Opinion ID: 2180233
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prior Public Disclosure

Text: [¶ 17] Three of the fourteen files submitted for in camera inspection by the court reference the prior public disclosure of certain allegations contained in the files. [7] The remaining files contain no indication of prior public disclosure, apart from the report of the allegations directly to the Diocese, a District Attorney, or the Attorney General by individuals professing knowledge of the alleged abuse. [¶ 18] The prior public disclosure of information does not generally extinguish privacy interests in the nondisclosure of the same information organized and contained in the investigative records of a law enforcement agency. See Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 770, 109 S.Ct. 1468. A person's interest in controlling the dissemination of information about oneself is an integral part of the right to privacy. Mack, 259 F.Supp.2d at 109. In Reporters Committee, the United States Supreme Court rejected the notion that a personal privacy interest does not attach to an individual's interest in keeping private a criminal rap sheet containing information that was already available to the public from other sources. 489 U.S. at 762-71, 109 S.Ct. 1468. [T]he fact that an event is not wholly private does not mean that an individual has no interest in limiting disclosure or dissemination of the information. Id. at 770, 109 S.Ct. 1468 (quotation marks omitted). [¶ 19] Here, the prior disclosure of allegations contained in two of the fourteen files detailing allegations of sexual abuse by the deceased priests does not extinguish the interests of the various individuals named in the records in controlling the separate dissemination of the information as it is organized and portrayed in the Attorney General's investigative records.