Opinion ID: 697751
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Exemption 1: Information Classified in the Interest of

Text: National Security 10 The district court denied the government's requests to withhold material from FSM Docs. 51 and 495, Higgins Doc. 22, and Kerr Doc. 244 on exemption 1 grounds. 4 761 F.Supp. at 1451, 1454, 1456-57, 1461. The government appeals from these denials. 11 The government bore the burden to sustain each of its exemption 1 claims. To carry this burden, the government needed to provide the court and [Rosenfeld] with information sufficient to determine whether the source was truly a confidential one and why disclosure of the withheld information would lead to exposure of the source. Wiener v. FBI, 943 F.2d 972, 980 (9th Cir.1991). The government needed to describe [the] particular withheld document, identify the kind of information found in that document that would expose the confidential sources, or describe the injury to national security that would follow from the disclosure of the confidential source of the particular document. Id. at 981. It would not have been enough to rely on general assertions that disclosure of certain categories of facts may result in disclosure of the source and disclosure of the source may lead to a variety of consequences detrimental to national security. Id. 12 Neither the government's appeal briefs nor its withholding requests demonstrate with any particularity why portions of FSM Doc. 51, Higgins Doc. 22, or Kerr Doc. 244 should be exempted from the disclosure order. The district court correctly concluded that the government did not carry its burden as to these withholding requests. The government asks us to reverse the district court for not having afforded the government's classification decisions substantial weight. See id. at 980. This contention does not persuade us because the government failed to make an initial showing which would justify deference by the district court. See id. 13 Having reviewed the government's request to withhold information from FSM Doc. 495, we are satisfied that the government carried its burden. The government showed with particularity how disclosure might reveal the identity of an intelligence source. The district court sustained the government's request in part by allowing the government to delete information identifying the informant, but ruled that the document, edited accordingly, would not reveal the informant's identity. 761 F.Supp. at 1454. We are satisfied that the district court gave the government's request substantial weight, and find that the district court did not clearly err in finding that FSM Doc. 495 could be disclosed in part while still accommodating the government's classification interest. 14