Opinion ID: 6330598
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Documents Withheld under FOIA Exemption 7(E)

Text: DOS withheld the 9 FAM records, and USCIS the TRIG questions, under FOIA Exemption 7(E). That exemption excludes documents from FOIA’s disclosure requirement if an agency satisfies two conditions. First, the agency must show that the records were “compiled for law enforcement purposes.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7). Second, the agency must show that the records either (1) “would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions”; or (2) “would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions” and “such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.” Id. at 24 § 552(b)(7)(E) (emphasis added). Thus, to withhold “guidelines for law enforcement,” an agency must make an additional showing that is not required before withholding “techniques or procedures.” A. DOS established that the 9 FAM materials are exempt from disclosure under Exemption 7(E) Knight argues that DOS has failed to establish that the 9 FAM materials were “compiled for law enforcement purposes” or that they include “techniques or procedures” or “guidelines” for law enforcement whose disclosure would risk circumvention of the law. We disagree.
enforcement purposes “The threshold requirement for qualifying under Exemption 7 turns on the purpose for which the document sought to be withheld was prepared.” F.B.I. v. Abramson, 456 U.S. 615, 624 (1982). The Supreme Court has interpreted this requirement broadly. For example, a document initially compiled for law enforcement purposes but later provided to a different, non-law-enforcement 25 agency may still fall within Exemption 7. Id. at 624–25. Still, an agency that performs both administrative and law-enforcement functions is “subject to an exacting standard when it comes to the threshold requirement of Exemption 7.” Tax Analysts v. I.R.S., 294 F.3d 71, 77 (D.C. Cir. 2002). DOS acknowledges that it is a “mixedfunction” agency. Knight argues that 9 FAM was not compiled for law enforcement purposes because it was compiled “to help an agency apply the law—in this case to process visa applications,” which is “not a sufficient basis to conclude that the information was compiled to enforce the law.” Knight Br. at 29 (citing United Am. Fin., Inc. v. Potter, 531 F. Supp. 2d 29, 46 (D.D.C. 2008)). But as Justice Alito has explained, “[t]he ordinary understanding of law enforcement includes not just the investigation and prosecution of offenses that have already been committed, but also proactive steps designed to prevent criminal activity and to maintain security.” Milner v. Dep't of 26 Navy, 562 U.S. 562, 582 (2011) (Alito, J., concurring). Enforcing the law always requires a degree of analysis and application. While some aspects of visa adjudication might fall outside the common understanding of “law enforcement,” the provisions at issue here do not. DOS’s explanations for its redactions clearly establish that the redacted provisions relate to the detection of connections to terrorism. See, e.g., Joint App’x at 67 (summarizing reason for redactions, including “defin[ing] terrorist activity, adding specific details and clarification about how they fit into the security investigation process.”). The detection and prevention of terrorism are archetypal law-enforcement purposes. The district court concluded that the 9 FAM documents were not compiled for law enforcement purposes because they included “mere descriptions of codified law and policy” and “to be compiled for law enforcement purposes, the information must go a step further and describe proactive steps for preventing criminal activity and 27 maintaining security.” Knight I, 407 F. Supp. 3d at 333 (internal quotation marks omitted). That view finds no support in the text of the exemption. The threshold inquiry under Exemption 7 is the reason for which material was compiled, and the material should be considered as a whole rather than broken into parts and scrutinized in isolation. While an agency’s discrete description of law and policy might not be subject to exemption in every context, when a larger series of descriptions is compiled to provide comprehensive guidance to employees in the field on how to apply and enforce the laws within the agency’s purview, that subsequent compilation enters the potential ambit of Exemption 7(E). An agency’s compilation of laws and policies might provide insight into its conduct and approaches to law enforcement even if it reveals no “proactive steps.” Such compilation might reveal the agency’s reliance on specific laws, reflecting the use of certain techniques or the limitations on the implementation of those techniques in the field. Certainly, records 28 that reflect only descriptions of publicly available statutes are less likely to create a risk of “circumvention of the law” if released. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E). But that does not mean they were not “compiled for law enforcement purposes” in the first instance—only that they might not meet the requirements of Exemption 7(E) at the second step. Here, DOS has established that 9 FAM includes specific guidance to DOS employees on how to detect ties to terrorism. We conclude, therefore, that it was “compiled for law enforcement purposes” within the meaning of Exemption 7(E).
procedures, or guidelines for enforcement Knight next argues that, even if the records were “compiled for law enforcement purposes,” some of DOS’s redactions fall outside Exemption 7(E) because they do not cover material reflecting techniques or procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions. Knight contends that the non-redacted portions of 9 FAM include only high-level summaries rather than techniques or 29 procedures. Some of the material “appears to consist of definitions and explanations of statutory language.” Knight Br. at 34. And “some of the withheld materials appear to summarize publicly available statutes, memoranda, and directives.” Knight Br. at 36. With each assertion, though, Knight asks us to draw inferences about the redacted material from context that are contradicted by DOS’s affidavits and Vaughn index. On summary judgment, we accept an agency’s affidavits as true unless they are “controverted by either contrary evidence in the record or by evidence of agency bad faith.” Am. C.L. Union, 901 F.3d at 133 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). Accordingly, we cannot credit Knight’s contentions about what the 9 FAM redactions “appear” to include in the face of an agency affidavit attesting to what they actually do include, particularly in the absence of evidence of bad faith. In any event, we are not persuaded that Knight’s proposed inferences from context are reasonable. For example, Knight asserts it is “unlikely” 30 that redactions include more information than in publicly available sources because the redactions are relatively short. Knight Br. at 37. But DOS’s Vaughn index explicitly states that some redactions include material that has not been publicly disclosed. See, e.g., Joint App’x at 67 (explaining that one redaction “lists credible sources of evidence that may be used in recommending a finding, including sources that are not public knowledge”) (emphasis added). Knight next argues that DOS’s Vaughn index describes the redacted material as guidelines, while they now state in their brief that it reflects techniques or procedures. “Techniques and procedures . . . refers to how law enforcement officials go about investigating a crime.” Allard K. Lowenstein Int'l Hum. Rts. Project v. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 626 F.3d 678, 682 (2d Cir. 2010) (“Lowenstein Project”) (internal quotation marks omitted). In contrast, “guidelines . . . generally refers in the context of Exemption 7(E) to resource allocation.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). While law-enforcement documents 31 revealing techniques and procedures are exempt from disclosure per se, documents revealing guidelines are exempt only “if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.” Id. at 681. DOS’s use of the word “guideline” in its Vaughn index is not talismanic. Rather, we must consider the substance of the agency’s descriptions to determine whether the redacted material contains “techniques or procedures” or “guidelines” under FOIA. The phrase “techniques or procedures” is not defined in the statute, and we have not ascribed to it a hypertechnical meaning. Lowenstein Project, 626 F.3d at 682. Stated simply, “techniques or procedures” includes both law enforcement methods—the actions that law enforcement personnel take to identify and neutralize bad actors—as well as the triggers for the application of methods. See, e.g., id. (describing as a “technique or procedure” an agency’s instruction to agents to focus on cash-based businesses for audit and investigation). 32 Here, we need not decide whether the 9 FAM material is properly categorized as “techniques or procedures” rather than “guidelines” for law enforcement. Even assuming the more rigorous “guideline” standard applies, DOS has established that disclosure of the 9 FAM material could reasonably risk circumvention of the law. As DOS describes, the redactions to 9 FAM are targeted to those specific provisions that delineate how DOS officials should identify aliens who may have connections to terrorism, including some specific triggers for additional scrutiny. Releasing this information would allow an individual with actual terrorist ties to better tailor his or her application to avoid detection. It does not matter, then, whether the redactions reflect “techniques or procedures” or “guidelines.” Exemption 7(E) would apply in either case. Finally, Knight urges that the Vaughn index is too “vague and conclusory” to support DOS’s withholding. Knight Br. at 40. To justify withholding, an agency must provide “a relatively detailed 33 analysis of the withheld material in manageable segments without resort to conclusory and generalized allegations of exemptions.” Halpern, 181 F.3d at 290 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). The agency must also “provide an indexing system that would subdivide the withheld document under consideration into manageable parts cross-referenced to the relevant portion of the Government’s justification.” Id. (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). In Halpern, for example, we held that an agency’s affidavit was sufficient where it provided a high-level explanation of categories of information falling within the exemption, and then cross-referenced each of those categories against redactions in the requested documents. Id. at 296–98. Here, too, we conclude that DOS satisfied its obligation to provide a detailed overview of the withheld material. DOS’s redactions are highly targeted and discrete. See, e.g., Joint App’x at 128 (redacting two sentences on a page). In this context, it would not be reasonable to expect DOS to provide more specific 34 descriptions; doing so would effectively require disclosure of the isolated material it chose to redact. And the agency here went further than Halpern would require, providing separate, detailed explanations for each redaction. In sum, we hold that DOS met its burden to establish that the 9 FAM materials were compiled for law enforcement purposes; that they reflect techniques, procedures, or guidelines of law enforcement; and that disclosure would reasonably risk circumvention of the law. Accordingly, we reverse the September 13, 2019, ruling of the district court insofar as it required DOS to disclose unredacted versions of the 9 FAM materials. B. USCIS established that the TRIG questions are exempt from disclosure under Exemption 7(E) We turn next to the TRIG questions. 7 The district court concluded that the TRIG questions are not subject to Exemption 7(E), 7The district court did not address whether the TRIG questions were compiled for law enforcement purposes. Knight II, 407 F. Supp. 3d at 353. Knight does not argue 35 but USCIS argues this was error. It asserts that the TRIG questions constitute techniques or procedures of law enforcement, and that releasing them would enable applicants with ties to terrorism to better tailor their answers to avoid detection. Knight responds that the TRIG questions are not sufficiently specialized to constitute techniques and procedures of law enforcement, that they are effectively public given that they have been asked of many aliens already, and that USCIS has not established that disclosure of the TRIG questions would risk circumvention of the law. We hold that the TRIG questions constitute “techniques or procedures” of law enforcement, and in any event, their disclosure would reasonably risk circumvention of the law. Our conclusion is not altered by the possibility that some individual aliens may have been asked some or all of the questions. on appeal that they were not. Accordingly, we have no occasion to question whether USCIS has met its burden at the first step of analysis under Exemption 7(E). 36 The district court found that the TRIG questions were not “techniques or procedures” because “USCIS [had] not demonstrate[d] its methods are necessarily special or technical.” Knight II, 407 F. Supp. 3d at 353. Knight further contends that the government must demonstrate that the material it withholds includes “‘specialized, calculated technique[s] or procedure[s].’” Knight Br. at 39 (quoting Am. C.L. Union Found. v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 243 F. Supp. 3d 393, 404 (S.D.N.Y. 2017) (“ACLU v. DHS”) (emphasis added). But as noted earlier, the phrase “techniques or procedures” refers simply to “how law enforcement officials go about investigating a crime.” Lowenstein Project, 626 F.3d at 682 (defining “technique” as “a technical method of accomplishing a desired aim”; and “procedure” as “a particular way of doing or of going about the accomplishment of something” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Our analysis is not advanced by adding qualifiers that do not appear in the statute— such as “special,” “specialized,” “technical,” or “calculated”—to 37 modify the terms “techniques or procedures.” It is not the province of the courts to add words to statutes that Congress has enacted. To the extent that the district court’s decision could be understood to suggest that Exemption 7(E) covers only a subset of “techniques or procedures,” we therefore reject such a reading of the statute. And in any event, we do not think that any of those four adjectives materially aids our analysis of what falls within the scope of “techniques or procedures.” 8 The key issue in determining whether redacted material contains “techniques or procedures” under Exemption 7(E) is whether disclosure of that material would reveal particulars about the way in which an agency enforces the law and the circumstances that will prompt it to act. In Lowenstein Project, we explained, “if [an] agency informs tax investigators that cash-based business are more 8Indeed, we have used the word “technical” parenthetically in describing the definition of “technique.” Lowenstein Project, 626 F.3d at 682, and so it would be redundant to speak of a “technical technique.” Moreover, “technical” in this context simply means “of or relating to a particular subject.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1986). 38 likely to commit tax evasion than other businesses, and therefore should be audited with particular care, focusing on such targets constitutes a ‘technique or procedure’ for investigating tax evasion.” 626 F.3d at 682. The questions that USCIS instructs its employees to ask visa applicants to detect ties to terrorism are more closely linked to the specific methods employed by government actors than an agency’s generic directive to investigate cash-based businesses. We hold that the list of TRIG questions employed to effectuate law enforcement purposes—to identify potential terrorists and keep them from entering the United States—falls squarely within the scope of the statutory phrase “techniques or procedures.” Even if the TRIG questions were “guidelines” rather than “techniques or procedures” of law enforcement, Exemption 7(E) would apply because USCIS has established that disclosing the TRIG questions would reasonably risk circumvention of the law. As explained earlier, disclosing in advance the specific questions that 39 agents may use to suss out and evaluate connections to terrorism would help those with terrorist ties to tailor their answers to avoid detection. See, e.g., Heartland Alliance Nat’l Immigrant Justice Ctr. v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 840 F.3d 419, 421 (7th Cir. 2016) (upholding the application of Exemption 7(E) to a list of lower-level terrorist organizations, the disclosure of which would allow applicants for immigration benefits to conceal ties to those organizations); Ibrahim v. Dep’t of State, 311 F. Supp. 3d 134, 143 (D.D.C. 2018) (upholding the application of Exemption 7(E) to “USCIS’s Refugee Application Assessment” because “[t]he lines of questions recorded in the Assessment highlight circumstances that would have raised national security and public safety concerns,” and its disclosure “could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law by enabling applicants for refugee status to plan strategic but inaccurate answers”). 40 Finally, Knight asserts, as the district court held, that even if the questions could be considered “techniques or procedures” for purposes of Exemption 7(E), they are no longer exempt because they have been publicly disclosed. See Inner City Press/Cmty. on the Move v. Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Rsrv. Sys., 463 F.3d 239, 249 (2d Cir. 2006). The burden of establishing prior public disclosure is on the requester. Id. Knight asserts that it has carried its “burden of production” by pointing out that the TRIG questions “become known to applicants when the questions are asked in interviews or mailed to them in Requests for Evidence.” Knight Br. at 45. 9 But as we have explained, “[t]he Supreme Court has limited the public domain exception to 9Knight invokes the district court’s reasoning in ACLU v. DHS, asserting that when an agency has a “practice of asking the questions at issue,” it incurs an additional burden to “justify its assertion that . . . [the questions are] not already known to the public.” Knight Br. at 46 (quoting ACLU v. DHS, 243 F. Supp. 3d at 402). We reject any such rule. A FOIA requester bears the burden of production on the question of whether material is “publicly available.” Inner City Press, 463 F.3d at 245. As we explain above, the mere fact that an agency asks certain questions to certain individuals does not satisfy the requester’s burden of production, because it does not satisfy the threshold showing that such questions are available to the general public. 41 information that is ‘freely available.’” Inner City Press, 463 F.3d at 244 (quoting U.S. Dep't of Just. v. Reps. Comm. for Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 764 (1989)). Thus, to meet this prior-disclosure burden, “the requesting party ‘must . . . point[ ] to specific information in the public domain that appears to duplicate that being withheld.’” Id. at 249 (quoting Afshar v. U.S. Dep’t of State, 702 F.2d 1125, 1130 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (alterations in original)). In the FOIA context, information is in the public domain if it is generally available to the public at large, not simply if it happens to be known by select members of the public. See U.S. Dep't of Just. v. Reps. Comm. for Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 764 (1989) (distinguishing between information “restricted to . . . a particular person or group of class of persons” and information “freely available to the public”). The latter is the case here. Perhaps an enterprising researcher could identify a pool of visa applicants, collect information about what they were asked, and then compile a list of common questions they faced. Though doubtful, let us further 42 assume that our imaginary researcher would also be able to intuit which questions had been posed to ferret out possible terrorists and therefore must be on the TRIG list. Even if all of this might conceivably be achieved, the necessity of the reconstruction exercise itself demonstrates that the information in question is not in the public domain. See, e.g., Davis v. U.S. Dep’t of Just., 968 F.2d 1276, 1280 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (holding FOIA requester failed to show public disclosure by pointing to newspaper accounts establishing that government played tape recordings at trial; rather, requester had “burden of showing that there is a permanent public record of the exact portions” sought to be disclosed); Bishop v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 45 F. Supp. 3d 380, 391 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (“[C]ourts have acknowledged that Exemption 7(E) applies even when the identity of the techniques has been disclosed, but the manner and circumstances of the techniques are not generally known, or the disclosure of additional details could reduce their effectiveness.” (internal 43 quotation marks omitted)); Barouch v. United States Dep’t of Just., 87 F. Supp. 3d 10, 30 n.13 (D.D.C. 2015) (upholding the application of Exemption 7(E) to material showing the “questioning techniques used by ATF agents and local law enforcement agents” because “disclosure would hinder future use of these tactics” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Put another way, the possibility that a savvy law-evader might be able to infer the substance of some withheld documents by carefully observing an agency’s actions does not remove those documents from the ambit of Exemption 7(E). 10 For these reasons, we conclude that USCIS properly withheld the TRIG Questions under Exemption 7(E). Those questions constitute techniques or procedures of law enforcement. We therefore reverse the September 23, 2019, ruling of the district court 10That is particularly so where, as here, the withheld material does not include a single script that a motivated observer could discern. The agency instructs its agents to use the TRIG questions dynamically: they may be scrambled, added, removed, or rephrased in response to the specific situation that agents face. 44 to the extent that it required USCIS to disclose material reflecting the TRIG Questions.