Opinion ID: 586400
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Deliberative Prong

Text: 23 The underlying purpose of the deliberative process privilege is to ensure that agencies are not forced to operate in a fishbowl. To that end, courts focus on the effect of the materials' release: the key question in Exemption 5 cases [is] whether the disclosure of materials would expose an agency's decision-making process in such a way as to discourage candid discussion within the agency and thereby undermine the agency's ability to perform its functions. Dudman Communications, 815 F.2d at 1568. We should focus on whether the document in question is a part of the deliberative process. National Wildlife Fed'n, 861 F.2d at 1118 (emphasis in original). Predecisional materials are privileged to the extent that they reveal the mental processes of decision-makers. Id. at 1119. The district court found that disclosure of the adjusted census tapes would reveal nothing about the deliberative process. We agree. 24 The earliest cases to examine the deliberative process privilege contrasted factual and deliberative materials. The idea behind this distinction was that agencies had no legitimate interest in keeping the public ignorant of the facts the agencies worked from, while they did have a legitimate interest in shielding their preliminary opinions and explorations. Soon, however, the Supreme Court warned against a wooden application of this distinction that would make the amount of material deemed factual within a document the deciding factor. EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. at 91, 93 S.Ct. at 838. The key to the inquiry is whether revealing the information exposes the deliberative process. National Wildlife Fed'n, 861 F.2d at 1119. The factual/deliberative distinction survives, but simply as a useful rule-of-thumb favoring disclosure of factual documents, or the factual portions of deliberative documents where such a separation is feasible. Julian v. Department of Justice, 806 F.2d 1411 (9th Cir.1986) (communications containing purely factual material are not typically within the purview of Exemption 5), aff'd, 486 U.S. 1, 108 S.Ct. 1606, 100 L.Ed.2d 1 (1988); Wolfe v. Department of Health and Human Services, 39 F.2d 768 (D.C.Cir.1988) (en banc) (The fact/opinion distinction 'offers a quick, clear and predictable rule of decision' for most cases). 3 25 The district court found that the requested tapes were factual. The numerical data contained on these tapes, like the official census data, provides a list of numbers of people, broken down by race, associated with census tracts. The court finds the material is purely factual and in no way divulges the reasoning process through which the data was derived or in any way explains any recommendation or decision not to adjust the census. Order at 27. 26 DOC challenges the district court's finding, citing to Quarles v. Department of the Navy, 893 F.2d 390 (D.C.Cir.1990), for the proposition that ideas expressed in the form of numbers are not necessarily facts. True enough. Some numbers, like the military cost estimates at issue in Quarles, may derive from a complex set of judgments and partake of that elasticity that has persuaded courts to provide shelter for opinions generally. Id. at 392-93. However, the district court did not say that the adjusted census data was factual simply because it was expressed in numbers; nor does Quarles say that numbers never represent facts. The district court acknowledged that both the unadjusted and adjusted census figures were estimates of the actual population, derived through different means. In the court's view, the two processes are not so fundamentally different as to render the product of one 'classic, objective, non-deliberative material that must be disclosed under FOIA' and the product of the other deliberative material that must not be disclosed. Order at 30 (quoting DOC's brief). In sum, the district court analyzed the requested tapes to see where they fell along the continuum of deliberation and fact, and found that they, like the unadjusted census data from which they were derived, fell closer to fact and would not reveal the agency's protectable thought processes. This finding was not clearly erroneous. 27 As is typical for factual matter, release of the adjusted block-level data would not enable the public to reconstruct any of the protected deliberative process. First, as explained at oral argument, it is not possible to recreate the adjusted data solely from the raw data and the adjustment formulas. 4 For that same reason, it would not be possible to derive the formulas, or the process that created the formulas, from the adjusted data. Second, the adjusted data would not reveal anything about the most sensitive decision the Secretary had to make, namely which set of figures (adjusted or unadjusted) should be adopted as the official United States census. That decision involved the Secretary's judgment as to which figures best estimated the actual population of the United States. The bare numbers reveal nothing about the process informing that judgment. 28 We note that DOC has already revealed most of its decisional process by revealing the method used to generate the adjusted census data. 5 The raw census figures are a matter of public record. So are the formulas and procedures used to adjust the census. So are the adjusted census figures for the national, state and city levels, and, at the block level, for every other block. Only half of the block level adjusted data is currently withheld. 29 Defendant has already disclosed all the calculations, assumptions and hypotheses underlying the data in the administrative record. Both the specific guidelines and the recommendations of the members of the Special Advisory Panel used in the determination as to whether to adjust the census were already made public by virtue of their publication in the Federal Register. Furthermore, the methodology employed in arriving at the PES figures was also made public as were census figures for the national, state and specified city levels. Therefore, the court finds that disclosing the adjusted census figures would not reveal anything more about the deliberative process than has already been disclosed by the agency. 30 Order at 30-31 (citations omitted). 31 We agree. The complete deliberative process has been revealed. The adjustment formulas have been revealed. Almost all of the product of the process has been revealed. The portion of the product that has not been disclosed reveals no remnants of the deliberative process.