Opinion ID: 526427
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Privacy Concerns

Text: 8 The Supreme Court has made clear that Exemption 6 is designed to protect personal information in public records, even if it is not embarrassing or of an intimate nature: Information such as place of birth, date of birth, date of marriage, employment history, and comparable data is not normally regarded as highly personal, and yet ... such information ... would be exempt from any disclosure that would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Department of State v. Washington Post Co., 456 U.S. 595, 600, 102 S.Ct. 1957, 1961, 72 L.Ed.2d 358 (1982). The question that remains is the extent of the interference with privacy that would be caused by disclosure of the name, address, and annuitant status information at issue in this case. 9 Before the Supreme Court decided Reporters Committee, NARFE's primary argument was that its planned use of their names and addresses would not occasion significant annoyance to the annuitants. Reporters Committee makes clear, however, that this is not the relevant consideration. The Court there held that, with exceptions not here relevant, the identity of the requesting party has no bearing on the merits of his or her FOIA request, explaining, The Act's sole concern is with what must be made public or not made public. 109 S.Ct. at 1480-81 (internal quotation omitted). True, the Court made this broad observation in the course of discussing how to assess the public interest in disclosure, not in its consideration of the private interests in non-disclosure. That is not surprising, however, for in that case, the plaintiff reporters, who had requested rap sheets (personal criminal histories) of four individuals, were in no position to argue that what they would do with the information would be somehow less intrusive than the uses to which others might put it; the Court was therefore not faced with the question whether the identity of the requesting party is equally irrelevant to the private interest side of the balance. We conclude that it is, for two reasons. 10 First, the Court's statement of the irrelevance principle is not limited in terms to the public interest inquiry; it is in terms applicable to the Act as a whole. Second, such a limitation would not make sense. The statute requires that non-exempt files be disclosed to any person. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(3). That is, information available to anyone is information available to everyone. Because a court cannot limit the disclosure of records to particular parties or for particular uses, it would be illogical as well as unfair to the person whose privacy is at stake for the court to balance the public interest in disclosure to the whole world against the private interest in avoiding disclosure only to the party making the request, and to ignore the impact on personal privacy of the more general disclosure that will likely ensue. 11 In this context, the privacy interest of an individual in avoiding the unlimited disclosure of his or her name and address is significant, as several other circuits have held. See Department of Agriculture v. FLRA, 836 F.2d 1139, 1143 (8th Cir.1988); Minnis v. Department of Agriculture, 737 F.2d 784, 787 (9th Cir.1984); Heights Community Congress v. Veterans Administration, 732 F.2d 526, 529 (6th Cir.1984); American Federation of Government Employees v. United States, 712 F.2d 931, 932 (4th Cir.1983); Wine Hobby USA, Inc. v. IRS, 502 F.2d 133, 136-37 (3d Cir.1974). In our society, individuals generally have a large measure of control over the disclosure of their own identities and whereabouts. That people expect to be able to exercise that control is evidenced by ... unlisted telephone numbers, by which subscribers may avoid publication of an address in the public directory, and postal boxes, which permit the receipt of mail without disclosing the location of one's residence. Heights, 732 F.2d at 529. 12 Privacy in the sense of an individual's control of information concerning his or her person, Reporters Committee, 109 S.Ct. at 1476, is not the only interest implicated in this case, moreover. Every list of names and addresses sought under FOIA is delimited by one or more defining characteristics, as reflected in the FOIA request itself; no one would request simply all names and addresses in an agency's files, because without more, those data would not be informative. The extent of any invasion of privacy that release of the list might occasion thus depends upon the nature of the defining characteristics, i.e., whether it is significant that an individual possesses them. A non-embarrassing characteristic may or may not be otherwise significant, in a manner relevant to the individual's privacy interests, depending upon whether many parties in addition to the party making the initial FOIA request would be interested in obtaining a list of and contacting those who have that characteristic. 13 Thus, in Ditlow v. Shultz, 517 F.2d 166 (D.C.Cir.1975), a lawyer representing a class of passengers who were overcharged by airlines requested disclosure from Customs records of the names and addresses of individuals who returned to the United States from Asia or Australia by air sometime between May 1 and September 1, 1973, so that he could notify them by mail that they were members of the class and might be entitled to damages. Id. at 170 n. 15. The Ditlow court sensibly analyzed the case on the assumption that the only consequence for those named in the disclosed records would be their receipt of the mailed notice. Id. (emphasis added). There is no suggestion, and we can not imagine, that anyone else would use the list for any other purpose. 14 In Aronson v. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 822 F.2d 182 (1st Cir.1987), on the other hand, the court was faced with a request for a list of individuals owed a substantial sum of money upon termination of their HUD mortgage insurance policies. Id. at 186. There, although the court was ambivalent about whether the release of names and addresses alone would implicate significant privacy interests, it was confident, as are we, that that interest becomes more significant ... when names and addresses are combined with [such] financial information. Id. Said the court, When it becomes a matter of public knowledge that someone is owed a substantial sum of money, that individual may become a target for those who would like to secure a share of that sum by means scrupulous or otherwise. Id. 15 As in Aronson, but not in Ditlow, disclosure of the information requested here would interfere with the subjects' reasonable expectations of undisturbed enjoyment in the solitude and seclusion of their own homes. The list at issue here reveals not only the names and addresses of hundreds of thousands of individuals; it also indicates that each is retired or disabled (or the survivor of such a person) and receives a monthly annuity check from the federal Government. Any business or fund-raising organization for which such individuals might be an attractive market could get from the Government, at nominal cost, a list of prime sales prospects to solicit. Armed with this information, interested businesses, charities, and individuals could, and undoubtedly would, subject the listed annuitants to an unwanted barrage of mailings and personal solicitations. Minnis, 737 F.2d at 787. In light of the Supreme Court's affirmation, in a different context, that [t]he ancient concept that 'a man's home is his castle' into which 'not even the king may enter' has lost none of its vitality ..., such a fusillade cannot readily be deemed a de minimis assault on the privacy of those within. 16 NARFE contends nonetheless that any such interference with the annuitants' privacy interests would be insufficient to support non-disclosure under Exemption 6. It relies for this proposition (as did the district court) upon Ditlow, Getman v. NLRB, 450 F.2d 670 (D.C.Cir.1971), and Disabled Officer's Ass'n v. Rumsfeld, 428 F.Supp. 454 (D.D.C.1977), summarily aff'd, 574 F.2d 636 (D.C.Cir.1978), each of which held that a name and address list was not within Exemption 6. 17 In Getman, the court expressly relied upon the proposition that the balancing requirement of Exemption 6 carries with it an implicit limitation that the information, once disclosed, [may] be used only by the requesting party and for the public interest purpose upon which the balancing was based, 450 F.2d at 677 n. 24, a view that, as we have seen, above at 4-5, cannot be squared with the Supreme Court's subsequent decision in Reporters Committee. If that proposition were correct, then the only threat to their privacy that voters in certain union representative elections faced would have been a solicitation to participate in the plaintiffs' academic study--a relatively minor invasion of privacy, as we said. Id. at 675. Thus, Getman is not (except in its adoption of a legal standard that was later disapproved) in any sense contrary to our analysis here. 18 In Ditlow, Judge Leventhal determined that disclosure of the list of airline passengers, though not a clearly inconsequential loss of privacy ... would result in less than a substantial invasion of privacy. 517 F.2d at 170. As we have seen, however, the court reached that conclusion based upon the understanding that (whether because of practical realities or of the limitation in Getman is not clear) the only consequence of the exposure here is a mailed notice informing the person that he is a member of a class and may be awarded damages.... Id. at 170 n. 15. The consequences in the case before us are likely to be more significant because the name and address list at issue here is of apparent commercial value. 19 Finally, in Disabled Officer's, which is factually similar to this case, the district court anticipated that release of the names and addresses of disabled military retirees could expose them to unwanted solicitation or even harassment, but ordered it anyway. The court expressly proceeded on the understanding, however, that Exemption 6 is not implicated absent the disclosure of the intimate details of [an individual's] personal li[fe].... 428 F.Supp. at 458. That premise was proved erroneous in Washington Post. 456 U.S. at 600, 102 S.Ct. at 1960. 20 We are thus left with circuit precedent establishing only that the disclosure of names and addresses is not inherently and always a significant threat to the privacy of those listed; whether it is a significant or a de minimis threat depends upon the characteristic(s) revealed by virtue of being on the particular list, and the consequences likely to ensue. 21 The district court also relied upon Department of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 96 S.Ct. 1592, 48 L.Ed.2d 11 (1976), and Arieff v. Department of the Navy, 712 F.2d 1462 (D.C.Cir.1983). In each case, the Government opposed disclosure of certain information on the ground that, although the records in question did not on their face identify particular individuals, sufficiently motivated members of the public might be able to link the information to specific individuals. In Rose, the Supreme Court responded to this suggestion by observing that Exemption 6 was directed at threats to privacy interests more palpable than mere possibilities. 425 U.S. at 380 n. 19, 96 S.Ct. at 1608 n. 19. In a dictum in Arieff, we stated more broadly that Exemption 6 does not apply to an invasion of privacy produced as a secondary effect of the release.... [I]t is the very 'production' of the documents which must 'constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.'  712 F.2d at 1468 (emphasis in original). The district court thought that these cases stand for the proposition that 22 this circuit has recognized only a slight privacy interest in a person's name and address, and has discounted, if not ignored altogether, the possible secondary effects that the release of such information might have on the addressee. Unless the release of names and addresses, standing alone, will embarrass the individuals involved, [the privacy interest in their non-disclosure is] entitled to little protection. 23 633 F.Supp. at 1244 (emphases added). This is a misinterpretation of Rose and an overreading of Arieff. 24 In virtually every case in which a privacy concern is implicated, someone must take steps after the initial disclosure in order to bring about the untoward effect. Disclosure does not, literally by itself, constitute a harm; it is the requester's (or another's) reaction to the disclosure that can sting. This is only more obvious where disclosure of the information invades someone's privacy not because it is embarrassing but because it invites unwanted intrusions. Where there is a substantial probability that disclosure will cause an interference with personal privacy, it matters not that there may be two or three links in the causal chain. The concern in Rose is not, as the district court would have it, with the number of steps that must be taken to get to the threatened effect; rather, Rose turns upon the likelihood that the effect will ever come to pass. In that case, there was substantial doubt that any invasion of privacy would occur, and it was that uncertainty that led the court to rule as it did. In this case, there is little reason to doubt that the barrage of solicitations predicted will in fact arrive--in the mail, over the telephone, and at the front door of the listed annuitants. 25 Furthermore, any doubt about the meaning of Rose was dispelled by the Supreme Court in Reporters Committee, where it said that 26 even with names redacted [as the requester in Rose admitted was proper], subjects of such summaries can often be identified through other, disclosed information.... [W]e recognized the potential invasion of privacy through later recognition of identifying details, and approved the Court of Appeals' rule permitting the District Court to delete 'other identifying information' [i.e., other than names] in order to safeguard this privacy interest. 27 109 S.Ct. at 1479. Clearly, the Court's concern is not limited to those FOIA cases, if any such cases there be, in which the feared invasion of privacy is caused by the release itself, and the better reading of Arieff is not to the contrary. The court there painted with a broad brush, but it covered only a modest area; the relevant point being made was that the mere speculation of the sort that would be stimulated by disclosure of the drugs being prescribed for unnamed Justices of the Supreme Court, Members of Congress, and their senior staffs is not itself part of the invasion of privacy contemplated by Exemption 6--not because it would be a secondary effect, but because there was no substantial likelihood that any concrete facts about a particular individual could be inferred. 28 For the Exemption 6 balance to be implicated, there must, of course, be a causal relationship between the disclosure and the threatened invasion of privacy. Here, there is a substantial probability that the disclosure will lead to the threatened invasion: one need only assume that business people will not overlook an opportunity to get cheaply from the Government what otherwise comes dearly, a list of qualified prospects for all the special goods, services, and causes likely to appeal to financially secure retirees. It is clearer still that the invasion of the annuitants' privacy will be more than de minimis; it will be significant. Nor would the invasion be any less under NARFE's alternative request, made in its supplemental brief, for only the addresses and not the names of the annuitants. As the above analysis makes clear, the privacy concerns raised by the release of the addresses alone are substantially identical to those raised by the release of both the names and addresses.