Opinion ID: 4390304
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Scope of the FOIA Request

Text: Rojas challenges the district court and the FAA’s interpretation of the scope of his FOIA request. Specifically, Rojas argues that the FAA has an obligation under FOIA to retrieve any responsive documents, such as the underlying data to the summaries, held by APTMetrics. However, FOIA places no such obligation on an agency. FOIA empowers federal courts “to enjoin the agency from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B). As discussed above, an agency is “any executive department, military department, Government corporation, Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the Government (including the Executive Office of the President), or any independent regulatory agency.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(1). A “record” is “any information that would be an agency record subject to the requirements of this section when maintained by an agency in any format, including an electronic format” along with “any information . . . that is maintained for an agency by an entity under Government contract, for the purposes of records management.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(2). FOIA does not define “agency record.” See Forsham v. Harris, 445 U.S. 169, 178 (1980). The Supreme Court has held that for a document to be an “agency record” under FOIA, the agency must (1) “‘either create or obtain’ the requested materials,” and (2) “the agency must be in control of the requested materials at the time the FOIA request is made.” Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 22 ROJAS V. FAA at 144–45 (quoting Forsham, 445 U.S. at 182). That an agency has a right to obtain a document does not render the document an agency record. Id. at 144. “FOIA applies to records which have been in fact obtained, and not to records which merely could have been obtained.” Id. (emphasis in original) (quoting Forsham, 445 U.S. at 186). To be sure, the bright line definition of agency records as those “which have been in fact obtained” allows the government to avoid disclosure by parking documents with third parties. We share the concerns Justice Brennan articulated when he dissented from the adoption of a bright line definition. Specifically, Justice Brennan expressed that the understandable tendency of agencies to rely on nongovernmental grantees to perform myriad projects distances the electorate from important information by one more step. If the records of such organizations, when drawn directly into the regulatory process, are immune from public inspection, then government by secrecy must surely return. Forsham, 445 U.S. at 191 (Brennan, J., dissenting). These concerns are particularly pertinent in this case, which involves a federal agency delegating its duty to establish hiring criteria to an outside consultant. But we are bound by the Supreme Court’s precedent. And under that precedent, the records held by APTMetrics that have not been transmitted to the FAA are beyond the reach of FOIA. That the FAA is not obligated to search APTMetrics for responsive documents does not relieve its duty to conduct a reasonable search of its own records, as discussed above. ROJAS V. FAA 23