Opinion ID: 483234
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discovering the Primary Beneficiary

Text: 15 Even if we could accept NTEU's assertions concerning the degree of public interest in this subject matter, we would still find its fee waiver request inadequate. Such requests must not only show a connection between the material sought and a matter of genuine public concern, but must also indicate that a fee waiver or reduction will primarily benefit the public. See Crooker v. Department of the Army, 577 F.Supp. 1220, 1223 (D.D.C.1984); Burriss v. CIA, 524 F.Supp. at 449. When furnishing requested information is likely to provide both public and private benefits, the agency must determine which benefit is primary. 16 The union admits that it expects to benefit from the information requested. See NTEU's Memorandum of Points and Authorities at 20 (NTEU expects to benefit from the information, to be sure, but it is a benefit of improved labor relations and working conditions.). In its requests, however, it never gave a clear account of the anticipated private benefits. Thus it is not surprising that the agency found it likely that the preponderant purpose of the requests is to obtain information thought to be useful in furthering the unique and limited interests of the requesters. J.A. at 34. 17 Equally unpersuasive is the union's suggestion that its size insures that any benefit to it amounts to a public benefit. See Brief for Appellant at 35-36 (claiming a membership of 110,000). The union is mistaken in supposing that Disabled Officer's Association v. Rumsfeld, 428 F.Supp. 454 (D.D.C.1977), supports this vainglorious view. Disabled Officer's Association concerned a veterans' group's efforts to gain access under FOIA to names and addresses of potential members. To determine whether this information was exempt from disclosure under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(6), the court sought to balance the privacy interests in nondisclosure and the public interests involved. One of the public interests identified in this process was the group's lobbying activities on behalf of disabled officers of the Armed Forces, identified as a significant segment of the public. 428 F.Supp. at 458. In context, the approving reference to the veterans' group's activities hardly suggests that large organizations ordinarily should receive fee waivers. 18 If NTEU proposed to use the requested information to get new legislation or build public support for improving the lives of its members, we would have no difficulty characterizing such aims as primarily private. Cf. NTEU's Memorandum of Points and Authorities at 18 (expressing intention to draw public attention to these improper personnel practices). We see no reason to assume that the union's public relations efforts primarily benefit the public, in the absence of a straightforward description from the union of its aims. 19 The union's reliance on Badhwar v. Department of the Air Force, 615 F.Supp. 698 (D.D.C.1985), is misplaced. One requester in Badhwar identified himself as a reporter on the staff of Jack Anderson investigating military safety practices with a view to writing about them. Id. at 708. The district court found that in view of these disclosures the Air Force knew or should have known the identity of the requesters and their aims. Id. Since there was no basis for the Air Force's conclusion that the requests were primarily to serve private rather than public interests, the refusal to waive fees was arbitrary and capricious. Id. The union suggests that the Customs Service's long familiarity with the union requires a similar result here. 20 We do not think the union is in a position analogous to the reporters on Jack Anderson's staff. The legislative history of the fee waiver provision indicates special solicitude for journalists, along with scholars and public interest groups. See S.Rep. No. 854, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 3, 11 (1974); Ettlinger v. FBI, 596 F.Supp. at 872; Bonine, Public-Interest Fee Waivers Under the Freedom of Information Act, 1981 Duke L.J. 213, 238-44. The preference seems natural. While private interests clearly drive journalists (and journals) in their search for news, they advance those interests almost exclusively by dissemination of news, so that the public benefit from news distribution necessarily rises with any private benefit. Thus it is reasonable to presume that furnishing journalists with information will primarily benefit the general public; any other view would entail a more or less unresolvable inquiry into the value of journalists' private goals. A union, however, may put information to such varied uses, many of which are wholly independent of informing the public, that the relation between public and private benefits is by no means constant. Accordingly, when there is a clear understanding of the requester's purposes, comparison of the private and public benefits is no more than a garden-variety weighing inquiry and is equally susceptible of resolution. Thus, to secure a finding of predominate public benefit, a requesting union must typically submit more detail than a journalist. 21 In the context of Badhwar, the reporter's explanation of his purposes made the relation between private and public benefits clear enough to indicate the tilt in favor of the public benefit. The same cannot be said of the union's request, given the identity of the requester and obscurity of its explanations.