Opinion ID: 421806
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: foia analysis

Text: 14 Next, we must consider appellees' contention that, despite the lower court's ruling to the contrary, all documents in this case are congressional--not agency--records and are therefore not subject to FOIA. The Government argues that these documents should be considered as congressional records because they disclose the deliberative process of the SSCI and would not exist in this form but for the congressional investigation that sparked their creation. 23 We do not agree. 15
16 The only documents still in dispute are three held by the FBI 24 and 55 in the possession of the CIA. 25 Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), this court's power to order their release is dependent upon a showing that the agencies have (1) improperly (2) withheld (3) agency records. See Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 150, 100 S.Ct. 960, 968, 63 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980); McGehee v. CIA, supra, 697 F.2d at 1105. The only threshold question posed here is whether the disputed documents can be considered agency records. Neither the Act nor its legislative history provides any adequate definition of this key phrase. See, e.g., Forsham v. Harris, 445 U.S. 169, 183-184, 100 S.Ct. 978, 985-986, 63 L.Ed.2d 293 (1980). 26 Accordingly, we turn to existing case law--as informed by the general policies of the Act--for guidance on this issue. 17 In recent years this court has followed the standards set forth in Goland v. CIA, 607 F.2d 339 (D.C.Cir.1978), vacated in part on other grounds, 607 F.2d 367 (D.C.Cir.1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 927, 100 S.Ct. 1312, 63 L.Ed.2d 759 (1980), for determining under what conditions documents in the possession of an agency may nonetheless be congressional documents, as opposed to agency records, and so be exempt from disclosure under FOIA: 18 Whether a congressionally generated document has become an agency record    depends on whether under all the facts of the case the document has passed from the control of Congress and become property subject to the free disposition of the agency with which the document resides. 19 607 F.2d at 347. Two factors are considered dispositive of Congress' continuing intent to control a document: (1) the circumstances attending the document's creation, and (2) the conditions under which it was transferred to the agency. See Holy Spirit Ass'n for Unification of World Christianity v. CIA, 636 F.2d 838, 841 (D.C.Cir.1980), other portions of decision vacated and remanded as moot, 455 U.S. 997, 102 S.Ct. 1626, 71 L.Ed.2d 858 (1982). See also Ryan v. Dep't of Justice, 617 F.2d 781, 785 (D.C.Cir.1980); Goland v. CIA, supra, 607 F.2d at 347-348. In the absence of any [229 U.S.App.D.C. 379] manifest indications that Congress intended to exert control over documents in an agency's possession, the court will conclude that such documents are not congressional records. 20 While the Supreme Court has never directly commented on the Goland approach, a recent decision has shed some new light--and confusion--on what may constitute agency records for the purposes of FOIA. In Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, supra, the Court held, inter alia, that transcripts of telephone conversations made during Henry Kissinger's tenure as National Security Adviser to the President were not agency records even though they had been removed from White House files and transferred to Kissinger's new office at the Department of State. 27 Rejecting the argument that physical location alone should control the question, 28 the Court instead looked beyond mere possession of the documents to the control exercised by the State Department: 21 The papers were not in the control of the State Department at any time. They were not generated in the State Department. They never entered the State Department's files, and they were not used by the Department for any purpose.    22 445 U.S. at 157, 100 S.Ct. at 972. 23 Kissinger 's focus on the control exercised by the possessor agency is not incompatible with Goland 's focus on Congress' intent to control. 29 Certainly, the two approaches differ somewhat in that one emphasizes factors relating to the absence of control by the possessor, while the other stresses the manifestations by the creator of an intent to control. See McGehee v. CIA, supra, 697 F.2d at 1107 n. 52. Yet, the cases fit together in standing for the general proposition that the agency to whom the FOIA request is directed must have exclusive control of the disputed documents. If, under the Goland standard, Congress 30 has manifested its own intent to retain control, then the agency--by definition--cannot lawfully control the documents within the meaning of Kissinger, and hence they are not agency records. 31 Thus we hold that our Goland approach has survived and is consistent with the Kissinger decision. We [229 U.S.App.D.C. 380] turn now to apply the Goland standard to the case at bar. 24
25 The documents in dispute in this case can be divided into two categories--those that Congress created and those that the CIA created. All documents are now in the possession of either the FBI or the CIA. 26
27 From the record it appears that the SSCI itself generated only five of the disputed documents--all three of the FBI records and two of the CIA documents. 32 Applying the two-pronged Goland test, we find that neither the circumstances surrounding the creation of the documents nor the conditions under which they were transferred to the agencies manifests a clear congressional intent to maintain control. 28 When Congress created the five documents in this case, it affixed no external indicia of control or confidentiality on the faces of the documents. 33 That the SSCI knew quite well how to classify its documents as secret is most clear from the fact that the Committee so stamped at least seven other of its documents related to the Paisley investigation--documents which were later requested by appellant, but which were properly held by the District Court to be exempt congressional documents in light of their classification markings. 34 Furthermore, the Government has not shown that the hearings which resulted in the three transcripts of testimony were conducted under any special conditions of secrecy. 35 29 Similarly, the documents at issue were not subsequently sent to the FBI and the CIA in such a way as to manifest any intent by Congress to retain control. The Government points to no contemporaneous and specific instructions from the SSCI to the agencies limiting either the use or disclosure of the documents. 36 Instead, the Government seeks to rely on an exchange of correspondence between the SSCI and the CIA as proof of the existence of a pre-existing agreement that any and all documents exchanged between the CIA and the SSCI would require review and approval by the Committee prior to public disclosure. 37 We do not consider these six letters to constitute sufficient evidence of Congress' intent to retain control over these particular documents. 30 The only two letters that specifically refer to the Paisley investigation were written [229 U.S.App.D.C. 381] in 1981 by the FBI and the CIA to the SSCI and simply indicate the agencies' belief that the documents now at issue are congressional in nature. There is no response from the Committee. Such one-sided correspondence initiated long after the original creation and transfer of the documents simply constitutes post hoc rationalization by the agencies. Cf. Holy Spirit Ass'n for Unification of World Christianity v. CIA, supra, 636 F.2d at 842 (letter from Clerk of House of Representatives written after transfer of records does not establish congressional control). 31 The remaining letters, written during 1978-82, do indicate the Committee's desire to prevent release without its approval of any documents generated by the Committee or by an intelligence agency in response to a Committee inquiry. 38 However, there is no discussion of any particular documents or of any particular criteria by which to evaluate and limit the breadth of this interdiction. We thus find these letters too general and sweeping to provide sufficient proof, when standing alone, of a specific intent to transfer these five Paisley documents to the FBI and the CIA for a limited purpose and on condition of secrecy. Goland v. CIA, supra, 607 F.2d at 348 n. 48. 39 In sum, nothing in either the circumstances of the documents' creation or the conditions attending their transfer provides the requisite express indication of a congressional intent to maintain exclusive control over these particular records. 32
33 The vast majority of the documents now in the CIA's possession were not even congressionally generated. Most are internal agency memoranda about the Paisley investigation and notations of meetings or phone calls between CIA and SSCI personnel or among CIA personnel alone. In fact, many of the documents are actually just brief entries made by CIA employees in a journal kept by the agency's Office of Legislative Counsel to record all communications with the Legislative Branch. 40 The Government argues that these records, although created by the CIA, should nevertheless be considered congressional records because they were generated in direct response to the SSCI's own investigation. On this view, but for Congress' independent inquiry into Paisley's death, these documents would not exist. 34 This contention is untenable. First and foremost, these documents were not created by Congress and were never even in Congress' possession. While initial creation or mere possession of a document is not alone dispositive of the issue of control, see, e.g., Forsham v. Harris, supra, 445 U.S. at 185 n. 16, 100 S.Ct. at 987 n. 16, both are certainly highly relevant to the inquiry. When Congress did not actually create and did not ever physically possess certain documents, it is difficult to imagine how such documents could be deemed within congressional control. 41 35 The only asserted connection of these documents to Congress 42 is that they are [229 U.S.App.D.C. 382] intimately related to a congressional investigation and may well have not been created but for Congress' investigation of the Paisley death. That connection is far too insubstantial and commonplace to establish congressional control within the meaning of Goland. To hold otherwise would be to exempt from FOIA's purview a broad array of materials otherwise clearly categorizable as agency records, 43 thereby undermining the spirit of broad disclosure that animates the Act. See, e.g., Dep't of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 360-362, 96 S.Ct. 1592, 1598-1599, 48 L.Ed.2d 11 (1976); EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 80, 93 S.Ct. 827, 832, 35 L.Ed.2d 119 (1973). 44 Many agencies, not simply the intelligence community, must work frequently and closely with congressional committees on matters of budget and policy or on individual cases. We decline to hold, in the absence of some stronger indicia of congressional intent, that all documents so generated in this or similar joint congressional and agency investigations constitute records within Congress' exclusive control. We therefore affirm the District Court's ruling that, on the basis of all the facts of this case, the FBI and CIA documents are agency records for the purpose of appellant's FOIA request.
36 After finding correctly that these documents were agency records, the lower court went on to hold that their release to appellant must still be barred by the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution. 45 Article I, § 6, cl. 1 of the Constitution provides that for any Speech or Debate in either House, they [senators and representatives] shall not be questioned in any other Place. According to the District Court, release of these documents--intimately related to a congressional investigation--would interfere with the integrity of the Senate's ability to oversee the intelligence activities of the CIA and the FBI. Since the Speech or Debate Clause has been read generally to protect the legislative process, the District Court determined that the kind of mischief that would arise from release of these documents is precisely the kind of evil that the Speech or Debate Clause is intended to prevent. 46 We find that this application of the Speech or Debate Clause is inapposite; the Clause and its policies, as interpreted by this court and the Supreme Court, simply have no bearing on this case. 37 It is true that the fundamental purpose of the Clause is to protect the integrity of the legislative process, United States v. Brewster, 408 U.S. 501, 507, 92 S.Ct. 2531, 2535, 33 L.Ed.2d 507 (1972). This is primarily accomplished by safeguarding the independence of individual legislators--by ensuring that the legislators are not distracted from or hindered in the performance of their legislative tasks by being called into court to defend their actions. 47 Yet, while [229 U.S.App.D.C. 383] the policies behind the Clause are quite general, actual application of the Clause to bar judicial proceedings has been strictly limited. 48 The core protection afforded by the Clause is to preclude those civil or criminal suits that seek to hold individual legislators (or their aides) liable for their legislative activities. 49 See, e.g., Doe v. McMillan, 412 U.S. 306, 93 S.Ct. 2018, 36 L.Ed.2d 912 (1973); Gravel v. United States, 408 U.S. 606, 92 S.Ct. 2614, 33 L.Ed.2d 583 (1972). The Clause has also been interpreted to bar a second type of suit--one that would directly interfere with the legislative process by interfer[ing] with an ongoing activity by Congress. Eastland v. United States Servicemen's Fund, 421 U.S. 491, 510 n. 16, 95 S.Ct. 1813, 1824 n. 16, 44 L.Ed.2d 324 (1975); see also Exxon Corp. v. FTC, 589 F.2d 582 (D.C.Cir.1978). 38 Neither situation exists in this case. This suit involves no individual member of Congress or legislative aide; it thus falls outside the fundamental protection of the Clause. Nor does this action threaten to interfere with ongoing legislative activity. The Paisley investigation ground to a halt years ago; the legislative process has effectively terminated. This court is not even being asked to scrutinize Congress' actions or decisions. 50 Appellant merely seeks disclosure of certain documents prepared in conjunction with a congressional investigation long since concluded. 51 As this court has recently held, FOIA's requirements and exemptions must be taken to be the definitive word on disclosure of the information in the Government's possession covered by it. Washington Post Co. v. U.S. Dep't of State, 685 F.2d 698, 704 (D.C.Cir.1982).
39
40 Accordingly, we now examine whether Exemption 5 should bar disclosure to appellant of the disputed documents. This section of FOIA shields from mandatory disclosure inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency[.] 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5). The courts have long recognized that this exemption clearly protects those materials that fall within the Government's deliberative process privilege. 52 This privilege serves the primary [229 U.S.App.D.C. 384] purpose of permitting agency decisionmakers to engage in that frank exchange of opinions and recommendations necessary to the formulation of policy without being inhibited by fear of later public disclosure. See Jordan v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 591 F.2d 753, 772-774 (D.C.Cir.1978) (en banc ); S.Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. 9 (1965). 41 To be protected by Exemption 5's deliberative process privilege, documents must meet two requirements. First, the documents must be pre-decisional, i.e., they must be generated antecedent to the adoption of agency policy. Jordan v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, supra, 591 F.2d at 774. If there is no definable decisionmaking process that results in a final agency decision, then the documents are not pre-decisional. See Vaughn v. Rosen, 523 F.2d 1136, 1146 (D.C.Cir.1975). Second, the documents must be deliberative in nature, reflecting the give-and-take of the deliberative process and containing opinions, recommendations, or advice about agency policies. See Arthur Andersen & Co. v. IRS, 679 F.2d 254, 257 (D.C.Cir.1982); Jordan v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, supra, 591 F.2d at 774. Factual material that does not reveal the deliberative process is not protected by this exemption. See EPA v. Mink, supra, 410 U.S. at 89-91, 93 S.Ct. at 837-838. 42 The District Court held all of the disputed documents to be exempt from disclosure under Exemption 5 because they were generated as part of a joint congressional and agency investigation and were therefore pre-decisional and confidential. See Dist.Ct.Op. at 7, JA 158. This cursory explanation simply does not suffice to support the lower court's decision. Nor does the record on appeal permit this court to judge for itself the applicability of Exemption 5. We therefore must remand this issue so that the District Court in the first instance may properly analyze whether the documents meet the two requirements discussed above and so fall within Exemption 5. The following comments should guide the lower court in its determination. 43
44 To ascertain whether the documents at issue are pre-decisional, the court must first be able to pinpoint an agency decision or policy to which these documents contributed. The agency bears the burden of establishing the character of the decision, the deliberative process involved, and the role played by the documents in the course of that process. Coastal States Gas Corp. v. Dep't of Energy, 617 F.2d 854, 868 (D.C.Cir.1980); see also NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 138, 95 S.Ct. 1504, 1510, 44 L.Ed.2d 29 (1975). Unfortunately, the Government has thus far failed to sustain this burden. Only at oral argument before this court did the Government attempt to clarify the pre-decisional nature of these documents, contending that the documents had been generated as part of a joint congressional and agency investigation into Paisley's death, undertaken to decide: (1) whether to propose new legislation, and (2) whether to initiate any criminal prosecution in connection with the death. 45 Since on the basis of the record currently before the court we are unable to ascertain whether the disputed documents played any role in arriving at either decision, the District Court must conduct a more detailed inquiry into whether and how these documents were used to arrive at these, or any other, decisions. 53 We do note at this point our reservations that a decision by Congress to initiate legislation can be [229 U.S.App.D.C. 385] construed as an agency decision for FOIA purposes. 54 However, a decision as to whether or not to prosecute someone in connection with Paisley's death may well be such an agency decision; if so, the information-gathering and deliberative process that produces the decision is precisely the type of material to be protected as pre-decisional under Exemption 5. 55 On remand, the District Court should also determine the role normally played by the CIA and the FBI in initiating or advising about such prosecutions. 46
47 If, on remand, the District Court finds that the documents did play a role in some agency decisionmaking process, the documents must yet be shown to be deliberative to be protected under Exemption 5. It is well established that purely factual material which is severable from the opinion or policy advice in a document is generally not protected and must be disclosed in a FOIA suit. See EPA v. Mink, supra, 410 U.S. at 91, 93 S.Ct. at 838; Mead Data Central, Inc. v. Dep't of the Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 260-261 (D.C.Cir.1977); K. DAVIS, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW §§ 5:33, 5:34, at 404-407 (2d ed. 1978). However, even factual material may come within Exemption 5 if the manner of selecting or presenting those facts would reveal the deliberative process, or if the facts are 'inextricably intertwined' with the policymaking process. Ryan v. Dep't of Justice, supra, 617 F.2d at 790 ( quoting Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d 1067, 1078 (D.C.Cir.1971)) (footnotes omitted). 56 But this exception cannot be read so broadly as to undermine the basic rule; in most situations factual summaries prepared for informational purposes will not reveal deliberative processes and hence should be disclosed. See, e.g., ITT World Communications, Inc. v. FCC, 699 F.2d 1219, 1239 (D.C.Cir.1983); Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Dep't of Justice, 677 F.2d 931 (D.C.Cir.1982). 48 From the Vaughn indices submitted, most of the requested documents do appear to be straightforward, factual summaries of meetings and phone conversations between SSCI and CIA staff personnel. However, because of its holding on the Speech or Debate Clause issue, the District Court declined to make findings as to the nature or segregability of the information contained in these documents. Therefore, on remand [229 U.S.App.D.C. 386] the court is directed to determine precisely which documents or portions thereof should be released as severable factual material whose disclosure would not reveal the deliberative process. 49
50 Finally, the Government asserts on appeal that certain documents held by the CIA are also exempt from disclosure pursuant to Exemptions 1 and/or 3, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1) and (3). 57 Exemption 1 allows withholding of documents that have been authorized by Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense and foreign policy and that have been properly classified. 58 Exemption 3 protects documents that have been specifically exempted from disclosure by statute. 59 The Government claims that the documents at issue are properly classified pursuant to Executive Order and therefore are protected by Exemption 1. Furthermore, the documents contain information about the official activities of CIA employees and about CIA organization and procedures explicitly exempted from disclosure by 50 U.S.C. §§ 403(d)(3) and 403g (1976). Thus the CIA could properly invoke the protection of Exemption 3. 51 Since the District Court resolved the case on other grounds, it never considered these exemptions. On remand, the District Court should rule on the applicability of Exemptions 1 and 3. As with its Exemption 5 procedure, the District Court must order that all reasonably segregable nonexempt portions of the documents be released to appellant. 60 The burden once again lies with the agencies to demonstrate that no segregable, nonexempt portions remain withheld from appellant. 61