Court Opinion

ID: 9459873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:33:51.151011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:22.141362
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge,
concurring:
I agree entirely with Judge Wilkey’s exposition of the impediments that have confronted courts in enforcing compliance with the mandate of openness in the Freedom of Information Act. These impediments derive, of course, from exactly the problem against which the Act was directed — the enthusiasm for secrecy that seems all too often epidemic in our Government. Courts are responsible under the Act for testing broad claims of exemption from disclosure, claims that information must remain secret, *1093against the precise categories of necessary secrecy that Congress has defined. Yet the claim of exemption has, in the past, foreclosed adversary analysis of whether, in fact, exemption is warranted, presenting the grave danger that, despite the best efforts of the court, the claim alone might conclude the case. See Sterling Drug, Inc. v. FTC, 146 U. S.App.D.C. 237, 450 F.2d 698, 715-716 (1971) (Bazelon, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I do not suppose, nor, I assume, does the Court, that the procedures we have mandated to govern the remands here and in Vaughn v. Rosen, - U.S.App. D.C.-, -F.2d - (1973) will completely dispose of the problem. They are, like much in the law, an experiment to be tried by experience. And experience may prove that additional steps or different approaches are called for. Nonetheless, I think that these procedures bear substantial promise of facilitating enforcement of the Act. I join in the opinion of the Court.