Court Opinion

ID: 9426371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:41.906636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.576368
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
Although this case requires our consideration of a claim of a right to “privacy,” it arises in quite a different context from some of our other recent decisions such as Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693 (1976). In that case custodians of public records chose to disseminate them, and one of the subjects of the record claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the custodian from doing so. Here the custodian of the records, petitioner Department of the Air Force, has chosen not to disseminate the records, and its decision to that effect is being challenged by a citizen under the Freedom of Information Act. That Act, as both the Court’s opinion and the dissenting opinion of The Chief Justice point out, requires the federal courts to balance the claim of right of access to the informa*390tion against any consequent “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” For the reasons stated in Part 2 of the dissenting opinion of The Chief Justice, I agree that the Act did not contemplate virtual reconstruction of records under the guise of excision of a segregable part of the record. I therefore agree with The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Blackmun that, in the absence of such redaction, the sixth exemption of the Act is applicable andvthe judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed.