Court Opinion

ID: 9484244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:45:10.239674+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:06.600979
License: Public Domain

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I.
Over the past seventeen years, the Department of Justice has compiled a file of nearly four hundred volumes of documents on the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, a man, and a mystery, surely needing no introduction. Appellant Brian Dickerson, who happens to be editor of a major Detroit newspaper, has exercised the privilege Congress has given the public to request access to the documents in this file. While granting this privilege, Congress has also recognized that good government, in some circumstances, requires secrecy. Nonetheless, it has placed the burden of showing the need for secrecy on government agencies wishing to protect certain documents from public scrutiny. Since I believe the Government has fallen woefully short in carrying its burden, I dissent.
II.
The Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA” or “the Act”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, enables citizens regardless of status to gain access to government documents, thus “ ‘open[ing] agency action to the light of public scrutiny.’ ” Vaughn v. United States, 936 F.2d 862, 865 (6th Cir.1991) (quoting Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 772, 109 S.Ct. 1468, 1481, 103 L.Ed.2d 774 (1989)); see also John Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 493 U.S. 146, 151, 110 S.Ct. 471, 475, 107 L.Ed.2d 462 (1989) (“ ‘[The Act] seeks to permit access to official information long shielded unnecessarily from public view and attempts to create a judicially enforceable public right to secure such information from possibly unwilling official hands.’ ” (quoting EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 80, 93 S.Ct. 827, 832, 35 L.Ed.2d 119 (1973)). The Act’s purpose is “ ‘to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.’ ” John Doe Corp., 493 U.S. at 152, 110 S.Ct. at 475 (quoting NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 242, 98 S.Ct. 2311, 2327, 57 L.Ed.2d 159 (1978)). It requires “ ‘full agency disclosure unless information is exempted under clearly delineated statutory language.’” Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 865 (quoting Department of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 360-61, 96 S.Ct. 1592, 1599, 48 L.Ed.2d 11 (1976)). The exemptions are to be “narrowly construed.” Id. “ ‘[T]hese limited exemptions do not obscure the basic policy that disclosure, not secrecy, is the dominant objective of the Act.’ ” John Doe Corp., 493 U.S. at 152, 110 S.Ct. at 475 (quoting Rose, 425 U.S. at 361, 96 S.Ct. at 1599). To avoid releasing requested documents, the Government must prove that the documents sought fit a specific statutory exemption; the person making the request bears no burden of showing that such documents may not be withheld. Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 866 (citing Department of Justice v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 109 S.Ct. 2841, 106 L.Ed.2d 112 (1989)).
A. Existence of an ongoing law enforcement proceeding.
In reviewing a District Court’s decision under the FOIA, the Court of Appeals must “determine first whether the District Court had an adequate factual basis for its decision, and second, decide whether upon that basis the court’s decision was clearly erroneous.” Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 866 (citing Ingle v. Department of Justice, 698 F.2d 259, 267 (6th Cir.1983)). I agree with the majority that the record shows that the FBI has continued to pursue the Hoffa disappearance investigation and that officials believe that eventual prosecution is not out of the question. William M. Baker, the Assistant Director of the FBI in charge of the Criminal Investigative Division, who apparently has the authority to decide whether to continue the investigation, made a sworn declaration to that effect, and that is good enough to establish the existence of “a concrete prospective law enforcement proceeding.”
*1436B. Interference with an ongoing law enforcement proceeding.
While the existence of such an ongoing proceeding is necessary to a finding of exemption under § 522(b)(7)(A), Bevis v. Department of State, 801 F.2d 1386, 1389 (D.C.Cir.1986),1 showing that such a proceeding indeed exists does not serve to exempt the entire file on the proceeding. Id. The Government also must prove that the documents, if released, could interfere with enforcement proceedings. Here, the Government essentially did nothing more than assure the reviewing court that all 400 volumes on Hoffa relate to their enforcement efforts, and recite (using language remarkably similar to statutory and case language) the harms that will result from any disclosure save for press clippings. It has not met its further burden of proof.
FOIA cases seem to pit citizen suspicion against government defensiveness. The fact that one side knows the entire truth and the other must guess at it (as, indeed, must the judge) requires adherence to procedures meant to inform the court as to the nature of government documents without revealing their actual contents, and to retain as much fairness in the adversary proceeding as possible given the imbalance of information. See Wiener v. FBI, 943 F.2d 972, 977 (9th Cir.1991), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 112 S.Ct. 3013, 120 L.Ed.2d 886 (1992) (quoting Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820, 824 (D.C.Cir.1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 977, 94 S.Ct. 1564, 39 L.Ed.2d 873 (1974) (“ ‘This lack of knowledge by the party seeking disclosure seriously distorts the traditional adversary nature of our legal system.”’).
The majority places great emphasis on the “public interest that exemption 7(A) was designed to protect” and the “obvious risks that public disclosure of these ... files would entail.” I do not quarrel with the majority’s observation that the release of documents containing, for example, the names of witnesses and informants might well lead to witness intimidation and destruction of evidence by those implicated in an ongoing investigation. Indeed, in enforcement exemption cases, “the interests of the adversary process may be outweighed by the agency’s legitimate interest in secrecy.” Campbell v. Department of Health & Human Services, 682 F.2d 256 (D.C.Cir.1982).
However, I believe the majority understates the Government’s burden of showing that specific documents in its possession contain sensitive information. The majority admits that “the mere fact that the burden of justifying nondisclosure rests with the government does not illuminate the question of how heavy the burden is,” and notes that Congress “broadened” exemption 7(A) from covering only records which “would” be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings to those records which “could” be expected to interfere. While I recognize that Congress loosened up the standard somewhat from the seemingly unprovable “would interfere” standard to the more reasonable “could interfere,” I certainly do not believe that in amending the statute Congress changed the underlying premise of the Act, that “ ‘disclosure, not secrecy, is the dominant objective of the Act.’ ” John Doe Corp., 493 U.S. at 152, 110 S.Ct. at 475 (quoting Rose, 425 U.S. at 361, 96 S.Ct. at 1599). Permitting the Government to satisfy its burden by simply assuring the court that all of the requested papers in a giant, seventeen year old file relate in some way to an ongoing investigation, as I think happened here, potentially robs the Act of all effectiveness in attaining this objective.
*1437This Circuit has recognized that the focus of a FOIA case is the contents of the documents requested, not the purpose for which the Government possesses them. The Act grants disclosure exemptions for documents containing information which would most likely harm an ongoing investigation in a specific way if made public. Thus,
a court must have sufficiently detailed information regarding the contents of withheld documents along with reasoning for the application of specific FOIA exemptions to enable the court to make an independent assessment of both the contents of the documents in issue and the applicability of any asserted exemptions.
Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 869. The court may not grant “ ‘blanket exemptions’ for Government records simply because they were found in investigatory files compiled for law enforcement purposes.” Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. at 236, 98 S.Ct. at 2324. The Government “must demonstrate specifically how each document or category of documents, if disclosed, would interfere with the investigation.” Campbell, 682 F.2d at 265 (emphasis added). The trial court has considerable discretion as to what procedures it uses to decide whether certain documents are exempt from disclosure, but whatever procedure the court chooses must suffice to produce enough evidence on which to rule, and to produce a record an appeals court can consult to review the decision. Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 869.
Reading the majority opinion may leave one with the distinct impression that we really have no idea what information lurks in the massive Hoffa file. That impression would be correct. The record presented us does not allow this court to make the requisite independent assessment of whether each document or category of documents would interfere with the Government’s enforcement efforts. Obviously, the Government need not produce each and every document for the judge to decide whether its contents merit exemption from release. The Government’s submissions may describe the documents by categorizing them according to their content and nature, Bevis v. Department of State, 801 F.2d 1386, 1389 (D.C.Cir.1986); the indexing and categorizing of documents, particularly where the requested documents are voluminous, is preferred to in chambers inspections, Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 866. While courts have smiled on the use of Vaughn indices in sorting out large volumes of documents, and in their discretion sometimes ordered such indices produced, so long as the Government provides sufficiently specific and detailed information to permit the court to make a reasoned determination, “no particular method ... is mandated.” Id. at 867.
Just because the Act does not mandate a particular method does not mean that any method will do. The Llewellyn declaration, which the majority believes adequately provides a categorization of the documents in the file, falls short in two respects. First, categories such as “information and documents provided by local law enforcement” and “public and sealed court documents” are not “sufficiently distinct to allow a court to determine, as to each category, whether the specific claimed exemption(s) are properly applied.” Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 868. The court must be able “ ‘to trace a rational link between the nature of the document and the alleged likely interference.’ ” Bevis, 801 F.2d at 1389 (quoting Crooker v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 789 F.2d 64, 67 (D.C.Cir.1986)).
Second, even though a few of Mr. Llewellyn’s categories, such as “documents containing information from confidential informants,” more appropriately describe materials that fit the exemption, I do not believe the Government’s task ends there with respect to showing that the documents it seeks to keep secret fit in those clearly exempt categories. A category alone gives no clue as to the content of the documents it purportedly encompasses; therefore it does not provide “adequate detail and justification” to satisfy the claimed exemption. Id. at 869. While our decision in Vaughn is careful not to prescribe specific methods, I think our opinion in that case, which affirmed the exemptions claimed there, describes considerably more effort on the part of the affiant than we see here. The affiant in Vaughn did assign the documents to rather general categories, but she
*1438also indicated, by page number, which of the 1,000+ documents were included in each of the categories. For each of the categories, [the affiant] then discusses the legal grounds and exemptions upon which the government relies in withholding the specific documents contained within each category. Attached to her affidavit is an exhibit which summarizes, by document page number, the exemption(s) relied on for withholding each of the 1,000+ pages.
Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 868 (emphasis added). This passage, it seems to me, illustrates the rule that the Government must demonstrate that the contents of identifiable documents actually fit the exemption claimed. The record here does not allow us to see how this fit has been made. For example, while the Government has told us that the Hoffa file contains informant interviews, which comes as no surprise, it has not explained even in broad terms which specific documents those are, how many there are, or anything else to prove that the Government is not making a blanket representation, but has reviewed those documents and has good reason to believe that releasing any of them could harm the ongoing investigation.2 See Bevis, 801 F.2d at 1389 (“[T]he FBI must itself review each document to determine the category in which it properly belongs. Absent such individual scrutiny, the categories would be no more than smaller versions of the ‘blanket exemptions’ disapproved by Congress in its 1974 amendment of FOIA.”).
Our decision in Vaughn, following fairly straightforward Supreme Court precedent, requires that the Government make a choice in arguing for exemption from FOIA disclosure. It may present the court with a highly detailed Vaughn index, it may' create more general exempt categories and then show how each document fits into them, or it may haul the entire file into chambers for hands-on review by the judge; the last of these, as I have explained, we have strongly discouraged. By holding in this case that the Government has met its burden of showing the entire Hoffa file to be exempt under § 522(b)(7)(A), the majority leaves FOIA law in this Circuit with the worst of all worlds. The Government has defined several general categories of documents, not all of them properly exempt, and then handed the court an admittedly nonrepresentative packet of secret documents to inspect in chambers. Neither effort sufficed to show how each and every document in the Hoffa file fits the proffered statutory exemption; the two methods taken together do not add up to a proper or sufficient showing. I am at a loss to reconcile the majority’s opinion either with our Vaughn decision or with the Supreme Court’s teachings on FOIA law.
C. Segregability of portions of the file.
I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the Government has adequately shown that none of the Hoffa file, save for “public” documents such as newspaper clippings, is “reasonably . segregable” under § 522(b). This provision requires the Government to release “any materials that do not properly fall within a legitimately withheld category.” Bevis, 801 F.2d at 1390. Since I do not think the Government adequately showed what the Hoffa file contains, I certainly do not think it adequately demonstrated that none of this immense file falls outside of the statutory exemptions, as the statute itself requires. The Act does not ask the Government to judge the “prospects” of segregating non-exempt material, it commands the Government to segregate its files if at all possible. Both the statute and the caselaw indicate that Congress was largely unconcerned with the administrative burdens it was imposing on government agencies, but placed a higher value on openness. It is not our place to reorder Congress’s priorities. Neither, might I add, is it our place to judge whether the material a citizen requests from the Government is “useless.”
*1439III.
It is difficult to ignore the fact that- the documents Mr. Dickerson has requested may contain the secrets to Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance. One may be predisposed in favor of government secrecy or against, or may approve or disapprove of investigative reporting by the media. However, in enacting FOIA, Congress has chosen to value government disclosure over government convenience and economy, and chosen not to favor or disfavor certain persons or their reasons for asking the Government to disclose documents. Here, a private citizen has made a specific request. Congress has placed a heavy burden on the government agency wishing to keep the requested documents secret, and that burden has not been met. While it may well be that the Hoffa file should remain a secret, I do not believe that the Government has yet proven why. I dissent.

. To restate, § 522(b)(7)(A) exempts "investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes ... to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information ... could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings." The earlier version of this provision exempted such records where production "would” interfere with enforcement. See. North v. Walsh, 881 F.2d 1088, 1098 n. 14 (D.C.Cir.1989) ("This change relieves the agency of the burden of proving to a certainty' that disclosure will interfere with enforcement proceedings, 'but does not otherwise alter the test.' ") (quoting Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press v. Department of Justice, 816 F.2d 730 (D.C.Cir.), modified on reh’g, 831 F.2d 1124 (1987), rev'd on other grounds, 489 U.S. 749, 109 S.Ct. 1468, 103 L.Ed.2d 774 (1989)). The Congress has lessened the Government’s burden, but the causal connection between specific documents and potential interference still must be established; the statute still does not permit "blanket assertions” such as the Government has made here.

. A word on the "Moody file." Our decision in Vaughn makes it clear that in camera review of documents is not favored, particularly where the Government chooses to proceed using categories of documents, rather than presenting all the documents it seeks to exempt to the reviewing court. See Vaughn, 936 F.2d at 868-69. The Government admits that the documents in this file were compiled to help Agent Moody prepare his affidavit, and does not suggest that the documents somehow represent others in the Hoffa file. Allowing us to peek at a few documents from the Hoffa file does nothing to prove that the rest of the file is exempt.