Opinion ID: 402060
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Post-Passage Developments24

Text: 42 Shortly before the Privacy Act took effect, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mary C. Lawton of the Office of Legal Counsel, advised the Internal Revenue Service that the Privacy Act was the exclusive means available to an individual who sought information about himself. Source Book at 1177-78. The Office of Management and Budget-which was required by section 6 of the Privacy Act to develop guidelines and regulations for agencies implementing the Act and to provide assistance and oversight of the Act's implementation-circulated Lawton's opinion to federal agencies. Id. at 1178. When it came to the attention of Senator Edward Kennedy, the Senator forwarded a strong letter of protest to Attorney General Edward Levi. Kennedy charged that the opinion was pernicious and destructive. His understanding was that 43 access under the Privacy Act is to be complete and not subject to FOIA exemptions, where the Privacy Act grants access. But where the Privacy Act does not grant access, the FOIA-and its exemptions-apply. 44 Id. at 1180. Senator Kennedy attached to his letter of protest a Congressional Research Service Study for the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure on the relationship between FOIA and the Privacy Act, which took issue with the position taken by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lawton. That study concluded: 45 There is nothing in the terms of the Privacy Act or its legislative history which indicates that the Privacy Act is the exclusive means by which an individual can gain access to his own records contained in a system of records. Many of the so-called inconsistencies listed in the Justice Department's letter have been reconciled with the FOIA in the OMB guidelines issued pursuant to the Privacy Act. Furthermore, they do not seem to constitute the clear repugnancies which are necessary before a court will hold that one statute has implicitly repealed or superseded another. 46 The primary purpose of the Privacy Act is the protection of individual privacy by controlling the collection, management, and dissemination of individually identifiable records. Access to such records by the individual is one method by which control is achieved and is a necessary adjunct to the accurate maintenance of records. It flies in the face of the whole legislative effort in this area to construe the Privacy Act as a backhanded method to limit individual access to records while at the same time preserving potentially greater access rights to third parties. 47 Id. at 1187. 48 Until this appeal, the dispute had resolved itself into a mere matter of form. Deputy Attorney General Harold R. Tyler, Jr., replying to Senator Kennedy for the Attorney General, admitted that he himself and others in the Department of Justice had substantially similar concern(s) about the Lawton opinion and so had drafted a Privacy Act regulation, see id. at 1187-88 (draft form), which, as slightly revised, now provides: 49 Any request by an individual for information pertaining to himself shall be processed solely pursuant to this Subpart D. To the extent that the individual seeks access to records from systems or records which have been exempted from the provisions of the Privacy Act, the individual shall receive, in addition to access to those records he is entitled to receive under the Privacy Act and as a matter of discretion as set forth in paragraph (a) of this section, access to all records within the scope of his request to which he would have been entitled under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, but for the enactment of the Privacy Act and the exemption of the pertinent systems of records pursuant thereto. 50 28 C.F.R. § 16.57(b). That regulation was, however, accompanied by a statement claiming that release of records beyond those mandated by the Privacy Act was at the sole discretion of the Associate Attorney General. 25 The government now seeks to recapture its purported authority. The Lawton letter and the discretionary nature of the regulation are cited as contemporaneous construction by the Justice Department ... that the Privacy Act exemptions could not be circumvented through use of the FOIA. Government's Brief at 40. 51 Although agency interpretations are entitled to judicial respect, courts need not be oblivious of the context in which those interpretations are made. 26 In the case of major parts of the Privacy Act, as well as the FOIA amendments, the executive branch had opposed passage. See, e.g., Source Book at 772-75. The post-passage events reviewed above may illustrate executive department efforts to moderate the impact of an unwelcome enactment. Of course, we are not unaware that the post-passage views of members of Congress and Congressional staffs may also be distorted by conflicting interests. See Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., --- U.S. ----, ----, 102 S.Ct. 1127, 1132, 71 L.Ed.2d 234 (1982). We are, therefore, wary of placing too much reliance on the Lawton-Kennedy-Tyler dialogue. More impressive to us is the fact that the predominant government policy since initial implementation until this appeal 27 has been to allow an individual to seek access to information about himself through both the Privacy Act and FOIA. 28 D. Case Law 52 Although decisions in two other circuits, on which the district court relied, have resolved questions similar to this one in a different manner, neither has explicated a convincing rationale. The Seventh Circuit in Terkel v. Kelly, 599 F.2d 214 (7th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1013, 100 S.Ct. 662, 62 L.Ed.2d 642 (1980), interpreted section (k)(2) of the Privacy Act to exempt information from required disclosure under FOIA, concluding: 53 Although the Freedom of Information Act does not contain a comparable exemption, we agree with the lower court that the two statutes must be read together, and that the Freedom of Information Act cannot compel the disclosure of information that the Privacy Act clearly contemplates to be exempt. 54 Id. at 216. Unfortunately, we do not have the benefit of the court's statutory analysis, review of the legislative history or any other aspect of its reasoning. Had such reasons been disclosed, we would certainly have paid them close attention. 29 55 The Fifth Circuit in Painter v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 615 F.2d 689, 691 and n.3 (5th Cir. 1980), relied heavily upon Terkel to hold section 552a(k) (5) a FOIA Exemption 3 statute. In so holding, the court reversed a district court decision containing a more detailed review of the legislative history of the Privacy Act. 30 56 We have been persuaded to break stride with the Fifth and Seventh Circuits by the language and legislative history of the Privacy Act. We have sought a coherent statutory relationship between the Privacy Act and FOIA that reflects a steady intent by Congress throughout the short period between enactment of the Privacy Act and the 1974 FOIA amendments. That intent was to open access to first party requesters under the Privacy Act without closing existing avenues of access under contemporaneously enacted and liberalizing amendments to FOIA. In reality, however, our departure from the position of other circuits may turn out to be of more academic interest than practical consequence. Upon remand, it may well be found that the material sought by Greentree is unavailable to him (or anyone else) under FOIA's Exemption 7 as well as the Privacy Act. Whether this dispute deserves such an anticlimactical ending, we leave to the district court.CONCLUSION 57 For the foregoing reasons, we hold that section (j)(2) of the Privacy Act is not a FOIA Exemption 3 statute. Therefore, the decision of the district court is reversed and the case is remanded so that the court may consider access to the documents in question under other applicable sections of FOIA. 58 Reversed and Remanded.