Opinion ID: 2827462
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The DIA properly withheld records under

Text: Exemption 3. Plaintiffs challenge the DIA’s justification for withholding certain records under FOIA Exemption 3. We agree with the district court that the DIA has met its burden to justify withholding the content of certain records under Exemption 3. Exemption 3 protects records exempt from disclosure pursuant to a separate statute. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3). The district court held that the DIA had properly withheld records under Exemption 3 because those records were protected under 10 U.S.C. § 424.5 Section 424 provides that no law shall be interpreted to require disclosure of “(1) the organization or any function of [the DIA]; or (2) the number of [DIA personnel] or the name, official title, occupational series, grade, or salary of any such person.” Id. There is a two-step inquiry in deciding Exemption 3 questions. We ask first whether the statute identified by the agency is a statute of exemption within the meaning of Exemption 3, and then whether the withheld records satisfy the criteria of the exemption statute. See Sims, 471 U.S. at 167. The answer to both inquiries is yes. 5 We need not decide whether the DIA properly invoked the National Security Act of 1947 as an independent statutory basis for withholding under Exemption 3 because the DIA invokes that statute’s protection of records that would reveal sources or methods of intelligence, which is coextensive with the analysis of the DIA’s Exemption 1 argument above. But because of the need for the district court to undertake a segregability analysis on remand, we must decide whether the content that the DIA seeks to withhold as an agency “function” is covered by § 424. HAMDAN V. U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE 25 The significance of § 424 for FOIA litigation is a question of first impression among federal circuit courts. In this case, the parties do not dispute that § 424 qualifies as a withholding statute within the meaning of Exemption 3. Moreover, the plain language of a statute stating that no law shall require disclosure of certain records indisputably satisfies the criteria of Exemption 3. See Sack v. CIA, 53 F. Supp. 3d 154, 174 n.17 (D.D.C. 2014) (holding that § 424 falls within the scope of Exemption 3); Physicians for Human Rights v. U.S. Dep’t of Defense, 778 F. Supp. 2d 28, 36 (D.D.C. 2011) (same); cf. Wilner, 592 F.3d at 72 (holding that similarly worded provision related to the National Security Agency falls under Exemption 3). As for the second step, the parties disagree about whether the DIA has shown that the content withheld falls under § 424. Plaintiffs do not dispute that the DIA’s invoking § 424 was proper to shield phone numbers, names, and email accounts of DIA personnel, as well as web addresses on the DIA’s classified network. But the DIA also withheld the names of the countries and intelligence organizations with which the DIA shares intelligence, claiming that it would reveal a “function” of the agency within the meaning of § 424. We must interpret the word “function” in § 424. Plaintiffs contend that § 424 covers only information related to DIA organization and personnel, arguing that if “function” referred to all the tasks that the DIA performs, the latter provision protecting personnel information would be superfluous. That is not so. Rather, reading § 424 to shield only information about DIA personnel would effectively read the first prong out of the statute. Understanding “function” as referring to the DIA’s mission, but not to records unrelated 26 HAMDAN V. U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE to any DIA tasks would not make the prong shielding personnel information meaningless. For example, an aggrieved employee considering litigation about discriminatory or other inappropriate conduct might seek records of prior, similar conduct, which would not be exempt from disclosure under the first prong of § 424. While the DIA’s actual human resources and discrimination policies might be “functions,” records of, for example, inappropriate emails would not be, though the names and contact information of the DIA personnel involved could be withheld under § 424’s second prong, giving meaning to the entire statute. Plaintiffs cite Baker v. CIA, 580 F.2d 664, 669 (D.C. Cir. 1978), which interpreted a somewhat similar statute related to the CIA and held that the statute only exempted records related to CIA personnel from disclosure. But that statute shielded “the organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed by the Agency.” 50 U.S.C. § 3507 (formerly 50 U.S.C. § 403g). Section 424, by contrast, has separate provisions shielding, first, “the organization or any function” of the DIA, and second, information about DIA personnel. 10 U.S.C. § 424. While it is publicly known that the DIA shares intelligence with foreign governments—a “function” at the highest level of generality—we conclude that the names of the governments with which the DIA shares intelligence falls within the category of properly withheld records under § 424. Otherwise, some governments might face severe political consequences from their constituents or allies due to cooperation with U.S. intelligence services, and the DIA’s ability to gather intelligence would be compromised. HAMDAN V. U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE 27 The DIA’s Vaughn index is sufficiently detailed to justify its Exemption 3 withholdings. For each document that would identify the names of countries or agencies with which the DIA shares intelligence, the index explained as much. We cannot imagine what further detail the DIA could have provided without actually naming the country or the organization. We affirm the district court’s conclusion as to Exemption 3.