Court Opinion

ID: 9426148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:59.028825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:59.341289
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall joins, concurring in the judgment.
Exemption 3 of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U. S. C. § 552 (b) (3), provides for nondisclosure of “matters that are . . . specifically exempted from disclosure by statute.” Section 1104 of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, 72 Stat. 797, 49 U. S. C. § 1504, specifically provides that when “[a]ny person” objects to the public disclosure of certain information, “the Board or Administrator shall order such information withheld from public disclosure when, in their judgment, a disclosure of such information would adversely affect the interests of such person and is not required in the interest of the public.” The Court today rules that information may be withheld under § 1104 by reason of Exemption 3.
Legislation of unusually broad scope often reflects reconciliation of conflicting values and policies. On occasion, therefore, particular provisions of such legislation may seem at odds with its basic purpose. But when the statutory language is relatively clear and the legislative history casts no serious doubt, the only appropriate judicial course is to give effect to the evident legislative intent.
So it is here. The Freedom of Information Act was enacted in order to impose objective and easily applicable statutory disclosure standards in place of relatively amorphous standards such as the “public interest,” behind which the most self-serving motives for nondisclosure of information could be concealed. EPA v. Mink, 410 U. S. 73, 79 (1973); and see, e. g., S. Rep. No. 813, *26989th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1965). But it seems equally clear that Congress intended to leave largely undisturbed existing statutes dealing with the disclosure of information by specific agencies. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 10 (1966).
Simply stated, the respondents’ position is that to allow administrative discretion under a general “public interest” standard to determine whether information shall be disclosed to the public is inconsistent with the general thrust of the Freedom of Information Act. For this Court to accept that position, it must accept its inevitable corollary: that by enacting the Freedom of Information Act, Congress intended to repeal, by implication alone, those statutes that make disclosure a matter of agency discretion.1 It simply is impossible fairly to discern any such intention on the part of Congress. There is no evidence of such an intention in either the statutory language or the legislative history, and there are strong intimations to the contrary. See ante, at 263-265.
Our role is to interpret statutory language, not to revise it. As matters now stand, when an agency asserts a right to withhold information based on a specific *270statute of the kind described in Exemption 3, the only question “to be determined in a district court’s de novo inquiry is the factual existence of such a statute, regardless of how unwise, self-protective, or inadvertent the enactment might be.” 2 EPA v. Mink, supra, at 95 n. (Stewart, J., concurring).
On this basis, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

 A substantial number of statutes leave disclosure of various documents to the discretion of an administrative officer. Examples are 52 Stat. 1398, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1306 (a), which prohibits disclosure of “any . . . report . . . obtained at any time by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare ... except as the Secretary ... may by regulations prescribe”; 35 U. S. C. § 122, which provides that information in patent applications cannot be made public by the Patent Office “unless necessary to carry out the provisions of any Act of Congress or in such special circumstances as may be determined by the Commissioner”; and 38 U. S. C. §3301, which states that all files, records, and other papers pertaining to any claim under any law administered by the Veterans’ Administration are not to be disclosed, except that “[t]he Administrator may release information . . . when in his judgment such release would serve a useful purpose.”

 It should be noted, however, as the Solicitor General has pointed out, that under 49 U. S. C. § 1486, judicial review of an order of nondisclosure under 49 U. S. C. § 1104 is available in the courts of appeals.