Opinion ID: 370469
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hearing Transcript.

Text: 11 The FOIA requires that an agency make agency records available to the public upon reasonable request. 23 The Act does not define records or agency records. 24 Plaintiffs argue that since the CIA is an agency its possession of the Hearing Transcript, without more, renders that document an agency record subject to disclosure absent specific exemption. 25 The CIA argues that possession is not enough; it points out that agency, as defined by the Administrative Procedure Act, does not include (A) the Congress . . . , 26 and that the Hearing Transcript, regardless of whether it is a record, is not an Agency record on the facts of this case. 27 The district court found that the Hearing Transcript was released to the CIA for limited purposes as a reference document only and that it remain(ed) within the control of Congress;  28 the court concluded that the Transcript was in consequence a Congressional document, 29 and not an agency record within the meaning of FOIA. We agree. 12 At the outset, we reject plaintiffs' argument that an agency's possession of a document Per se dictates that document's status as an agency record. 30 We base our conclusion both on precedent and on policy. The precedent is the Tenth Circuit's opinion in Cook v. Willingham, 31 the only decision cited to us or discovered by our own research that is squarely on point. In Cook, a prisoner sought a copy of his presentence investigation report under FOIA. Although the document was physically in the possession of the warden of a United States penitentiary, the Tenth Circuit held the place of possession not controlling. Noting that FOIA does not apply to 'the courts of the United States,'  32 it concluded that the presentence report, made for the use of the sentencing court, thereafter remains in the exclusive control of that court despite any joint utility it may eventually serve. 33 In consequence, the judicial document was not an agency report and (was) therefore not available to the public under FOIA. 34 Since the FOIA's exemptions for Congress and the federal courts are In pari materia, 35 Cook is firm support for the conclusion that the Hearing Transcript, a congressional document, is not an agency record here. 13 This conclusion likewise finds firm support in policy. Congress has undoubted authority to keep its records secret, authority rooted in the Constitution, 36 longstanding practice, 37 and current congressional rules. 38 Yet Congress exercises oversight authority over the various federal agencies, and thus has an undoubted interest in exchanging documents with those agencies to facilitate their proper functioning in accordance with Congress' originating intent. 39 If plaintiffs' argument were accepted, Congress would be forced either to surrender its constitutional prerogative of maintaining secrecy, or to suffer an impairment of its oversight role. We decline to confront Congress with this dilemma absent a more convincing showing of self-abnegating congressional intent. It may be assumed that plaintiffs could not easily win release of the Hearing Transcript from the House of Representatives; we will not permit them to do indirectly what they cannot do directly because of the fortuity of the Transcript's location. 14 For reasons both of precedent and policy, then, we believe that plaintiffs' litmus test must be rejected. An agency's possession of a document, standing alone, no more dictates that it is an agency record than the congressional origins of a document, standing alone, dictate that it is not. Whether a congressionally generated document has become an agency record, rather, 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. 15 The document at issue here is a photostatic reproduction of a stenographic transcript of a hearing held before the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments on 27 June 1947, entitled H.R. 2319 Unification of the Armed Forces. The Committee was sitting in Executive Session. As the first order of business, the Chairman swore the stenographer and typist to secrecy. 40 The transcript contains discussions of basic elements of intelligence methodology, both of this country and of friendly foreign governments, as well as detailed discussions of the CIA's structure and disposition of functions. 41 When received by the CIA, the Transcript bore the typewritten marking Secret on its interior cover page; this marking appears to have been appended at the time the Transcript was made. 42 The typewritten mark Secret appears again on the first page of the text of the Transcript. The CIA retains a copy of the Transcript for internal reference purposes only, to be used in conjunction with legislation concerning the Agency and its operations. 43 16 Given these facts, we conclude that the Hearing Transcript remains under the control of and continues to be the property of the House of Representatives. We base our conclusion both on the circumstances attending the document's generation and the conditions attached to its possession by the CIA. The facts that the Committee met in executive session 44 and that the Transcript was denominated Secret plainly evidence a Congressional intent to maintain Congressional control over the document's confidentiality. 45 The fact that the CIA retains the Transcript solely for internal reference purposes indicates that the document is in no meaningful sense the property of the CIA; the Agency is not free to dispose of the Transcript as it wills, but holds the document, as it were, as a trustee for Congress. Under these circumstances, the decision to make the transcript public should be made by the originating body, not by the recipient agency. 46 17 We hold, therefore, that the Hearing Transcript is not an agency record but a congressional document to which FOIA does not apply. 47 We reach this conclusion because we believe that on all the facts of the case Congress' intent to retain control of the document is clear. Other cases will arise where this intent is less plain. We leave those cases for another day. 48 18