Opinion ID: 462280
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Is a grand jury subpoena an order of a court?

Text: 28 Standing alone, the Privacy Act's order of a court language is susceptible to conflicting constructions. 16 On the one hand, since the subpoena is signed by the clerk of the court, is issued in the name of the court, and carries with it the contempt power, it is plausible to argue that it qualifies as an order of a court. On the other hand, the term order of a court does carry with it a connotation of more than pro forma court involvement. Thus, to decide whether a grand jury subpoena comes within the statutory provision we must look to other sources for guidance. While the legislative history of the provision turns out to be ambiguous as well, two other factors that we will address point to the conclusion that Congress did not intend to allow disclosure pursuant to a subpoena--grand jury or otherwise--unless a court has actually approved its issuance. 29 i. Legislative history. We agree with the Eighth Circuit's determination that the legislative history of the order of the court provision is not particularly helpful in determining whether Congress perceived a difference between the terms court order and legal process. See Bruce v. United States, 621 F.2d 914, 916 (8th Cir.1980) (There is nothing in the legislative history of the Privacy Act of 1974 to suggest what Congress intended by the term.). The original bill that passed the Senate provided that each federal agency covered by this Act which maintains an information system or file shall make reasonable efforts to serve advance notice on any individual before any personal information on such individual is made available to any person under compulsory legal process. H.R. 16373, 93d Cong., 2d Sess., Sec. 201(g), reprinted in Senate Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate & Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, Legislative History of the Privacy Act of 1974, S. 3418 (Public Law No. 93-579) 137 (1976) [hereinafter Legislative History] (emphasis added). The Senate Report explained that [t]he purpose of the section is to permit an individual advance notice so that he may take appropriate legal steps to suppress a subpoena for his personal data. S.Rep. No. 1183, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 66 (1974), reprinted in Legislative History at 66. The House bill, on the other hand, made no provision for notice but did contain an amendment providing for disclosure pursuant to the order of a court of competent jurisdiction. Congressman Butler had introduced this amendment for the purpose of making it perfectly clear that a lawful order of a court of competent jurisdiction would be an appropriate condition of disclosure. 120 Cong.Rec. 36,959 (1974), reprinted in Legislative History at 936. As part of the last-minute compromise that settled the differences between the House and Senate versions, the Senate agreed to adopt the House approach, which did not require notice to the individual but did use the court order language in place of the process terminology. 30 Unfortunately, this legislative history is subject to conflicting interpretations. It is quite possible that the Senate would not have agreed to the no-notice provision if the compromise had permitted disclosure pursuant to process alone. Alternatively, it is conceivable that Congress considered the terms synonymous, and that the Senate was simply abandoning the notice provision, while allowing for disclosure pursuant to process. The history of the Privacy Act, therefore, does not answer the question of whether Congress understood the terms as having different meanings. 17 31 ii. Provisions in similar statutes. Our review of the plain language and legislative history of the Privacy Act has been inconclusive as to whether Congress intended to allow disclosure of records pursuant to a grand jury subpoena. Under these circumstances, it is appropriate to consider whether the use of the same language in another statute aids in a determination of its scope in this one. We presume that when enacting new legislation, Congress is aware of similar language in old statutes, and chooses to repeat that language based on an understanding of relevant law interpreting it. See Stribling v. United States, 419 F.2d 1350, 1352-53 (8th Cir.1969) (Where the interpretation of a particular statute at issue is in doubt, the express language and legislative construction of another statute not strictly in pari materia but employing similar language and applying to similar persons, things, or cognate relationships may control by force of analogy.); accord Yuen v. Internal Revenue Service, 649 F.2d 163, 167 n. 4 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1053, 102 S.Ct. 597, 70 L.Ed.2d 588 (1981); see also Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., 318 U.S. 125, 131-32, 63 S.Ct. 494, 498-99, 87 L.Ed. 656 (1943) (applying same scope to language used in statutes which although not strictly analogous, were similar). 32 The order of a court language of the Privacy Act is virtually identical to a provision in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1681. The FCRA is quite similar to the Privacy Act inasmuch as it too limits disclosure of certain information which an individual expects to be kept confidential. Section 1681b(1) of the FCRA provides for disclosure [i]n response to the order of a court having jurisdiction to issue such order. 33 The legislative history of the FCRA reveals that Congress consciously decided to use the order language and not process. See In re Gren, 633 F.2d 825, 826-28 (9th Cir.1980). The original Senate bill provided that [a] consumer reporting agency may furnish a consumer report under the following circumstances and no others: (1) In response to the order of a court having jurisdiction to issue such order ... S. 823, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. Sec. 604 (1970). The bill which ultimately became the House bill, on the other hand, prohibited disclosure of material unless pursuant to legal process. H.R. 1634, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. Sec. 35 (1970). The legislative history demonstrates that Congress was very sensitive to the issue of how broad the government's access to credit information should be. See In re Gren, 633 F.2d at 827. Against this background, the House eventually ceded to the Senate and passed the Senate language verbatim. 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1681(b). In light of this history, we agree with the Ninth Circuit that this very issue was before the Congress and that Congress clearly wanted to exclude process of a court that was not a court order. See In re Gren, 633 F.2d at 827. 18 34 In light of the ambiguity surrounding the order language as used in the Privacy Act, its usage in the FCRA is important. Incorporation of identical or similar language from an act with a related purpose evidences some intention to use it in a similar vein. 19 See Stribling, 419 F.2d at 1352-53. Moreover, the policy considerations that prompted Congress to limit disclosure in the FCRA, were also present in the Privacy Act. Finally, the history of the FCRA demonstrates that when it was passed, Congress understood that the terms process and order were different. Although certainly not dispositive, the meaning attributed to the term by Congress in the FCRA, is probative of the meaning that should be afforded the like term here. 35 The notion that Congress consciously chose to employ the order language from the FCRA is buttressed by the fact that Congress had another option to choose from. The Veterans' Records Statute in its original pre-1976 form provides for disclosure when required by process of a United States court to be produced in any suit or proceeding therein pending. 38 U.S.C. Sec. 3301(b)(2). Congress' decision not to use that language, and to adopt a seemingly stricter provision, must be afforded weight. If Congress intended to allow disclosure pursuant to any request issued in the name of a court, then it would more likely have chosen the process terminology used in Sec. 3301. Thus, we agree with the Ninth Circuit that no matter [w]hat other attributes we may ascribe to Congress, this court can hardly hold that Congress did not know, when it enacted this law, that grand jury subpoenas were not the equivalent of a court order. In re Gren, 633 F.2d at 827. 36 iii. The purpose and the structure of the Act. When the language of a specific provision, taken together with its history and other aids of construction, do not provide unequivocal answers to the question of congressional intent, a court may look to the overall structure and purpose of the statute to determine which of the possible readings seems to fit in best with the goal that Congress had in mind. See Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Engle, 464 U.S. 206, 104 S.Ct. 597, 604, 78 L.Ed.2d 420 (1984) (court's  'duty is to find that interpretation which can most fairly be said to be imbedded in the statute, in the sense of being most harmonious with its scheme and with the general purposes that Congress manifested' ) (quoting NLRB v. Lion Oil Co., 352 U.S. 282, 297, 77 S.Ct. 330, 338, 1 L.Ed.2d 331 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part)). In this case, a fair reading of the statute and its purpose leads to the definite conclusion that Congress did not intend to allow disclosure pursuant to a typical grand jury subpoena. 37 One of the stated purposes of the Privacy Act was to prevent the kind of illegal, unwise, overbroad, investigation and record surveillance of law abiding citizens produced in recent years from actions of some overzealous investigators, and the curiosity of some government administrators, or the wrongful disclosure and use, in some cases, of personal files held by Federal agencies. S.Rep. No. 1183, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 1 (1974), reprinted in Legislative History at 154. At the same time Congress recognized the need to allow for disclosure when there is an important public policy need for such exemption. P.L. No. 93-579, Sec. 2(b)(5) (1974), reprinted in Legislative History at 501. 38 The specific exemptions that Congress established reflect a delicate balance between limiting disclosure of records, and not unduly hampering government operations. The key operating concept of the Privacy Act is that individual rights must be recognized and balanced in agency uses of information. II J. O'Reilly, Federal Information Disclosure 20-22 (1985). For example, although the Act permits disclosure to another governmental agency for civil or criminal law enforcement activity, it conditions the disclosure on the written request of the head of the agency, thereby assuring some high level evaluation of the need for the information. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 522a(b)(7). Similarly, while an agency may disclose information pursuant to a routine use, the Act requires that such routine uses be compatible with the purposes for which [the information] is collected, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(a)(7), and that the public be afforded an opportunity to comment on whether a routine use should be established. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(e)(4)(D). The memorandum describing the compromise bill states that this provision was intended to discourage the unnecessary exchange of information to other persons or to agencies who may not be as sensitive to the collecting agency's reasons for using and interpreting the material. 120 Cong.Rec. 40,881 (introduced by Congressman Moorhead), reprinted in Legislative History at 859-60. 39 To read the order of the court language as permitting disclosure pursuant to a subpoena, would create a gaping hole in the overall scheme of the Privacy Act. Grand jury subpoenas are not necessarily subject to any upper-level evaluation whatsoever. See supra at 79-81. They are typically issued by the AUSA working on the case, without prior approval by the head of the agency, the grand jury, or any judge. One of Congress' explicit goals in enacting the Privacy Act was to preclude overzealous investigators from running roughshod over an individual's privacy, and the grand jury subpoena simply does not safeguard against that danger. As one district court explained in the context of the FCRA: Since a grand jury is primarily a tool of the prosecutor and is issued pro forma by the clerk of the district court, there is no guarantee that a subpoena is based upon a careful consideration of the competing interests of the prosecutor's need for the information and the [individual's] right to privacy. In re Application of Credit Information Corp., 457 F.Supp. 969, 971-72 (S.D.N.Y.1978). 40 Moreover, the reading suggested by the government would severely diminish the utility of the head of the agency provision of subsection (b)(7). That provision deals exclusively with disclosure to law enforcement agencies, yet allows disclosure only pursuant to a written request by the head of the agency. In light of this provision, it is unlikely that Congress intended to allow federal prosecutors to avoid this requirement simply by using a subpoena. 41 Indeed, the weakness of the government's suggested reading is highlighted by the fact that it would require us to allow disclosure pursuant to any subpoenawhether it issues from the prosecutor, a criminal defendant, or civil litigant. In all of these cases, the subpoena is issued in the name of the court, and carries with it the threat of contempt to those who ignore it. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 17; Fed.R.Civ.P. 45. Yet it is inconceivable that Congress intended to allow disclosure pursuant to every private litigant's whims. 20 42 During oral argument, the government advanced a novel argument construing the order of the court language as including only subpoenas for records to be provided to the grand jury. When the grand jury is involved, it argued, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)'s secrecy provision is an ample protection of confidentiality. We reject this argument because it has no basis in the statute, or the legislative history. There is no principled way to assert that the term order of the court includes grand jury subpoenas but excludes other types of subpoenas that are also issued in the name of a court. 43 We conclude, therefore, that subpoenas--grand jury or otherwise--do not qualify as order[s] of a court of competent jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(b)(11), unless they are specifically approved by a court. See Stiles v. Atlantic Gas Co., 453 F.Supp. 798 (N.D.Ga.1978). We now turn to the question of whether the disclosure in this case was permitted under some other provision of the Privacy Act.