Opinion ID: 187057
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Adequacy of Vaughn index

Text: Morley further challenges the sufficiency of the Vaughn index because it does not identify the specific exemption invoked to justify each redaction in the released documents. The court has provided repeated instruction on the specificity required of a Vaughn index. In King v. U.S. Department of Justice, 830 F.2d 210 (D.C.Cir.1987), the court stated that when an agency seeks to withhold information, it must provide `a relatively detailed justification, specifically identifying the reasons why a particular exemption is relevant and correlating those claims with the particular part of a withheld document to which they apply,' id. at 219 (quoting Mead Data Cent., Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 251 (D.C.Cir.1977)). The court held that a [c]ategorical description of redacted material coupled with categorical indication of anticipated consequences of disclosure is clearly inadequate. Id. at 224. At the same time, in Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Food & Drug Administration, 449 F.3d 141, 147 (D.C.Cir.2006), the court stated that [w]e have never required repetitive, detailed explanations for each piece of withheld informationthat is, codes and categories may be sufficiently particularized to carry the agency's burden of proof. The court observed that [e]specially where the agency has disclosed and withheld a large number of documents, . . . particularity may actually impede court review and undermine the functions served by a Vaughn index. Id. In holding that the Vaughn index was adequate, the court noted the index included eleven categories of information describing the nature of each record. Id. at 146-47. The Morley Vaughn index contains many of the same categories as in Judicial Watch, including an identification number, the document's subject, and the date. Although the CIA has not matched each redaction with a specific exemption, its Vaughn index does identify the exemptions claimed for each individual document. In Judicial Watch the index and the agency affidavit worked in tandem, the court validating the index because it tied each individual document to one or more exemptions, and the [agency's] declaration linked the substance of each exemption to the documents' common elements. Id. at 147. The released portion of the document supplements the Vaughn index, so that [t]he released content of the documents served to illuminate the nature of the redacted material. Id. at 145. As described below in discussing several of the claimed FOIA exemptions, the Dorn Declaration is less fulsome in tying together the exempted documents and justifying their withholding. Still, the descriptions of the documents in the Vaughn index, while categorical and with little variation from page to page, convey enough information for Morley and the court to identify the records referenced and understand the basic reasoning behind the claimed exemptions. Summary judgment was therefore appropriate on the adequacy of the CIA's Vaughn index.