Opinion ID: 393156
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: concluding overall analysis

Text: 125 With the category-by-category analysis of the information at issue in this case behind us, we are now in a better position to comment more fully on two arguments by the appellants that are not limited to a particular deleted category and its accompanying affidavit. 126 A. Does Partial Disclosure of an Intelligence Mission Render Implausible the Claim that Full Disclosure Would Harm the National Security? 127 Throughout their briefs, the appellants suggest that affirmance by us of the district court's grant of summary judgment would be tantamount to a subversion of the statutory requirement that courts conduct de novo review of agency classification decisions. An affirmance, they claim, would de facto substitute the more deferential reasonable basis standard rejected by Congress over a presidential veto in 1974. 118 This is simply not so. 128 It is well established that summary judgment is properly granted in Exemption 1 cases without an in camera inspection or discovery by the plaintiffs when the affidavits submitted by the agency are adequate to the task. 119 We agree with the district court that the lengthy, detailed affidavits submitted by the defendants in this case satisfy the well-settled requirements for summary judgment. They describe the sensitive documents at issue with reasonably specific detail; the justifications for nondisclosure are detailed and persuasive; the affidavits plainly demonstrate that the information withheld logically falls within the claimed exemption; and far from there being evidence of agency bad faith, in this case the available evidence is that the agency acted in good faith, to the extent that, when it became possible to do so, it declassified and released more than two thousand pages of documentation previously withheld from the plaintiffs. Summary judgment for the defendants was therefore appropriate on the basis of our precedents. 129 The principal claim advanced by the appellants in opposition to the trial court's grant of summary judgment is that there is evidence in the record that controverts the assertions in the affidavits. But, as our category-by-category analysis shows, such is not the case. The contrary evidence on which the appellants rely consists solely of the published reports about the Glomar Explorer project and the few official disclosures that already have been made. From this base, the appellants launch the argument that because some information about the project ostensibly is now in the public domain, nothing about the project in which the appellants have expressed an interest can properly remain classified. This theme is replayed with modest variations throughout the appellants' submissions to this court: because some of the previously-classified facts about the technological capabilities of the Glomar Explorer are now known, there is no danger to national security in revealing everything about the Glomar's abilities; because some of the contractors who did work on the project are known, there is no danger in revealing the identities of all who worked on the project; because the government has revealed some documents it previously considered too sensitive to release, it now must reveal all. 130 At the least, the appellants urge us to decide that whatever revelations there have been to date undercut the government's affidavits in this case to the extent that summary judgment is no longer proper. And the appellants' logic would appear to require us to decide that summary judgment on the basis of agency affidavits alone cannot be appropriate in an Exemption 1 case in which the public has, or thinks it has, partial knowledge of the outlines of a classified undertaking. 131 We reject this suggestion. We so rule without undue deference to the agency's position in this or any other case, as the history of this litigation should suggest. We are not acquiescing here in a jettisoning by the district court of the statutory requirement of de novo review. We simply do not believe the appellants have made the showing required to justify reversing the district court's grant of summary judgment for the defendants because we agree with the district court that they have failed in their effort to draw the affidavits of the government into question. 132 This is not the first case in which arguments of the type advanced by the appellants have been made. In Halperin v. Department of State, 120 for example, the district court ordered the release of a transcript of a background press conference held by the Secretary of State. On appeal, we found that the press conference excerpts sought had not even been properly classified in accordance with the applicable executive order. Moreover, we noted that the substance of the Secretary's remarks were not at issue, but only the attribution of those remarks to the Secretary; the press conference had been attended by thirty domestic and foreign representatives of the media, none of whom had a security clearance. The information at issue was therefore all public knowledge except for official confirmation that it was attributable to the Secretary of State. Even in these rather extreme circumstances, directly in the face of a failure by the Department of State to effect the classification of the document in the only way which legally qualified it for the exemption, 121 we nonetheless stayed the judgment of the district court and remanded the case for consideration of the national security interest at stake. 133 Hayden v. National Security Agency/Central Security Service 122 provides another and more recent example of our rejection of the argument that an agency's rationale for nondisclosure is inherently implausible simply because the information at issue might already be a matter of public knowledge. In that case the NSA sought to conceal the fact that it had intercepted certain channels of communication by refusing to reveal messages obtained by means of such intercepts. The appellants argued that some of the channels monitored by the NSA are known to be under close scrutiny, that as a result no foreign government would send sensitive information over them, and that consequently the NSA could safely reveal information obtained from those channels. 123 We rejected this argument in affirming the district court's grant of summary judgment for the agency. Our explanation for our rejection of the argument in that case also applies to the present case: 134 The Agency states that to reveal which channels it monitors would impair its mission; this is by no means an illogical or implausible assertion; indeed, it appears inherently logical that this assertion is true, although as a court we are not called upon to make such final determination. This is precisely the sort of situation where Congress intended reviewing courts to respect the expertise of an agency; for us to insist that the Agency's rationale here is implausible would be to overstep the proper limits of the judicial role in FOIA review. 124 135 B. Does an Agency Change of Heart and Consequent Partial Document Release Render Implausible the Agency's Reasons for Refusing Full Release? 136 The appellants have contended at length that the Agency's decision about midway through the extended course of this litigation to declassify over two thousand pages of documents at the behest of the appellants vitiates the agency's continuing claims against the release of the remaining information. The appellants point out that the arguments the agency is using to justify nondisclosure are the same now as before the declassification. By releasing information to us, argue the appellants, the agency admitted that it was initially in error, from which it follows that the agency is fallible, and its affidavits, suspect. 125 Summary judgment was therefore unwarranted on the basis of those affidavits alone. 126 137 We emphatically reject this line of argument. If accepted, it would work mischief in the future by creating a disincentive for an agency to reappraise its position, and when appropriate, release documents previously withheld. It would be unwise for us to punish flexibility, lest we provide the motivation for intransigence. 138 Furthermore, this argument is based on the perverse theory that a forthcoming agency is less to be trusted in its allegations than an unyielding agency. The release of over two thousand pages of documents after a thorough review suggests to us a stronger, rather than a weaker, basis for the classification of those documents still withheld. During the course of this litigation, those documents have been considered too sensitive for release by the CIA under three Directors and as many Presidents. We find the agency's case strengthened by the massive declassification of documents it undertook at the appellants' behest.