Opinion ID: 184504
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Balance of Public and Private Interests

Text: 14 The district court weighed the interests for and against disclosure as follows: 15 [P]ublic employees have an expectation that information gathered in the course of internal investigations will remain private. Beck v. Department of Justice, 997 F.2d 1489, 1494 (D.C.Cir.1993). While the public does have an interest in examining the internal disciplinary processes of the Department of Justice, such public interest cannot be held to be superior to the privacy interests of those employees who may, from time to time, come under the scrutiny of OPR. It would be grossly unfair to release such information and subject dedicated public servants to unnecessary scrutiny for every complaint that has been filed, regardless of the merits. 16 921 F.Supp. at 836. In stating that the public does have an interest in examining the internal disciplinary processes of the Department of Justice, the district court followed the teaching of the Supreme Court that the main purpose of the FOIA is to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny. As the Supreme Court put the matter: 17 [A]lthough there is undoubtedly some public interest in anyone's criminal history, especially if the history is in some way related to the subject's dealing with a public official or agency, the FOIA's central purpose is to ensure that the Government's activities be opened to the sharp eye of public scrutiny, not that information about private citizens that happens to be in the warehouse of the Government be so disclosed. 18 United States Dept. of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 774, 109 S.Ct. 1468, 1482, 103 L.Ed.2d 774 (1988) (emphases deleted). 19 The present parties take the Court's point, of course, but they disagree about how disclosure of the OPR materials concerning the investigation of Thar would serve the central purpose of the FOIA. On the one hand, the amicus argues that the OPR records requested could not be more central to FOIA's core purpose ... because by nature such records contain information that examines and documents agency action. On the other, the Government contends that how the Department of Justice handled one isolated case concerning an alleged leak would not shed enough light on how the Department in general handles any alleged leaks to warrant disclosure of the requested materials. The Government also asserts that in this case Exemption 7(C) protects the privacy interests not only of Thar but also of third persons whose identities would be revealed by release of the files. 20 The amicus faults the district court for creating a categorical rule against disclosure of OPR files and argues that OPR investigations 21 are not sufficiently uniform in the privacy interests at stake, the subject matter involved, the rank of the public officials involved, the type of misconduct investigated, or a myriad of other factors, to comprise a single category in which the balance would always tip in favor of exemption. 22 Cf. Reporters Committee, 489 U.S. at 776, 109 S.Ct. at 1483-84 (categorical decisions may be appropriate and individual circumstances disregarded when a case fits into a genus in which the balance [of interests for and against disclosure] characteristically tips in one direction). For its part, the Government does not disagree with the amicus that the balancing of interests with regard to OPR files should be done on a case-by-case basis rather than categorically; the Government just reads the district court to have performed such an ad hoc balancing and not to have created a categorical rule. 23 In view of the parties' agreement, and regardless what the district court may have had in mind, we may assume for purposes of [329 U.S.App.D.C. 256] this opinion that the balance of interests relating to the disclosure of material in an OPR file will not so often tip toward withholding that a categorical rule against disclosure is appropriate. The alternative of case-by-case balancing should not be as complicated as implied by the amicus's reference to a myriad of relevant factors, however, lest it come to resemble the open-ended  'kitchen sink' rule of reason in antitrust law. Charles F. Rule, Point: As American as Baseball, Apple Pie, or Guidelines, 4 Antitrust 31, 32 (1989); cf. Frank H. Easterbrook, The Limits of Antitrust, 63 Texas L.Rev. 1, 12 (1984) (commenting upon the rule of reason that [w]hen everything is relevant, nothing is dispositive). In view of the purpose of the FOIA, it will ordinarily be enough for the court to consider, when balancing the public interest in disclosure against the private interest in exemption, the rank of the public official involved and the seriousness of the misconduct alleged. Cf. Stern, 737 F.2d at 94 (There is a decided difference between knowing participation by a high-level officer in such deception and the negligent performance of particular duties by the two other lower-level employees). 24 Here the OPR has investigated a staff-level government lawyer in connection with the possibly unauthorized and perhaps illegal release of information to the press. Under these circumstances, we have no doubt that disclosure of the OPR investigative file would occasion an invasion of Thar's privacy disproportionate to, and therefore unwarranted by, such insight as the public would gain into what the Government is up to. Reporters Committee, 489 U.S. at 750, 109 S.Ct. at 1470. 25 The amicus urges upon us the particularized claim that Thar waived any privacy interest of his own when he admitted to the press that he was investigated and disciplined for releasing the Vice President's DEA files. But surely Thar did not, merely by acknowledging the investigation and making a vague reference to its conclusion, waive all his interest in keeping the contents of the OPR file confidential. And although government officials, as we have stated before, may have a somewhat diminished privacy interest, they do not surrender all rights to personal privacy when they accept a public appointment. Quinon v. FBI, 86 F.3d 1222, 1230 (D.C.Cir.1996). 26 That said, Thar's statement to the press undoubtedly does diminish his interest in privacy: the public already knows who he is, what he was accused of, and that he received a relatively mild sanction. He still has a privacy interest, however, in avoiding disclosure of the details of the investigation, of his misconduct, and of his punishment--and perhaps, too, an interest in preventing hitherto speculative press reports of his misconduct from receiving authoritative confirmation from an official source. Cf. Bast v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, 665 F.2d 1251, 1255 (D.C.Cir.1981). 27 We agree with the district court's implication, therefore, that official confirmation of what has been reported in the press and the disclosure of additional details could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of Thar's personal privacy. Accordingly, the Government properly asserted Exemption 7(C) as a bar to disclosure with respect to Thar. It goes almost without saying, moreover, that individuals other than Thar whose names appear in the file retain a strong privacy interest in not being associated with an investigation involving professional misconduct; hence, the Government correctly asserted Exemption 7(C) with respect to them as well.