Opinion ID: 755736
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Telephone Conference

Text: 52 The district court found that Colonel Amor's discussion of the charges against Major Gowan during a telephone conference with other Air Force officers and staff did not violate the Privacy Act because the charges were a matter of public record and because Colonel Amor may have had independent knowledge of the preferral of charges. 53 Section 552a(b) of the Privacy Act by its terms contemplates a 'system of records' as the direct or indirect source of the information disclosed. The disclosure of information derived solely from independent sources is not prohibited by the statute even though identical information may be contained in an agency system of records. Thomas v. United States Dep't of Energy, 719 F.2d 342, 345 (10th Cir.1983). The Air Force indicates that Colonel Amor was Major Gowan's commanding officer and that he was kept apprised of the investigation as it progressed. However, we need not decide whether this satisfies the independent source exception. Cf. id. at 344 (supervisor's information came from personal participation in discussions about plaintiff and being told to order plaintiff to undergo psychiatric evaluation, not from plaintiff's records). 54 In this case the district court did not make an unequivocal finding that Colonel Amor's information was all derived independently of a record pertaining to Major Gowan found in a system of records. In any event, in order to recover, Major Gowan must prove that Colonel Amor's conduct was intentional or willful. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(4). The district court did not make this essential finding, and thus Major Gowan cannot recover on this claim. Because of our ruling, we need not address the Air Force's argument that this disclosure can be justified under the need to know exception found in § 552a(b)(1).