Opinion ID: 4231997
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: FOIA Exemption 7(C) Balancing Test

Text: As the Supreme Court has noted, [t]he statute known as the FOIA is actually a part of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). U.S. Dep’t of Justice v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 754 (1989). In particular, the APA requires each agency, upon any request for records which . . . - 6 - reasonably describes such records to make the records promptly available to any person. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A). FOIA thus applies only to agenc[ies], which the APA expressly defines to exclude the courts of the United States. Id. § 551(1)(B); see also Union Leader Corp. v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 749 F.3d 45, 56 n.8 (1st Cir. 2014) (noting that FOIA applies only to federal executive branch agencies (quoting Philip Morris, Inc. v. Harshbarger, 122 F.3d 58, 83 (1st Cir. 1997))). FOIA includes a number of exemptions that allow agencies to withhold certain documents from release. The relevant exemption here is Exemption 7(C), which enables the government to withhold information compiled for law enforcement purposes to the extent that the production of such information could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.2 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C). Because FOIA's purpose is to expose the operations of federal agencies 'to the light of public scrutiny,' Moffat, 716 F.3d at 250 (quoting Dep't of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361 (1976)), its exemptions are 2 Another FOIA exemption, Exemption 6, allows the government to withhold personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). We limit our analysis to Exemption 7(C) because all information that would fall within the scope of Exemption 6 would also be immune from disclosure under Exemption 7(C). Moffatt, 716 F.3d at 250 n.4 (quoting Roth v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 642 F.3d 1161, 1173 (D.C. Cir. 2011)). - 7 - construed narrowly, with all doubts resolved in favor of disclosure, id. (citing Carpenter v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 470 F.3d 434, 438 (1st Cir. 2006)). To determine whether the government may rely on Exemption 7(C) to withhold documents, we balance the privacy interest at stake in revealing the materials with the public interest in their release. Carpenter, 470 F.3d at 438 (citing Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 762; Maynard v. CIA, 986 F.2d 547, 566 (1st Cir. 1993)). Where, as here, the subject of the FOIA request involves private citizen[s] and . . . the information is in the Government's control as a compilation, the privacy interest is at its apex while the public interest in disclosure is at its nadir. Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 780. And when a legitimate privacy interest is implicated, the party seeking disclosure must show (1) that there is a significant public interest in disclosure, and (2) that the requested information is likely to advance that interest. Nat'l Archives & Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U.S. 157, 172 (2004). In balancing the public interest in disclosure with the privacy interests implicated by the requested records, the district court applied the wrong standard. In particular, it stated that [o]nly the most compelling showing can justify posttrial restriction on disclosure of testimony or documents actually introduced at trial, Eil, 209 F. Supp. 3d at 487 (quoting Poliquin - 8 - v. Garden Way, Inc., 989 F.2d 527, 533 (1st Cir. 1993)), and that it falls to the courts to weigh the presumptively paramount right of the public to know against the competing private interests at stake, id. at 488 (quoting FTC v. Standard Fin. Mgmt. Corp., 830 F.2d 404, 410 (1st Cir. 1987)). To support its application of these standards, the district court cited cases that concern the public's right to access judicial records but not FOIA cases. See Poliquin, 989 F.2d at 532-33 (analyzing district court's protective order restricting disclosure of testimony and documents introduced at trial); Standard Fin., 830 F.2d at 410 (dealing with a district court's order unsealing defendants' financial records). Public access to judicial records is a common law presumption rooted in a desire to allow[] the citizenry to 'monitor the functioning of our courts, thereby insuring quality, honesty and respect for our legal system,' Standard Fin., 830 F.2d at 410 (quoting In the Matter of Cont'l Illinois Sec. Litig., 732 F.2d 1302, 1308 (7th Cir. 1984)). However, the only public interests recognized by FOIA are those guided by FOIA's basic purpose, which is 'to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny,' Moffat, 716 F.3d at 251 (emphasis added) (quoting Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 772), and the judiciary is not an agency, see 5 U.S.C. § 551(1)(B). Moreover, the question of whether Exemption 7(C) allows an agency to withhold documents is a statutory one, and the Supreme Court has expressly recognized - 9 - that the privacy interests protected by FOIA go[] beyond the common law and the Constitution. Favish, 541 U.S. at 170 (citing Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 762 n.13). It was thus inappropriate for the district court, in conducting the requisite balancing of interests, to invoke a disclosure-favoring standard based on a common law presumption divorced from the FOIA statutory framework. FOIA does not require agencies seeking to withhold documents under Exemption 7(C) to provide a most compelling reason for doing so. Nor does the statute recognize a presumptively paramount public right to know. Rather, it authorizes the DEA to withhold documents as long as their release could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C). Neither party disputes that there were legitimate privacy interests at stake. The burden was thus on Eil, as the FOIA requester, to show that disclosure would be likely to further a significant public interest. Favish, 541 U.S. at 172.