Court Opinion

ID: 9490919
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:58:36.544378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:23.832028
License: Public Domain

KAREN LeCRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Although I agree that the Smith-Mundt Act is a “nondisclosure” statute within Exemption 3, I write separately to offer an alternative ground for affirmance, urged here by the government, because it is at least arguably a disclosure statute regulating rather than prohibiting disclosure. If that is the case, I believe the appellants are foreclosed from seeking disclosure through the FOIA under Ricchio v. Kline, 773 F.2d 1389 (D.C.Cir.1985).1
In Ricchio, the court held that the FOIA does not govern disclosure of transcripts of White House recordings for which the Congress had established a separate disclosure regimen in the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (Materials Act), 44 U.S.C. § 2111 note (formerly 44 U.S.C. 2107 note). The Materials Act directs the Archivist to submit to the Congress proposed regulations for providing public access to specified presidential materials from the Nixon administration, balancing the interests of the public and of President Nixon and his heirs. Relying on the Supreme Court’s observation that “the policies of the [Materials] Act can best be carried out under the Act itself,” the court concluded that “release of the transcripts pursuant to the Information Act ... ‘might frustrate the achievement of the legislative goals of orderly processing and protection of the rights of all affected persons.’ ” 773 F.2d at 1395 (quoting Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 606, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 1316, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978) (holding petitioner had no common-law right of access to tapes subject to Materials Act in custody of trial court)). Because the Materials Act “provided a comprehensive, carefully tailored and detailed procedure designed to protect both the interest of the public in obtaining disclosure of President Nixon’s papers and of President Nixon in protecting the confidentiality of Presidential conversations and deliberations,” the court determined that “the proper method” for obtaining access to covered materials was “by proceeding under the Materials Act” and that the plaintiff therefore “c[ould not] proceed under the Information Act.” Id. The same reasoning applies here.
As with the Materials Act, the Congress drafted the access provisions of the Smith-Mundt Act to accommodate competing interests. Recognizing the benefit of making the materials available to researchers and journalists as well as to its own members, the Congress struck a balance between that interest and the “underlying rationale for the *1170prohibition on domestic dissemination of USIA materials: namely that USIA should not be engaged in domestic propaganda,”S.Rep. No. 101-46, 31 (1989), by providing limited, “examination only” access to USIA materials. See 22 U.S.C. § 1461(a). Later, because it “believe[d] there is little likelihood that material 12 or more years old will be of significant use for domestic propaganda purposes,” the Congress directed that the materials be made generally available twelve years after their preparation or dissemination. The access, however, is also limited by the requirement that property rights in the materials be protected through regulation by the Archivist. See 22 U.S.C. § 1461(b)(3) (“The Archivist ... shall issue necessary regulations to ensure that persons seeking its release in the United States have secured and paid for necessary United States rights and licenses_”).2 I believe that, to the extent that the Smith-Mundt Act is a disclosure statute, its “comprehensive, carefully tailored and detailed procedure,” like that of the Materials Act, precludes obtaining access to USIA materials under the FOIA. See 773 F.2d at 1395.3 To conclude otherwise would “frustrate the achievement of the legislative goals” underlying the express statutory limitation on access to program materials during the first twelve years after preparation or broadcast. See Ricchio, 773 F.2d at 1395.

. Although our decision may, as our dissenting colleague suggests, produce some anomalous results, we must nonetheless read and enforce the statutes as the Congress wrote them. See Busic v. United States, 446 U.S. 398, 405, 100 S.Ct. 1747, 1752, 64 L.Ed.2d 381 (1980) ("[I]t suffices to say that the assorted unreasonableness flows not from ... this decision, but rather from the statutes as Congress wrote them. If corrective action is needed, it is the Congress that must provide it. ‘It is not for us to speculate, much less act, on whether Congress would have altered its stance had the specific events of this case been anticipated.' ”) (quoting TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 185, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 2297, 57 L.Ed.2d 117 (1978)); see also Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, in The Annotated Alice 230-31 (Martin Gardner ed.1960) ("Contrariwise, ... if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain’t.”)

. The Archivist has promulgated the required regulations which are codified at 36 C.F.R. § 1256.58.

. Church of Scientology of Calif. v. Internal Revenue Serv., 792 F.2d 146 (D.C.Cir.1986), aff'd, 484 U.S. 9, 108 S.Ct. 271, 98 L.Ed.2d 228 (1987), cited by the dissent, considered a statute that was, by the court’s own characterization, a nondisclosure rather than a disclosure statute. To the extent that the Smith-Mundt Act is a nondisclosure statute, it is “covered by Exemption 3,” 792 F.2d at 149, as explained in the majority opinion.