Opinion ID: 350872
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: air force regulations

Text: 32 Since the exemptions to the FOIA are permissive rather than mandatory, particularly with respect to information that does not raise issues of individual privacy rights, an agency may impose upon itself a more liberal disclosure rule than that required by the FOIA. 45 The Air Force has done just that by providing by regulation that even though a requested document or portion thereof falls within an exemption, it should nonetheless be disclosed unless it is also determined that a significant and legitimate Government purpose would be served by exercising the exemption. 32 C.F.R. § 806.23 (1976). In view of the well-established principle that an agency is bound by its own regulations, 46 we must determine whether the Air Force has demonstrated such a purpose for withholding the documents at issue in this case. 47 33 In both its initial reply to Mead Data's request and notification of the result of Mead Data's administrative appeal, the Air Force indicated that it would not disclose the information requested because to do so would inhibit Air Force personnel from expressing their candid opinions in the future, J. A. at 8, and adversely affect the decisional process within the Air Force. Id. at 10. In his affidavit, filed in the district court, the Chief of the Air Force's General Litigation Division reiterated that he had denied disclosure because it would impair the deliberative process in successfully negotiating a licensing agreement between the Air Force and West Publishing Company . . . by impairing the free and frank exchange of ideas among Air Force personnel. Id. at 31-32. 34 Mead Data argues that these reasons are too vague and speculative and that only a specific showing of the specific injury that would result from disclosure of each document would satisfy the regulation's requirement. Certainly, as we have reaffirmed above, an agency must show by detailed and specific justification that information it seeks to withhold from public disclosure falls within one of the exemptions to the FOIA. Once that is shown, however, the FOIA does not apply, 48 and our review of the agency's decision whether to release it, nonetheless, is limited to determining whether the agency's action amounts to an abuse of discretion. Charles River Park A, Inc. v. Department of HUD, 171 U.S.App.D.C. 286, 294, 519 F.2d 935, 943 (1975). 35 The exemptions from the mandatory disclosure requirement of the FOIA are both narrowly drafted and narrowly construed in order to counterbalance the self-protective instincts of the bureaucracy which, like any organization, would prefer to operate under the relatively comforting gaze of only its own members rather than the more revealing sunlight of public scrutiny. Where there is a balance to be struck, Congress and the courts have stacked the scales in favor of disclosure and against exemption. Exempt material represents only that small subset of government records for which Congress has determined that an absolute and generalized disclosure rule would do more harm than good and therefore has left the decision to the agencies to be made on a case-by-case basis. Since the public's right of access to government information is already well protected by the breadth of the disclosure requirement of the FOIA and since the agency's discretion is already confined to a narrow class of information, there is less need for exacting court scrutiny of an agency's decision not to disclose exempt material. Of course, we must require the Air Force to meet the standard it has set for itself, but in doing so we should not be quick to interpret the Department's regulation in derogation of the discretion which the FOIA has left to it. 36 The reasons which the Air Force initially provided, and later amplified, for its decision to deny disclosure are completely consistent with the policy objectives of exemption five and are clearly applicable to the type of information described in its communications to Mead Data and the district court. Mead Data does not contend that these were not in fact the concerns which prompted the Air Force's action. It simply attacks the merits of the Air Force's conclusion that they provide a significant and legitimate reason to withhold exempt material. We cannot say, in light of the record before us, that the Air Force abused its discretion in reaching that conclusion.