the cost and efficiency of government. To refuse to place such items on the section 6255 scales would make it possible for any person requesting information, for any reason or for no particular reason, to impose upon a governmental agency a limitless obligation. Such a result would not be in the public interest. fn. 13
At best, disclosure of nonexempt information from the cards in question might reveal certain generalities about the records, such as the proportion of persons listed with prior criminal records, the type of criminal activity of which they are suspected, etc. Conceivably such information might help to confirm or allay suspicions concerning the operation of criminal indexing systems. When this marginal and speculative benefit is weighed against the cost and burden of segregating the exempt and nonexempt material on the cards, we conclude that on the facts of this particular case the public interest served by not making the record public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure [32 Cal. 3d 454] of the record. fn. 14 We therefore conclude that defendants, relying on section 6255 of the Act, may refuse to disclose the subject index cards of the LEIU.
I concur in the majority opinion to the extent that it reverses that portion of the judgment below which required disclosure of the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit index cards. I respectfully dissent, however, from the opinion insofar as it affirms the compelled disclosure of the Interstate Organized Crime Index printouts. In my view, both the index cards and the printouts are "intelligence information" which are absolutely exempt from disclosure under state law. [32 Cal. 3d 455]
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the court's decision which denies disclosure of the LEIU cards. [32 Cal. 3d 456]
James Madison once said, "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both." (Letter to W. T. Barry, Aug. 4, 1822, 9 The Writings of James Madison (Hunt ed. 1910) p. 103, quoted in EPA v. Mink (1973) 410 U.S. 73, 110-111 [35 L. Ed. 2d 119, 145, 93 S. Ct. 827] (dis. opn. of Douglas, J.).)
Like James Madison, the California Legislature is of the view that "access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state." (Gov. Code, § 6250.) fn. 1 Thus, the California Public Records Act (or Act) was passed for the precise purpose of "increasing freedom of information" by giving the public "access to information in possession of public agencies." (See Los Angeles Police Dept. v. Superior Court (1977) 65 Cal. App. 3d 661, 668 [135 Cal. Rptr. 575].) The Act is "intended to be construed liberally in order to further the goal of maximum disclosure in the conduct of governmental operations." (Final Rep., Assem. Statewide Info. Policy Com. [hereafter Final Report] (Mar. 1970) p. 145, appen. G, setting forth opn. Cal. Atty. Gen. No. 67/144 (1970).)
The first two of these conclusions find no support whatsoever in the record. The government has never sought to demonstrate how much, if any, of the information on the LEIU cards is exempt from disclosure nor what the inconvenience or cost of deleting this information might be. Although the Public Records Act clearly places the burden of justifying nondisclosure on the agency desiring secrecy, fn. 2 a majority of this court somehow waives this requirement and finds in favor of the government on these issues. [32 Cal. 3d 457]
The court's third conclusion -- that administrative inconvenience is dispositive of these plaintiffs' claim of access to the records of their government -- threatens the very foundations of the Act. It represents a major triumph for bureaucratic inertia and secrecy, and it permits -- and even encourages -- state agencies to undermine the broad disclosure policies of the Act. Yet, as the Court of Appeal has held, the Public Records Act is "suffused with indications of a contrary legislative intent." (Northern Cal. Police Practices Project v. Craig (1979) 90 Cal. App. 3d 116, 123 [153 Cal. Rptr. 173].)
Moreover, it "appeared ... to be creating (or perhaps merely reinforcing) an attitude of reluctance on the part of various administrative officials to make records in their custody available for public inspection." (53 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen., supra, p. 143.) Those limited reform efforts that managed to become law -- such as the Brown Act of 1953 fn. 4 -- were insufficient to address the problems. What was needed was a comprehensive statute governing access to information. (Schaffer et al., A Look at the California Records Act and Its Exemptions (1974) 4 Golden Gate L.Rev. 203, 212.) [32 Cal. 3d 458]
Like the federal Freedom of Information Act upon which it was modeled, "the general policy of the [Public Records Act] favors disclosure. Support for a refusal to disclose information 'must be found, if at all, among the specific exceptions to the general policy that are enumerated in the Act.'" (Cook v. Craig (1976) 55 Cal. App. 3d 773, 781 [127 Cal. Rptr. 712], citation omitted, quoting State of California ex rel. Division of Industrial Safety v. Superior Court (1974) 43 Cal. App. 3d 778, 783 [117 Cal. Rptr. 726].) The burden of establishing that an exception applies lies with the agency resisting disclosure.
Even where the Public Records Act permits nondisclosure, it does not require withholding the requested information. (Black Panther Party v. Kehoe (1974) 42 Cal. App. 3d 645, 656 [117 Cal. Rptr. 106].) The Act sets forth "the minimum standards" for access to government information, and generally "a state or local agency may adopt requirements for itself which allow greater access to records." (§ 6253.1; see also Final Report, supra, p. 9.)
Relying on the Public Records Act, plaintiff ACLU has sought to examine a random sampling of the LEIU cards fn. 5 maintained by the [32 Cal. 3d 459] California Department of Justice (or Department) ostensibly in connection with its function of "[g],athering analyzing and storing intelligence pertaining to organized crime." (§ 15025, subd. (a).) The ACLU's concern stems from mid-1970's revelations on the national level of law enforcement abuses in the acquisition and maintenance of information for surveillance purposes. The fears expressed at that time have increased as a result of the Department's recent publication of a report purportedly relating to organized crime and terrorism. (Rep.Cal.Atty.Gen. (May 1981) Organized Crime in Cal. -- 1980, pt. 2, Terrorism.) The report suggests that the Department views its duty to monitor organized crime activities as covering "activities of domestic extremist groups in the form of rallies and demonstrations." (Id., p. 1.)
Following meticulously conducted proceedings in camera -- including examination of the LEIU cards themselves -- the trial court ruled in favor [32 Cal. 3d 460] of disclosure except for "those portions [of the cards] which show and disclose personal identifiers and confidential sources." It found that disclosure of the nonexempt material "will inform interested members of the public of the type of information which the [Department] develop[s] and gather[s]." It further found the public interest served by disclosure to be "the need to insure that [the Department is] complying with the Constitution and laws of the United States and the State of California ... and to defend and protect constitutional rights by guarding against unlawful invasions of privacy and personal security by over-zealous spying, surveillance and covert activities."
However, I am perplexed by one reason tendered by the majority for interpreting Exemption (f) in this fashion. Here, it is asserted that the Public Records Act should be interpreted in light of the "fact" that "information may be sought for less noble purposes" than those of the ACLU in this case. (Ante, p. 451.) This reasoning is completely untenable. [32 Cal. 3d 461]
The federal cases interpreting the FOIA are all in agreement with our Legislature and our Attorney General. The federal courts have universally accepted the proposition that the FOIA "creates a liberal disclosure requirement, limited only by specific exemptions which are to be narrowly construed." (Bristol-Myers Company v. F. T. C. (D.C.Cir. 1970) 424 F.2d 935, 938, fn. omitted, cert. den., 400 U.S. 824 [24 L. Ed. 2d 52, 91 S. Ct. 46]; see also Dept. of Air Force v. Rose (1976) 425 U.S. 352, 361, 366 [48 L. Ed. 2d 11, 21, 24, 96 S. Ct. 1592]; Vaughn v. Rosen, supra, 484 F.2d 820, 823, cert. den., 415 U.S. 977 [32 Cal. 3d 462] [39 L. Ed. 2d 873, 94 S. Ct. 1564].) This, of course, is the very same Freedom of Information Act whose "judicial construction and legislative history ... serve to illuminate the interpretation of its California counterpart." (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 447.)
Further evidence in this regard can be found in the final sentence of section 6257. There, it is required that "[a]ny reasonably segregable [32 Cal. 3d 463] portion of a record shall be provided ... after deletion of the portions which are exempt by law." (Italics added.) It is difficult to see how the Legislature could have been clearer in requiring the production of any such nonexempt material. fn. 7
In addition to these direct indications of legislative intent, simple logic and experience dictate that the public's right to know not be overriden by claims of bureaucratic inconvenience. The history of freedom of information laws, both in this state and on a national level, is largely [32 Cal. 3d 464] the history of bureaucratic resistance to revealing agency operations. If a disclosure request may be defeated by an agency's showings of administrative cost and burden, then the very foundations of the Public Records Act are undermined.
Even more important, the bureaucracy -- rather than the Legislature, the courts, or the people -- will be empowered to determine what records will be revealed. It is the bureaucracy that decides in what form and where to keep its records. By commingling exempt and nonexempt information and spreading out responsibility for the compilation and storage of records, the agency can be assured of a tenable claim of exemption under section 6255. At the very least, already wary agencies are discouraged from creating "internal procedures that will assure that disclosable information can be easily separated from that which is exempt." (See Vaughn v. Rosen, supra, 484 F.2d at p. 828; see also Irons v. Gottschalk (D.C.Cir. 1976) 548 F.2d 992, 996, cert. den., 434 U.S. 965 [54 L. Ed. 2d 451, 98 S. Ct. 505].)
It is, therefore, not surprising that the courts have unanimously taken a position contrary to that of today's majority. "Undoubtedly, the requirement of segregation casts a tangible burden on governmental agencies and on the judiciary. Nothing less will suffice, however, if the underlying legislative policy of the [Act] favoring disclosure is to be implemented faithfully. If the burden becomes too onerous, relief must be [32 Cal. 3d 465] sought from the Legislature." (Northern Cal. Police Practices Project v. Craig, supra, 90 Cal.App.3d at p. 124.)
The federal cases are in complete accord. "[Equitable] considerations of the costs, in time and money, of making records available for examination do not supply an excuse for non-production." (Sears v. Gottschalk, supra, 502 F.2d at p. 126.) "Allowing such a defense would undercut the Act's broad policy of disclosure." (Ferguson v. Kelly (N.D.Ill. 1978) 455 F. Supp. 324, 326.) Even a cursory sampling of cases involving the Freedom of Information Act reveals that the federal act is used to obtain access to enormous quantities of documents from which an agency must segregate exempt information. The request in the present case for access to 100 small LEIU cards pales by comparison. (See, e.g., Pratt v. Webster (D.C.Cir. 1982) 673 F.2d 408 [FOIA used to obtain access to edited versions of over 1,000 documents, totalling thousands of pages]; Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press v. Sampson (D.C.Cir. 1978) 591 F.2d 944, 949, fn. 17 [FOIA available to obtain access to the "massive volume of materials" in the presidential papers of former President Nixon]; Diapulse Corp. of Am. v. Food & D. Admin. of Dept. of H.E.W. (2d Cir. 1974) 500 F.2d 75 [FOIA used to obtain access to thousands of documents, the collection and editing of which would take four to six days].)
Even if the administrative burden to an agency could be dispositive of a request for information under the Act, I would be hard pressed to comprehend the conclusion of the majority that as a matter of law, the LEIU cards are exempt from disclosure. The majority reasons that (1) "much of the information of the LEIU cards ... is ... exempt from disclosure"; (2) the "burden of segregating exempt from nonexempt information [32 Cal. 3d 466] on the 100 cards would be substantial"; and (3) on balance "the public interest predominates against requiring disclosure" of the nonexempt information. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 451-453.) The first two of these conclusions are wholly unsupported by the record; the third is a serious misapplication of the law.
Given this state of the record and the fact that the agency bears the burden of establishing the applicability of an exemption, [32 Cal. 3d 467] it is hard to fault the trial court for ordering disclosure. How this court manages to arrive at a contrary conclusion as a matter of law remains a mystery.
FN 2. The ACLU cites a striking example of the potential for abuse in unmonitored gathering of information by law enforcement agencies. Briefly, former State Senator Nate Holden was listed as one of six "associates" of Black Panther Party member Michael Zinzun on the latter's index card. That card was disclosed in litigation in Chicago and was, therefore, on file in other places outside California. Holden, who had never been arrested or convicted of a crime, had rented a house to Zinzun for about four months.
FN 3. The department's Organized Crime Criminal Intelligence Branch is the coordinating agency not only for the LEIU which produces the index cards, but also for the nationwide computer system which formerly produced the printouts. That system, the IOCI, was originally funded by a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (now defunct); one condition of that grant was that the computer entries be based on information that was a matter of public record.
FN 4. The ACLU's original request included a total of nine items; in addition to the cards and printouts, the ACLU sought disclosure of annual reports submitted to the Legislature by the department's Organized Crime Criminal Intelligence Branch (OCCIB), notes and texts of briefings given to the Legislature, a catalog of OCCIB publications, the OCCIB policy statement with regard to maintenance or establishment of political files, lists of training conferences, a hardware index, and the current issue of various publications. Some of these items were produced voluntarily; others were produced at the order of the trial court; others did not exist or had been discontinued. On appeal, defendants challenged the trial court's order only insofar as it applied to the index cards and printouts.
FN 5. The ACLU, as we have noted, expressly excluded from its disclosure request "personal identifiers such as names of subjects [protected] by Government Code § 6254(c)." This section exempts "personnel, medical, or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." Since subdivision (c) is confined to "personnel, medical, or similar files," the personal identifiers in the cards and printouts here at issue would not be exempt under that section. We read a similar exemption for personal identifiers into the "intelligence information" exemption in subdivision (f).
A recent decision of the United States Supreme Court (United States v. Washington Post Co. (1982) 456 U.S. 595 [72 L. Ed. 2d 358, 102 S. Ct. 1957] ruled that language in the federal Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6)), identical to that of section 6254, subdivision (c), bars disclosure whenever release of information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy, regardless of the nature of the "file" in which the information is stored. Under this interpretation, section 6254, subdivision (c) would bar disclosure of personal identifiers in the cards and printouts.
FN 6. Section 6254, subdivision (k), exempts from disclosure "[r]ecords the disclosure of which is exempted or prohibited pursuant to provisions of federal or state law, including, but not limited to, provisions of the Evidence Code relating to privilege." This section thus incorporates the privilege for "official information" of Evidence Code section 1040. As the trial court observed, however, section 1040 involves a balancing test similar to that required by section 6255; thus, the court's rejection of the exemption under section 6255 on the ground that the public interest weighs in favor of disclosure led the court to reject also claims of exemption under section 6254, subdivision (k) and Evidence Code section 1040.
FN 7. The 1967 federal act contained no express mention of "intelligence information." It did incorporate other statutory exemptions, including a statute (50 U.S.C. § 403(d)(3)) which orders the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to protect "intelligence sources." The federal courts have construed that enactment to bar disclosure of information relating to national security which could not have been obtained without guaranteeing the confidentiality of the source. (Sims v. Central Intelligence Agency (D.C.Cir. 1980) 642 F.2d 562, 571.)
FN 8. Defendants, claiming that the "intelligence information" exemption was intended to encompass all information on the LEIU index and the IOCI printouts, rely on the fact that state budget bills antedating the Act refer to the California Department of Justice's cooperative information exchange with the FBI. These bills, however, relate not to the indexing systems involved here, but to the National Crime Information Center telecommunications system which linked existing department records with a federal computer. In any case, proof that the Legislature was aware of an information exchange system does not shed any light on whether it intended to protect all information in that system from disclosure.
FN 9. See Weisberg v. U.S. Department of Justice (D.C.Cir. 1973) 489 F.2d 1195 (en banc), (spectrographic analysis of the bullet that killed President Kennedy is exempt since it is part of an FBI file compiled for law enforcement purposes, and nothing else is relevant); Aspin v. Department of Defense (D.C.Cir. 1973) 491 F.2d 24 (four-volume report on the coverup of the My-Lai massacre exempt in its entirety); Ditlow v. Brinegar (D.C.Cir. 1974) 494 F.2d 1073 (letters between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and automobile manufacturers concerning possible safety defects protected by exemption 7, even though the only potential defendants have information); Center for National Policy Review on Race and Urban Issues v. Weinberger (D.C.Cir. 1974) 502 F.2d 370 (since future fund cutoff proceeding, while unlikely and admittedly speculative, was conceivable, HEW's title VI Civil Rights Compliance Reports concerning segregation and discrimination practices in northern public schools could be kept secret).
FN 10. In Bristol-Meyers Company v. F. T. C. (D.C.Cir. 1970) 424 F.2d 935, 939, the court limited the federal exemption in the 1967 act to cases in which the prospect of enforcement proceedings is concrete and definite. The California Court of Appeal adopted the Bristol-Meyers definition. (Uribe v. Howie (1971) 19 Cal. App. 3d 194, 213 [96 Cal. Rptr. 493]; see State of California ex rel. Division of Industrial Safety v. Superior Court (1974) 43 Cal. App. 3d 778, 784 [117 Cal. Rptr. 726]; Younger v. Berkeley City Council (1975) 45 Cal. App. 3d 825, 833 [119 Cal. Rptr. 830].) By 1976, however, the federal courts had generally rejected the Bristol-Meyers holding limiting the exemption to cases with concrete enforcement possibilities. (See Note, op. cit. supra, 7 Pacific L.J. 105, 127-128 and cases there cited.) The most recent Supreme Court decision on section 552, subdivision (b)(7) upholds an exemption for investigatory records without considering the prospects for enforcement (United States v. Washington Post Co., supra, 456 U.S. 595.)
The Bristol-Meyers doctrine, as adopted in Uribe v. Howie, supra, 19 Cal. App. 3d 194, nevertheless remains viable as a construction of the Act. As explained in Younger v. Berkeley City Council, supra, 45 Cal. App. 3d 825, 833, however, that doctrine relates only to information which is not itself exempt from compelled disclosure, but claims exemption only as part of an investigatory file. Information independently exempt, such as "intelligence information" in the present case, is not subject to the requirement that it relate to a concrete and definite prospect of enforcement proceedings.
FN 11. We agree with the trial court that information is not "confidential" in this context unless treated as confidential by its original source. Thus, information does not become confidential because the California Department of Justice and the submitting law enforcement agency agree to treat it as such; it is confidential only if the law enforcement agency obtained it in confidence originally.
FN 12. The briefs of the Attorney General and amicus also suggest that if the court orders disclosure of any information from the LEIU cards, this would breach the LEIU agreements and result in departments of other jurisdictions refusing to provide information to the California Department of Justice. This consequence, they suggest, is one matter to be weighed by the court in evaluating the claimed exemption under section 6255. The record on appeal, however, is entirely insufficient for us to determine the effect, if any, of ordering disclosure limited to nonconfidential information upon the future exchange of data by law enforcement units.
FN 13. We agree as a general principle with the language in Northern Cal. Police Practices Project v. Craig (1979) 90 Cal. App. 3d 116, 124 [153 Cal. Rptr. 173], that "where nonexempt materials are not inextricably intertwined with exempt materials and are otherwise reasonably segregable therefrom, segregation is required to serve the objective of the [Act] to make public records available for public inspection and copying unless a particular statute makes them exempt." The burden of segregating exempt from nonexempt materials, however, remains one of the considerations which the court can take into account in determining whether the public interest favors disclosure under section 6255.
FN 14. Section 6255 requires the courts to look to "the facts of the particular case" in balancing the benefits and burdens of disclosure under the Act. Thus our decision against requiring disclosure is necessarily limited to the facts of this particular case; in another case, with different facts, the balance might tip in favor of disclosure of nonexempt information on the LEIU cards. If, for example, a person were to seek disclosure of only his own card, the diminished need to delete personal identifiers (the person in question presumably knows his own identity and that of his associates) and the reduced burden of determining confidentiality of sources or information when only a single card is involved might justify a court in requiring disclosure.
FN 15. Plaintiff seeks attorney fees pursuant to Government Code section 6259. The trial court should determine the fees to be awarded, taking into account not only the matters litigated on this appeal, but also the other items included in plaintiff's complaint (see fn. 4, ante).
FN 1. All statutory references hereafter are to the Government Code, unless specified otherwise.
FN 2. "The agency shall justify withholding any record by demonstrating that the record in question is exempt under express provisions of this chapter or that on the facts of the particular case the public interest served by not making the record public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record." (§ 6255, italics added; see also Final Report, supra, p. 12; EPA v. Mink, supra, 410 U.S. at p. 93 [35 L.Ed.2d at p. 135].)
FN 3. 5 United States Code section 552.
FN 4. Statutes 1953, chapter 1588, page 3269.
FN 5. The ACLU agrees that all information on the LEIU cards which identifies an individual should be deleted prior to disclosure.
FN 6. See Note, The California Public Records Act: The Public's Right of Access to Governmental Information (1976) 7 Pacific L.J. 105, 119.
FN 7. The majority opinion hints in a footnote that nonexempt information is not "reasonably segregable" if the burden of segregation is great. (Ante, fn. 13, p. 453.) This suggestion does not withstand analysis.
FN 8. The bulk of this official's testimony, like that of the other witnesses below, involved merely the authentication of documents to be examined by the court.