Opinion ID: 3172147
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Main Street’s FOIA Request to the NSC

Text: On November 27, 2012, plaintiff Main Street Legal Services, Inc. (“Main Street”), “a non‐profit law firm within the City University of New York School of Law,” Compl. ¶ 4, submitted a FOIA request to the NSC seeking production of (1) “[a]ll records related to the killing and attempted killing by drone strike of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals,” and (2) “[a]ll National Security Council meeting minutes taken in the year 2011,” J.A. 25.4 The NSC denied the request 3 Additional members of the Council designated by President Obama are the Secretaries of the Treasury and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the U.S. Representative to the United Nations, the President’s Chief of Staff, and the President’s National Security Advisor. See PPD‐1, at 2. The President has directed that the following persons attend some or all NSC meetings: the Director of National Intelligence, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Counsel to the President, the President’s Deputy National Security Advisor, the Secretary of Commerce, the U.S. Trade Representative, the President’s Assistant for Economic Policy, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, the President’s Homeland Security Advisor, and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. See id. 4 The term “National Security Council” is used to describe both the statutorily created “Council” presided over by the President and the “NSC System,” a hierarchy of interdependent committees and staff atop which the Council sits. See Armstrong v. Exec. Office of the President, 90 F.3d at 560 (describing NSC as “elaborate, self‐contained structure and bureaucracy” organized into “complex system of committees and working groups”); David J. Rothkopf, Running the 6 by letter dated December 14, 2012, stating that “[a]s an organization in the Executive Office of the President that advises and assists the President, the National Security Council is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.” Id. at 29. Main Street disagreed and, on February 21, 2013, it commenced this FOIA action in the Eastern District of New York, invoking 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) to seek a judicial order compelling the NSC to produce the requested records. The World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, at XIV (2005) (describing common confusion over meaning of term “National Security Council”). Thus, while Main Street’s FOIA request to the NSC for “National Security Council meeting minutes,” J.A. 25, might be understood to be directed only to the Council, its broader request for “[a]ll records” related to drone strikes, including “[p]rocedures, mechanisms, or processes,” or “[r]esults of investigations,” id., appears directed to the entire NSC System because, as this opinion explains, such materials are exactly what the hierarchy of NSC committees and staff is expected to produce for the Council. Thus, because (1) “NSC” is routinely used to reference the entire NSC System (in much the same way “SEC” is used to reference an entity larger than its five‐ member Commission); (2) the FOIA requires only that a requestor “reasonably describe” the records sought, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A); and (3) the government has never suggested that it understood Main Street’s FOIA request not to pertain to the NSC System, on this appeal, we construe Main Street’s FOIA request and its agency argument to pertain to the NSC as a whole, i.e., both to the Council and to the NSC System. We therefore refer in this opinion to the “Council” as the statutorily created committee over which the President presides, the “NSC System” as the support staff and subcommittees that operate beneath the Council, and the “NSC” as the entirety, encompassing both the Council and the NSC System. 7 NSC moved to dismiss the complaint both for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted and for lack of subject‐matter jurisdiction, arguing that it was not an “agency” subject to the FOIA. 5 U.S.C. §§ 551(1), 552(f)(1); see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), (b)(6). The district court agreed that the NSC was not an agency and dismissed the case on the merits. On August 7, 2013, it entered the judgment in favor of the NSC from which Main Street now appeals. See Main St. Legal Servs. v. Nat’l Sec. Council, 962 F. Supp. 2d at 478–79.