Opinion ID: 319872
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: effect of individual's consent to government disclosure

Text: 31 The Government has offered to release information concerning any individual to RHA if the written authorization of the individual is obtained. Specifically, the Government wrote to RHA, 32 If you furnish us with appropriate written authorizations from those individuals who, to your present knowledge, furnished information in this investigation, we will consider making available information furnished by any such individual. 49 33 RHA did not obtain any individual releases. 34 The exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act place limits on compulsory disclosure; presumably the Government has power to waive an exemption. However, in so doing, the Government and a court, when its authority is invoked, must be alert to protect other interests in confidentiality besides those of the Government which are present in each of the nine exemptions, some more obviously than others. Much information is disclosed voluntarily and involuntarily (but with less difficulty than would otherwise be true), because the individuals supplying the information believe that, since the Government has power to protect confidentiality under the exemptions, it will do so. 35 This suggestion of the Government for obtaining individual releases protects the interest involved in exemption 6 that individuals' medical, personnel, or similar files not be indiscriminately disclosed. However, the ambiguous terms of the Government's offer to release should be clarified. It is unclear whether the Government would release personal information about one person which is furnished by a second person on simply the second's authorization, or only by the first's, or by both. One interest protected by exemption 7, that of enabling the investigatory process to proceed unimpeded by hesitancy of witnesses or disclosure of investigatory technique, which was not previously evaluated by the trial court, should not be overlooked on remand. 36 The trial court should weigh carefully several difficulties inherent in the release by individual consent of government compiled information on private individuals. First, if many consent, there may be explicit or implicit group pressure on those few who do not wish to have their lives publicized. Second, there may be pressure by the RHA or other groups to force individuals to comply. We impute no bad motives or actions to RHA; we merely state a possibility true for any interested organization. Third, if many consented-to disclosures are made, it may become significantly easier to identify the remainder of the group because of the smaller size of unknowns. 37 Finally, putting the same amount of information in the public domain could be achieved by private interviewing of those individuals who wish to participate. They can then reveal whatever information they desire, and this process might, as a practical matter, be no more time-consuming for RHA than obtaining formal consents to disclosure by the government. This approach would be similar to the approach taken for grand jury witnesses. We do not allow a grand jury witness' testimony to be revealed except under well-defined rules; however, the witness is usually free to come out of the grand jury and tell the public what he knows with regard to the subject of the grand jury inquiry.