Opinion ID: 370469
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Thoroughness of the CIA's Search for Responsive Documents

Text: 26 The CIA asserts that exhaustive searches of its files have succeeded in locating eight, and only eight, documents that are responsive to plaintiffs' FOIA request. 73 Plaintiffs contend that discovery is needed to test whether the CIA's search was complete. The district court awarded summary judgment in favor of the CIA, finding that the CIA ha(d) made a full search in good faith and that no further discovery (was) justified. 74 We agree. 27 In order to prevail on an FOIA motion for summary judgment, the defending agency must prove that each document that falls within the class requested either has been produced, is unidentifiable, or is wholly exempt from the Act's inspection requirements. 75 In determining whether an agency has met this burden of proof, the trial judge may rely on affidavits. Congress has instructed the courts to accord substantial weight to agency affidavits in national security cases, 76 and these affidavits are equally trustworthy when they aver that all documents have been produced or are unidentifiable as when they aver that identified documents are exempt. The agency's affidavits, naturally, must be relatively detailed and nonconclusory 77 and must be submitted in good faith. But if these requirements are met, the district judge has discretion to forgo discovery and award summary judgment on the basis of affidavits. 78 28 In support of its motion for summary judgment, the CIA submitted affidavits executed by Gene F. Wilson, the Agency's Information and Privacy Coordinator. Wilson stated that in response to plaintiffs' initial request for legislative history he caused a search to be made for all printed hearings, transcripts of hearings, (and) printed reports issued by Committees of the House, Committees of the Senate or Conference Committees. 79 This search produced five published reports and the Hearing Transcript. Subsequently, plaintiffs expanded their request to include all documents which may have been used to prepare for Congressional testimony. 80 Wilson then conducted a further exhaustive search for copies of prepared testimony or statements presented in response to congressional consideration of the legislation cited by plaintiffs. 81 In this search, the CIA interpreted (plaintiffs') request broadly enough to ensure that (it) would locate all documents within the scope of the request, and searched and reviewed all files which might contain (responsive) documents. 82 This search produced the Vandenberg and Hillenkoetter Statements, but failed to locate any additional records which could be considered responsive to plaintiffs' request. 83 Since the CIA has no indices or compendiums identifying records as preparatory documents for congressional testimony, any additional records of this description, if they exist, could be found only by a page-by-page search through the 84,000 cubic feet of documents in the (CIA) Records Center. 84 Even if such a page-by-page search were undertaken, it would be impossible to determine which documents, if any, were in fact used to prepare for congressional testimony on the legislation cited by plaintiffs. 85 29 We think that Wilson's sworn affidavits on their face are plainly adequate to demonstrate the thoroughness of the CIA's search for responsive documents. The affidavits give detailed descriptions of the searches undertaken, and a detailed explanation of why further searches would be unreasonably burdensome. Plaintiffs argue, however, that even if Wilson's affidavits are otherwise sufficient to support summary judgment in favor of the CIA, discovery is required here because there is reason to doubt the Agency's good faith. 30 First, plaintiffs note that hearings occurred on the CIA's enabling statutes for which no published transcripts exist, and argue that unpublished transcripts of these hearings, as well as CIA back-up documents prepared for use at these hearings, Must exist. 86 Although appeals to common sense are not altogether to be condemned, plaintiffs' argument is unpersuasive here. Even if we assume that the documents plaintiffs posit were Created, there is no reason to believe that the documents, thirty years later, still exist, or, if they exist, that they are in the possession of the CIA. Moreover, even if the documents do exist and the CIA does have them, the Agency's good faith would not be impugned unless there were some reason to believe that the supposed documents could be located without an unreasonably burdensome search. It is well established that an agency is not required to reorganize (its) files in response to (a plaintiff's) request in the form in which it was made, 87 and that if an agency has not previously segregated the requested class of records production may be required only where the agency (can) identify that material with reasonable effort. 88 Wilson's affidavits plainly show that the effort required to locate the hypothesized back-up documents would be unreasonable here. 31 Second, plaintiffs argue that the Church Committee Report 89 refers to several documents that appear to be within the scope of plaintiffs' FOIA request . . . , and copies of which could reasonably be expected to be in the possession of the CIA, but which defendants have neither identified or produced . . . . 90 This argument is similarly unpersuasive. In their expanded request for legislative history, plaintiffs sought access to Congressional reports and hearings on specific bills, and CIA materials that may have been the basis for testimony at hearings or included in . . . reports on those bills. Fifteen of the seventeen documents plaintiffs cite from the Church Committee Report lie unmistakably outside the scope of their FOIA request. 91 The two remaining documents are transcripts of Congressional hearings in executive session. 92 In his affidavit, Wilson stated that these documents, if they exist, are not held by the (CIA). 93 Since the transcripts are Congressional materials, and since there is no indication in the Church Committee Report that the transcripts were received from or returned to the CIA, 94 there is no reason to question the good faith of Wilson's asseveration. 32 Third, plaintiffs argue that the CIA's pattern of obfuscation and delay in dealing with them signals the Agency's Mala fides. The Agency, they say, first denied having any responsive documents, then found some, then found some more: these inconsistent positions and this piecemeal disclosure are said to imply bad faith. We take a different view of the facts. Sara Holtz originally requested legislative history, defined as Congressional hearings and reports; the CIA not unnaturally directed her to the Library of Congress. When Holtz replied that she wanted Unpublished hearings and reports, the CIA identified the Hearing Transcript. When Goland and Skidmore said that they wanted not only hearings and reports, but Executive Branch back-up documents, the CIA identified the Vandenberg and Hillenkoetter Statements. The Agency's piecemeal pattern of disclosure followed faithfully the piecemeal pattern of requests, and thus here indicated, if anything, good faith rather than bad; indeed, this Court held as much in Weissman v. CIA. 95 The Agency's responses were not always timely; but in view of the well-publicized problems created by the statute's 10- and 20-day time limits for processing FOIA requests and appeals, 96 the CIA's delay alone cannot be said to indicate an absence of good faith. 33 The dissent, while not seriously questioning the CIA's good faith, says that discovery is needed in any event to ascertain whether the CIA personnel conducting the search used an underinclusive definition of legislative history. 97 We disagree. The CIA personnel conducting the search evidently used the definition of legislative history that plaintiffs gave them, namely, hearings, reports, and Executive Branch back-up documents. That this is so is suggested by the fact that the CIA's search produced hearings, reports, and Executive Branch backup documents. Nor do we think discovery was necessary to enable plaintiffs to reformulate their request to eliminate confusion and the possibility of future lawsuits. 98 Legislative history admittedly is not a term whose meaning can be nicely cabined within bright lines; but it is the term plaintiffs used, and if any ambiguity was introduced thereby plaintiffs must reap what they have sown. It would be bizarre indeed if a plaintiff, simply by employing ambiguous language in his FOIA request, could assure himself of potentially harassing discovery for the purpose of dispelling the confusion he had engendered. 34 We hold, therefore, that plaintiffs have made no showing of CIA bad faith sufficient to impugn the Wilson affidavit, which on its face suffices to demonstrate that the CIA's search for responsive documents was complete. For this reason, the district court's grant of summary judgment without discovery was within its discretion. 35