Opinion ID: 1936728
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Policy Favoring Disclosure

Text: Our Freedom of Information Act, like its federal counterpart, is designed to promote the disclosure of information, not to inhibit it. Barry v. Washington Post Co., 529 A.2d 319, 321 (D.C.1987); Dunhill v. Director, District of Columbia Dept. of Transp., 416 A.2d 244, 247 n. 5 (D.C. 1980); [5] Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361, 96 S.Ct. 1592, 1599, 48 L.Ed.2d 11 (1976); Shanyland Water Supply Co. v. Block, 755 F.2d 397, 398 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1137, 105 S.Ct. 2678, 86 L.Ed.2d 697 (1985). The Act was designed to pierce the veil of administrative secrecy and to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny. Rose, 425 U.S. at 361, 96 S.Ct. at 1599. Broadly conceived, the FOIA seeks to permit access to official information long shielded unnecessarily from public view and attempts to create a judicially enforceable public right to secure such official information from possibly unwilling official hands. EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 80, 93 S.Ct. 827, 832, 35 L.Ed.2d 119 (1973). In the words of the noted historian Henry Steele Commager, [6] recently quoted by the Supreme Court in United States Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 109 S.Ct. 1468, 1481, 103 L.Ed.2d 774 (1989), The generation that made the nation thought secrecy in government one of the instruments of Old World tyranny and committed itself to the principle that a democracy cannot function unless the people are permitted to know what their government is up to. Just as the provisions of the Act giving citizens the right of access are to be generously construed, so the nine statutory exemptions must be approached with a jaundiced eye. Rose, supra, 425 U.S. at 361, 96 S.Ct. at 1599. Indeed, these exemptions are to be narrowly construed, with ambiguities resolved in favor of disclosure. Barry, supra, 529 A.2d at 321; Rose, supra, 425 U.S. at 361-62, 96 S.Ct. at 1599; Alirez v. N.L.R.B., 676 F.2d 423, 425 (10th Cir.1982). One who seeks to invoke one of these exemptions must prove that it applies; the burden is on the agency to sustain its action. Shanyland Water Supply Corp., supra, 755 F.2d at 398. The key to interpreting the Act lies in providing a working formula which encompasses, balances, and protects all interests, yet places emphasis on the fullest responsible disclosure. Mink, supra, 410 U.S. at 80, 93 S.Ct. at 832, quoting S.Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong. 1st Sess., 3 (1965), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1966, p. 2418. A document often contains some information which is exempt from disclosure and other information which is not. The Act does not contemplate an all or nothing approach where this situation arises. Section 1-1524(b) provides that Any reasonable segregable portion of a public record shall be provided to any person requesting such record after deletion of those portions which may be withheld from disclosure under subsection (a) of this section. In the sensitive area of national security information, an agency must produce any reasonably segregable non-exempt parts of classified documents. Hayden v. National Security Agency, 197 U.S.App.D.C. 224, 231, 608 F.2d 1381, 1388, cert. denied, 446 U.S. 937, 100 S.Ct. 2156, 64 L.Ed.2d 790 (1979); see Dunhill, supra, 416 A.2d at 247 n. 6. Absent some differentiation in the statute  and we find none  the same obligation should apply with at least equal force in the present factual setting.