Opinion ID: 691129
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Retrieval

Text: The Privacy Act safeguards the public from unwarranted collection, maintenance, use and dissemination of personal information contained in agency records. It provides, in part: No agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains.... 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(b). 3 Under a long line of cases interpreting the Privacy Act, courts have agreed that the Act covers more than the mere physical dissemination of records. However, courts have also agreed that the Privacy Act does not necessarily cover disclosure of information merely because it happens to be contained in the records. Such a broad application of the Act would impose an intolerable burden, and would expand the Privacy Act beyond the limits of its purpose, which is to preclude a system of records from serving as the source of personal information about a person that is then disclosed without the person's prior consent. Olberding v. United States Dep't of Defense, 709 F.2d 621, 622 (8th Cir.1983) (emphasis in original). Thus, if a party discloses information obtained independently of any records, such a disclosure does not violate the Act, even if identical information is contained in the records. Id. Based on this rationale, courts have developed a general rule that the Privacy Act prohibits only nonconsensual disclosure of any information that has been retrieved from a protected record. Bartel v. FAA, 725 F.2d 1403, 1408 (D.C.Cir.1984) (emphasis added). See also, Kline v. HHS, 927 F.2d 522, 524 (10th Cir.1991); Thomas v. United States Dep't of Energy, 719 F.2d 342, 345 (10th Cir.1983); Olberding, 709 F.2d at 622; Jackson v. Veterans Admin., 503 F.Supp. 653, 656 (N.D.Ill.1980). While we affirm the general applicability of the retrieval rule, we hold that in the peculiar facts of this case, a mechanical application of that rule would thwart, rather than advance, the purpose of the Privacy Act. We have noted in the past that the Privacy Act, if it is to be given any force and effect, must be interpreted in a way that does not go against the spirit of the Act. MacPherson v. IRS, 803 F.2d 479, 481 (9th Cir.1986). Thus, we hold that even though the ALJ may not have physically retrieved the disclosed information from Wilborn's personnel file, he violated the Privacy Act by using the HHS's sophisticated information collecting methods to acquire personal information for inclusion in the PIP, and then disclosing the existence of the PIP and its contents in an unauthorized fashion. To hold otherwise would mean that any agency official who uses government information collecting methods to generate a report containing private information could claim that a subsequent disclosure was based on independent knowledge, and not physical retrieval of the record itself. Such independent knowledge, gained by the creation of records, cannot be used to sidestep the Privacy Act. Thus, we agree with the District of Columbia Circuit, which held in Bartel that the Privacy Act applies to a situation where an agency official uses the government's 'sophisticated ... information collecting' methods to acquire personal information for inclusion in a record, and then discloses that information in an unauthorized fashion without actually physically retrieving it from the record system. 725 F.2d at 1410 (emphasis added). The facts in Bartel were similar to those before us today. In that case, plaintiff Bartel brought suit under the Privacy Act against his former employer, the FAA, and a supervisor named Vincent, for unauthorized disclosures. Shortly before he left the FAA, Bartel had been under investigation for improperly obtaining the files of certain airmen, and a Report of Investigation (ROI) had been generated. After Bartel left the FAA, Vincent disclosed in letters to the airmen that an investigation of Bartel indicated that Bartel had improperly obtained their records. The Bartel defendants--like the HHS here--claimed that the retrieval rule had not been satisfied because the facts did not conclusively show that Vincent had actually read the ROI before making the disputed disclosures. Rejecting this argument, Bartel noted that Vincent himself had ordered the investigation that resulted in the ROI. Id. at 1411. Under such a fact pattern, a hypertechnical interpretation of the retrieval rule would make little sense, given the underlying purposes of the Privacy Act. Id. at 1409. An absolute policy of limiting the Act's coverage to information physically retrieved from a record would allow an official to circumvent the requirements of the Privacy Act simply by not bothering to check the disclosure against the record. In the instant case, the ALJ was even more closely connected to the maintenance of the system of records than was Vincent in Bartel. The ALJ did not simply order the PIP, as Vincent had ordered the ROI; he both created and destroyed the PIP. In granting summary judgment for HHS, the district court erred in relying on Olberding and Thomas, which do not apply to the facts of this case. In Olberding, the disclosed information came from a report that was not a record in a system of records. 709 F.2d at 622. In the instant case, the parties do not dispute that the PIP was part of a personnel file which was part of a system of records. Thomas was based on the fact that the disclosing officer never had access to any such records. 719 F.2d at 344. Here, the ALJ not only had access to the PIP, he created it. Our holding--based on the unusual and egregious facts of this case--is not inconsistent with the long line of retrieval rule cases cited by the government. See, e.g., Kline, 927 F.2d 522 (where recipient of disclosure already had knowledge of disclosed information); Doyle v. Behan, 670 F.2d 535 (5th Cir.1982) (where there was no evidence that the disclosed information was drawn from a record, as opposed to a completely independent source); Krowitz v. Department of Agric., 641 F.Supp 1536 (W.D.Mich.1986) (where the disclosed information was based strictly on personal knowledge), aff'd, 826 F.2d 1063 (6th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1009, 108 S.Ct. 705, 98 L.Ed.2d 656 (1988); Jackson, 503 F.Supp. 653 (where there was no evidence that the disclosing party had ever seen the record); Savarese v. HEW, 479 F.Supp. 304 (N.D.Ga.1979) (where the disclosing party never had access to the system of records), aff'd, 620 F.2d 298 (5th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1078, 101 S.Ct. 858, 66 L.Ed.2d 801 (1981); King v. Califano, 471 F.Supp. 180 (D.D.C.1979) (where the disclosed information was already publicly known). In the instant case, unlike those cited above, the ALJ personally created the PIP, relying on reports and statistics that were a product of the agency's information gathering mechanism. Any independent knowledge the ALJ had of the PIP or its contents came from the act of creation itself. It hardly places an intolerable burden on an agency to hold it liable for the kind of disclosure made by the ALJ.