Campbell, James v. DOJ , 164 F.3d 20 ( 1999 )


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  •                         United States Court of Appeals
    FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
    Argued October 19, 1998    Decided December 29, 1998
    No. 97-5269
    James Campbell,
    Appellant
    v.
    United States Department of Justice,
    Appellee
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the District of Columbia
    (No. 89cv03016)
    James H. Lesar argued the cause and filed the briefs for
    appellant.
    Fred E. Haynes, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause
    for appellee.  With him on the brief were Wilma A. Lewis,
    U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attor-
    ney.  Brian J. Sonfield, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an
    appearance.
    Before:  Williams, Ginsburg and Rogers, Circuit Judges.
    Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Rogers.
    Rogers, Circuit Judge:  James Campbell appeals from the
    grant of summary judgment to the Department of Justice in
    an action under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA")
    seeking Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") records
    about author and civil rights activist James Baldwin.  Camp-
    bell contends that the FBI has conducted an inadequate
    search for documents responsive to his FOIA request, that
    the declarations in support of the FBI's invocation of FOIA's
    national security and law enforcement exemptions are insuffi-
    ciently detailed to establish the absence of a genuine dispute
    of material fact, and that the district court erred in affirming
    the FBI's denial of Campbell's request for a complete waiver
    of fees.  We agree with these contentions, in part because
    this circuit's FOIA jurisprudence has advanced while the
    lawsuit has stood relatively still, and we therefore reverse and
    remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.
    I.
    This case arises from a scholar's efforts to unearth artifacts
    from an awkward period in the history of the FBI.  See, e.g.,
    Hobson v. Wilson, 
    737 F.2d 1
    , 9-13 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (describ-
    ing the FBI's COINTELPRO investigations).  In 1988, Ap-
    pellant James Campbell was writing a biography about James
    Baldwin, a noted author and leader in the civil rights move-
    ment.  To obtain information for use in his forthcoming book,
    Campbell submitted a FOIA request to the New York office
    of the FBI in which he sought "the FBI file" on Baldwin.
    The parties exchanged correspondence and the New York
    and national FBI offices identified and produced a limited
    number of responsive documents, often in redacted form.
    These documents, only some of which are in the appellate
    record, suggest that the FBI monitored Baldwin's civil rights
    activities and contacts with alleged communists during the
    1960s.  The parties eventually reached an impasse about the
    scope of the FBI's disclosure obligations.  After exhausting
    his administrative remedies, Campbell filed suit in November
    1989 for injunctive relief compelling the Justice Department
    to produce requested documents and waive copying fees.
    Over the course of the next year, the FBI released additional
    documents.  In 1991, Campbell published "Talking at the
    Gates:  A Life of James Baldwin."
    Between 1991 and 1996, Campbell's case languished in
    district court as various stays permitted the FBI to review
    documents and respond to new judicial interpretations of
    FOIA.  In September 1996, the district court partially grant-
    ed the Justice Department's motion for summary judgment.
    The court concluded that the FBI had conducted an adequate
    search, properly invoked exemptions to FOIA, and estab-
    lished an appropriate copying fee.  After conducting an in
    camera inspection of a file labeled "miscellaneous law en-
    forcement," the court also concluded that the Department had
    properly invoked FOIA's law enforcement exemption, and in
    August 1997 granted summary judgment to the Department
    on that file as well.  The court denied Campbell's cross
    motion for summary judgment, except with regard to a
    limited category of information related to certain investigative
    techniques that the court ordered be disclosed.  Campbell
    appeals the September 1996 and August 1997 summary judg-
    ment orders.
    II.
    A. Adequacy of the search.  Viewing the FOIA terrain
    with an eye toward providing guidance to agencies consistent
    with congressional intent, the court explained with respect to
    an adequacy-of-search claim in Oglesby v. United States Dep't
    of the Army, 
    920 F.2d 57
     (D.C. Cir. 1990), that "the agency
    must show that it made a good faith effort to conduct a search
    for the requested records, using methods which can be rea-
    sonably expected to produce the information requested."  
    Id. at 68
    .  "If, however, the record leaves substantial doubt as to
    the sufficiency of the search, summary judgment for the
    agency is not proper."  Truitt v. Department of State, 
    897 F.2d 540
    , 542 (D.C. Cir. 1990).  The court applies a "reason-
    ableness" test to determine the "adequacy" of a search meth-
    odology, Weisberg v. United States Dep't of Justice, 
    705 F.2d 1344
    , 1351 (D.C. Cir. 1983), consistent with congressional
    intent tilting the scale in favor of disclosure.  See, e.g., John
    Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 
    493 U.S. 146
    , 151-52 (1989).
    The record indicates that the FBI limited its search for
    information about James Baldwin to files that it could locate
    by searching its Central Records System (CRS) index, which
    is capable of locating most, but not all, documents responsive
    to a general request for information about a particular sub-
    ject.  The district court rejected Campbell's claim that the
    FBI had conducted an inadequate search because it failed to
    check a separate electronic surveillance (ELSUR) index and
    to search for "tickler"1 files even though documents that the
    FBI did produce alluded to potentially responsive ELSUR
    and tickler records.2  The FBI has not offered any evidence
    to rebut Campbell's claim that some of the Bureau's docu-
    ments suggest--through administrative annotations and ex-
    press references in the text3--that searching the ELSUR
    index, or searching for ticklers, would have identified addi-
    __________
    1  A "tickler" is a duplicate file containing copies of documents,
    usually kept by a supervisor.  Such files can be of interest to a
    FOIA requester because they could contain documents that failed to
    survive in other filing systems or that include unique annotations.
    2  Our review of the record indicates that Campbell properly
    raised this claim in the district court.  We therefore reject the
    Department's waiver defense.  See District of Columbia v. Air
    Florida, Inc., 
    750 F.2d 1077
    , 1084-85 (D.C. Cir. 1984).
    3  For example, document 147A on the Vaughn index bears a
    notation showing that it was routed to "Supervisor #42."  Campbell
    has submitted unrebutted evidence that such a notation indicates
    the existence of a tickler file.  Lesar Decl. p 3.  Of course, to the
    extent that the FBI can demonstrate that this reference suggests
    the existence of only a particular type of tickler file, or one located
    in a particular place, it need not search for all tickler files that
    might be located anywhere;  the scope of the FBI's search for
    ticklers need only be as broad as is reasonable in light of the
    evidence compelling such a search.
    tional information about James Baldwin.4  Instead, the FBI
    contends that ELSUR and tickler searches are unnecessary
    in the vast majority of cases, and that it therefore need not
    conduct such searches unless expressly asked to do so in a
    FOIA request.  Because Campbell's request asked only for
    "the FBI file" on Baldwin, the FBI maintains that it acted
    reasonably by searching only the CRS index.
    We will assume that the FBI's characterization of ELSUR
    and tickler searches is correct, and that such searches rarely
    uncover information beyond the scope of a CRS search.  It
    follows from this assumption that in most cases, the FBI need
    not conduct ELSUR and tickler searches when the FOIA
    requester does not expressly ask it to do so.  FOIA demands
    only a reasonable search tailored to the nature of a particular
    request.  When a request does not specify the locations in
    which an agency should search, the agency has discretion to
    confine its inquiry to a central filing system if additional
    searches are unlikely to produce any marginal return;  in
    other words, the agency generally need not "search every
    record system."  Oglesby, 
    920 F.2d at 68
    .
    However, an agency "cannot limit its search to only one
    record system if there are others that are likely to turn up
    the information requested."  
    Id.
    An agency has
    discretion to conduct a standard search in response to a
    __________
    4  The record suggests that the New York FBI office--as
    opposed to FBI Headquarters--did search its local ELSUR index.
    At oral argument, however, the Department was not able to confirm
    that such a search occurred.  This factual ambiguity is not material
    on appeal because even if the New York office had searched its
    ELSUR index, the national office would still have been obliged to
    search its own index if it had cause to believe that such a search
    would identify responsive information.
    general request, but it must revise its assessment of what is
    "reasonable" in a particular case to account for leads that
    emerge during its inquiry.  Consequently, the court evaluates
    the reasonableness of an agency's search based on what the
    agency knew at its conclusion rather than what the agency
    speculated at its inception.  Here, the FBI started with the
    reasonable assumption that only a CRS review would be
    necessary, but that assumption became untenable once the
    FBI discovered information suggesting the existence of docu-
    ments that it could not locate without expanding the scope of
    its search.  Cf. Kowalczyk v. Department of Justice, 
    73 F.3d 386
    , 389 (D.C. Cir. 1996).  In resisting this conclusion, the
    Department maintains that the "weight of authority" justifies
    refusing to supplement a CRS search with an ELSUR search
    unless specifically asked to do so within the FOIA request.
    In fact, such authority indicates that the FBI must search
    ELSUR in addition to CRS in response to a general FOIA
    request for which ELSUR may be relevant.  See Biberman v.
    FBI, 
    528 F.Supp. 1140
    , 1144-45 (S.D.N.Y. 1982);  Larouche v.
    Webster, 
    1984 WL 1061
    , *2 (S.D.N.Y. 1984);  cf. Schrecker v.
    United States Dep't of Justice, 
    14 F.Supp. 2d 111
    , 119 (D.D.C.
    1998).  Moreover, the FBI appears in many cases to have
    searched ELSUR without being asked to do so.  See Hart v.
    FBI, 
    1996 WL 403016
     at *2 (7th Cir. 1996);  Marks v. United
    States, 
    578 F.2d 261
    , 263 (9th Cir. 1978);  Canning v. United
    States Dep't of Justice, 
    848 F. Supp. 1037
    , 1050 (D.D.C.
    1994).5
    __________
    5  Other cases on which the Department relies do not support its
    argument.  In Frydman v. Department of Justice, 
    852 F. Supp. 1497
     (D. Kan. 1994), aff'd mem., 
    57 F.3d 1080
     (10th Cir. 1995), the
    district court criticized the FBI's failure to search ELSUR until
    specifically requested to do so, but held that the lapse was not "bad
    faith" within the context of the plaintiff's claim for attorney's fees.
    
    852 F. Supp. at 1505-06
    .  This holding is hardly an endorsement of
    the Department's position.  In Ferguson v. Kelly, 
    455 F. Supp. 324
    (N.D. Ill. 1978), the court denied plaintiff's motion for reconsidera-
    tion of summary judgment in light of plaintiff's recent discovery of
    the existence of ELSUR.  The odd procedural posture of Ferguson,
    coupled with its thin reasoning, render it an unpersuasive prece-
    The Department also asserts that the existence of ticklers
    in its archives is "speculative" because ticklers are not gener-
    ally preserved for posterity and also might not contain infor-
    mation distinct from what the FBI already found within the
    CRS.  It is true that Campbell has claimed only that a tickler
    existed at one time, not that it exists today or that it contains
    unique information.  Yet in any FOIA request, the existence
    of responsive documents is somewhat "speculative" until the
    agency has finished looking for them.  As the relevance of
    some records may be more speculative than others, the
    proper inquiry is whether the requesting party has estab-
    lished a sufficient predicate to justify searching for a particu-
    lar type of record.  Cf. Meeropol v. Meese, 
    790 F.2d 942
    , 953
    (D.C. Cir. 1986).  Here, the FBI does not deny that such a
    predicate exists, rendering its "speculation" claim irrelevant.
    Cf. Oglesby v. United States Dep't of the Army, 
    79 F.3d 1172
    ,
    1185 (D.C. Cir. 1996);  Schrecker, 
    14 F. Supp. 2d at 119
    .
    For these reasons we conclude that the district court erred
    in finding that an adequate search had been made, and
    remand the case so that the FBI can be afforded an opportu-
    nity to search for tickler and ELSUR records responsive to
    Campbell's FOIA request, and to proceed as the results of
    such searches require.6
    __________
    dent.  Finally, the Department cites three cases for the general
    proposition that a CRS search is a sufficient response to a general
    FOIA request that does not identify specific locations to search.
    See Master v. FBI, 
    926 F. Supp. 193
    , 196 (D.D.C. 1996), aff'd mem.,
    
    124 F.3d 1309
     (D.C. Cir. 1997);  Lawyers Comm. for Human Rights
    v. INS, 
    721 F.Supp. 552
    , 566-67 & n.12 (S.D.N.Y. 1989);  Friedman
    v. FBI, 
    605 F. Supp. 306
    , 311 (N.D. Ga. 1981).  None of these
    opinions indicates that the plaintiff had objected to the lack of an
    ELSUR search or that such a search might have been productive;
    indeed, none even mentions ELSUR.
    6  Campbell also challenges the adequacy of the FBI's search
    because it failed to locate two documents that the FBI provided to
    other FOIA requesters and one document that the FBI apparently
    lost.  While any omission in a FOIA search is potentially troubling,
    the inadvertent omission of three documents does not render a
    search inadequate when the search produced hundreds of pages
    B. Exemption 1 (National Security).  FOIA authorizes
    an agency to withhold requested material if it is "properly
    classified" in the "interest of national defense or foreign
    policy" pursuant to an applicable executive order.  5 U.S.C.
    s 552(b)(1).  In the instant case, the FBI invoked the nation-
    al security exemption to redact documents and withhold at
    least two entire documents.  The sole justification in the
    record for the FBI's classification decision is a nine-year old
    declaration from Special Agent Earl E. Pitts generally attest-
    ing to the sensitivity of the withheld information and the
    general importance of safeguarding national security.  On
    appeal, Campbell contends both that the district court failed
    to require the FBI to reevaluate its classifications under a
    new executive order and that the Pitts declaration is "too
    conclusory to support summary judgment."  We find no error
    with regard to the executive order applied but agree that the
    district court erred in concluding that the Pitts declaration
    was sufficiently detailed to support withholding disclosure of
    certain materials.
    On the threshold issue of which executive order governs
    the FBI's national security determinations, the Department
    favors application of E.O. 12356 ("the Reagan Order"), which
    was in effect at the time that the FBI made the classification
    decisions at issue in this case, while Campbell proposes E.O.
    12958 ("the Clinton Order"), which took effect during the
    pendency of the district court proceedings.  A district court
    may, upon request by an agency, permit the agency to apply
    a superceding executive order during the pendency of FOIA
    litigation.  See Baez v. United States Dep't of Justice, 
    647 F.2d 1328
    , 1334 (D.C. Cir. 1980).  However, absent a request
    by the agency to reevaluate an exemption 1 determination
    based on a new executive order, the district court may not
    require the agency to apply the new order;  instead, the court
    must evaluate the agency's decision under the executive order
    in force at the time the classification was made.  See King v.
    United States Dep't of Justice, 
    830 F.2d 210
    , 216-17 (D.C.
    Cir. 1987);  Lesar v. United States Dep't of Justice, 636 F.2d
    __________
    that had been buried in archives for decades.  See Meeropol, 
    790 F.2d at 952-53
    .
    472, 480 (D.C. Cir. 1980).  This rule prevents undue delay and
    burden in the resolution of FOIA claims by introducing an
    element of finality into agency decisionmaking.  See Lesar,
    636 F.2d at 480.  It follows that the district court properly
    applied the Reagan Order because the FBI did not seek leave
    to reconsider its position in light of the Clinton Order.
    However, Lesar did not purport to create a general rule
    about the non-applicability of superceding executive orders in
    ongoing FOIA cases.  Rather, the opinion relied in part on an
    interpretation of the superceding executive order, which the
    court found to be expressly prospective because it preserved
    all classification decisions made under prior orders.  See id.
    The mere fact that the Clinton Order came into force after
    the classification decisions in the instant case therefore does
    not in and of itself preclude application of the Order under
    Lesar.  Instead, the question is whether the Clinton Order
    calls prior classification decisions under the Reagan Order
    into question.7  We conclude that the Clinton Order does not
    permit FOIA litigants to reopen classification decisions final-
    ized before the Order's effective date.  As with the order
    reviewed in Lesar, the Clinton Order defines classified infor-
    mation to include information classified under prior orders.
    See E.O. 12958 s 1.1(c).  Moreover, the Clinton Order does
    not contain any provision that requires an agency to reconsid-
    er classification decisions in pending FOIA litigation.
    Campbell nevertheless contends that the Clinton Order is
    "remedial" and therefore requires a remand.  Executive or-
    ders that replace a prior order are likely to be remedial in
    that they correct some perceived deficiency in the prior
    regime.  Thus, the relevant question is not whether the new
    order materially differs from the old, but rather whether the
    new order confines its disagreement with the past to reme-
    __________
    7  This reasoning is consistent with King, which has language in
    it that appears to characterize Lesar as creating a per se rule
    applicable to all future transitions between executive orders.  See
    
    830 F.2d at 217
    .  A careful reading of King reveals, however, that
    the court expressly recognized that Lesar relied on a "carry-over
    provision" in the superceding executive order that preserved classi-
    fication decisions made under the prior order.  
    Id. at 216
    .
    dies that operate in the future, or instead creates a retrospec-
    tive remedy that allows a FOIA litigant to reopen an other-
    wise final review.  While, as Campbell observes, the Clinton
    Order substantially alters the process for declassifying rela-
    tively old documents, see, e.g., E.O. 12958 ss 3.3(e) & 3.6,
    nothing in the Order requires the district court to apply the
    new standards in a pending FOIA action.
    Turning to the merits of Campbell's challenge to the FBI's
    decisions under exemption 1, we note that the Department's
    sole explanation and defense of the FBI's exemption 1 classi-
    fications is the Pitts declaration and accompanying appendi-
    ces.8  An agency bears the burden to justify exemptions
    under FOIA.  See PHE, Inc. v. Department of Justice, 
    983 F.2d 248
    , 250 (D.C. Cir. 1993).  One way to discharge this
    burden is to submit a declaration from an appropriately
    qualified official attesting to the basis for the agency's deci-
    sion.  In the context of national security exemptions, such
    declarations merit "substantial weight."  King, 
    830 F.2d at 217
    ;  Military Audit Project v. Casey, 
    656 F.2d 724
    , 737 (D.C.
    Cir. 1981).  However, deference is not equivalent to acquies-
    cence;  the declaration may justify summary judgment only if
    it is sufficient "to afford the FOIA requester a meaningful
    opportunity to contest, and the district court an adequate
    foundation to review, the soundness of the withholding."
    King, 
    830 F.2d at 218
    .  Among the reasons that a declaration
    might be insufficient are lack of detail and specificity, bad
    faith, and failure to account for contrary record evidence.
    See 
    id.
      Here, only detail and specificity are at issue.
    To justify summary judgment, a declaration must provide
    detailed and specific information demonstrating "that materi-
    __________
    8  The appendices consist of redacted documents marked with a
    coded annotation and a catalog explaining the meaning of each code.
    Campbell suggests that this system of marking documents is inher-
    ently flawed.  However, the court has previously stated that this
    methodology for explaining classification decisions can be sufficient
    provided that it complies with the substantive requirements noted
    above, which are applicable to any methodology for processing
    FOIA exemptions.  See Keys v. United States Dep't of Justice, 
    830 F.2d 337
    , 349-50 (D.C. Cir. 1987).
    al withheld is logically within the domain of the exemption
    claimed."  King, 
    830 F.2d at 217
    .  "[A]n affidavit that con-
    tains merely a 'categorical description of redacted material
    coupled with categorical indication of anticipated conse-
    quences of disclosure is clearly inadequate.' "  PHE, 
    983 F.2d at 250
     (quoting King, 
    830 F.2d at 224
    ).  Or as the court
    stated in Hayden v. National Sec. Agency, 
    608 F.2d 1381
    ,
    1387 (D.C. Cir. 1979), "the affidavits must show, with reason-
    able specificity, why the documents fall within the exemption.
    The affidavits will not suffice if the agency's claims are
    conclusory, merely reciting statutory standards, or if they are
    too vague or sweeping."  
    Id.
     (footnote omitted).  These re-
    quirements are consistent with the agency's general obli-
    gation to create "as full a public record as possible, concern-
    ing the nature of the documents and the justification for
    nondisclosure."  
    Id. at 1384
    .
    The Pitts declaration cannot satisfy the foregoing stan-
    dards.  Notably, the Pitts declaration does not contain any
    specific reference to Baldwin or any other language suggest-
    ing that the FBI tailored its response to a specific set of
    documents.  Cf. Wiener v. FBI, 
    943 F.2d 972
    , 979 (9th Cir.
    1991).  More importantly, the declaration fails to draw any
    connection between the documents at issue and the general
    standards that govern the national security exemption.  For
    example, the declaration states that "[a]ll of the intelligence
    activities or methods detailed in the withheld information are
    currently utilized by the FBI" and that disclosure of intelli-
    gence methods is undesirable.  However, the declaration
    makes no effort to assess how detailed a description of these
    Hoover-era methods the documents provide, and whether
    disclosure would be damaging in light of the degree of detail.
    Similar failures to connect general statements about the
    content of the withheld documents with general standards for
    classifying information appear elsewhere in the declaration.
    The Department's explanation for the declaration's lack of
    detail is that providing more detail would "risk[ ] the disclo-
    sure of the very information that the FBI was attempting to
    protect."  The court has acknowledged that requiring too
    much detail in a declaration could defeat the point of the
    exemption, but concluded nonetheless that in most cases the
    agency should not have difficulty describing the context and
    nature of the withheld information without revealing its sub-
    stance.  See Hayden, 608 F.2d at 1385.  Only in special
    circumstances, such as those surrounding the intelligence
    mission of the National Security Agency, can even minimal
    detail itself constitute sensitive information.  See id.9  Here
    the information appears to describe no more than routine
    FBI surveillance and monitoring techniques.  Such activity
    no doubt generates material that may properly be classified
    and withheld under FOIA, but it is implausible to baldly
    assert that such material is so sensitive that the FBI is
    incapable of providing any descriptive information.  Likewise,
    summary judgment was inappropriate with respect to two
    documents, comprising six pages, that the FBI withheld
    without providing any details (including date) in the Pitts
    declaration10 or elsewhere because a conclusory assertion that
    material is exempt and nonsegrable is insufficient to support
    nondisclosure.  See, e.g., Kimberlin v. Department of Justice,
    
    139 F.3d 944
    , 950 (D.C. Cir. 1998).
    On remand, the district court can either review the docu-
    ments in camera or require the FBI to provide a new
    declaration.  See PHE, 
    983 F.2d at 253
    .  The latter course is
    favored where agency affidavits are facially inadequate; oth-
    erwise the district court is effectively left to speculate about
    why an agency may be able to classify a document and cannot
    __________
    9  In such circumstances, "the solution is for the court to review
    the document in camera" rather than passively accept an agency's
    unsubstantiated exemption 1 defense.  Simon v. Department of
    Justice, 
    980 F.2d 782
    , 784 (D.C. Cir. 1992).
    10  The Department's brief cites paragraphs 22 and 23 of the
    Pitts declaration to support withholding these two documents, but
    the cited paragraphs are boilerplate that make no reference to the
    disputed material.  Indeed, paragraphs 22 and 23 apply solely to
    material that was redacted rather than entirely withheld because
    they invite the reader to review unredacted portions of documents
    to discern the "context" for the deletions.  Such review is of course
    impossible here.
    review a concrete classification decision.11  See 
    id.
      A new
    declaration need not exhaustively explain each redaction and
    withholding, but it must provide sufficient information to
    permit Campbell and the district court to understand the
    foundation for and necessity of the FBI's classification deci-
    sions.  See King, 
    830 F.2d at 218
    .
    C. Exemption 7 (Law Enforcement).  FOIA exempts
    from disclosure six categories of documents that have been
    "compiled for law enforcement purposes."  5 U.S.C.
    s 552(b)(7)(A)-(F).  The FBI withheld information based on
    various sub-categories of this law enforcement exemption.
    The district court concluded that the withheld information
    was compiled for a law enforcement purpose and fit within
    one of the subcategories within exemption 7.  With respect to
    all but one set of documents, the district court relied on the
    FBI's declarations.  However, the district court did not find
    the declarations adequate to justify withholding a file labeled
    "miscellaneous law enforcement" and instead conducted an in
    camera review, thereafter concluding that most of the file had
    been properly withheld, but ordering a small supplemental
    disclosure to Campbell.12
    On appeal, Campbell contends first, that the FBI's declara-
    tions were insufficient to establish a rational nexus between
    __________
    11  In preparing a new declaration on remand, the FBI's new
    declarant (assuming that Mr. Pitts is no longer available) presum-
    ably must re-review the redactions and withholdings.  The Clinton
    Order will govern this review.  See King, 
    830 F.2d at 216
    ;  Afshar v.
    Department of State, 
    702 F.2d 1125
    , 1137 (D.C. Cir. 1983).  This
    rule is consistent with our reasoning in Lesar:  when an agency has
    completed a FOIA review, principles of finality weigh against
    ordering a new review under a new order, but when a court orders
    a new review on other grounds, respect for the President's authori-
    ty to define national security priorities requires that the new review
    proceed under current law rather than the superceded law of a
    prior administration.  See King, 
    830 F.2d at 217
    .
    12  Although Campbell has also appealed from the district
    court's August 1997 order, his brief does not address the materials
    the withheld material and a legitimate law enforcement pur-
    pose, and second, that information was improperly withheld
    under exemptions 7(C) (invasion of personal privacy) and 7(D)
    (disclosure of confidential sources).  We agree with Camp-
    bell's first contention and therefore remand to the district
    court for further development of the record.  With that
    remand in mind, and in the hope of bringing resolution to this
    1988 FOIA request, we comment briefly on Campbell's 7(C)
    and 7(D) contentions.
    Because the FBI specializes in law enforcement, its deci-
    sion to invoke exemption 7 is entitled to deference.  See Pratt
    v. Webster, 
    673 F.2d 408
    , 419 (D.C. Cir. 1982).  This court's
    "deferential" standard of review is not, however, "vacuous."
    Id. at 421.  If the FBI relies on declarations to identify a law
    enforcement purpose underlying withheld documents, such
    declarations must establish a rational "nexus between the
    investigation and one of the agency's law enforcement duties,"
    id. at 421, and a connection between an "individual or incident
    and a possible security risk or violation of federal law."  Id.
    at 420.  If the declarations "fail to supply facts" in sufficient
    detail to apply the Pratt rational nexus test, then a court may
    not grant summary judgment for the agency.  Quinon v.
    FBI, 
    86 F.3d 1222
    , 1229 (D.C. Cir. 1996);  see also Davin v.
    United States Dep't of Justice, 
    60 F.3d 1043
    , 1056 (3d Cir.
    1995).
    The Department has identified only two facts to establish
    that documents relating to James Baldwin were compiled for
    a law enforcement purpose.  First, the FBI relies on a
    declaration from Special Agent Regina Superneau in which
    she lists the names of the files containing withheld informa-
    tion.  The relevant labels are:  "Interstate Transportation of
    Obscene Material," "Security Matter--Communism," and "In-
    ternal Security."13  The fact that information is stored inside
    __________
    that the district court reviewed in camera.  We therefore affirm the
    district court's order with respect to those exemption 7 materials.
    13  The Department's brief does not reference a file labeled
    "Racial Matter" despite the fact that the declaration indicates that
    a folder with an official-sounding label is insufficient standing
    alone to uphold nondisclosure.  See, e.g., Simon, 
    980 F.2d at 784
    ;  Keys, 
    830 F.2d at 341
    .  Indeed, the Department's posi-
    tion reduces to the long-rejected claim that anything in an
    FBI file pertains to an exempt law enforcement purpose.  See
    Pratt, 673 F.2d at 415.  At a minimum, the FBI must
    demonstrate the relationship between a record and its label
    and between the label and a law enforcement purpose.
    Second, the Department relies on a statement in the decla-
    ration of Special Agent Debra Mack that "[t]he FBI investi-
    gation of James Baldwin was predicated upon the fact that
    established security sources of the FBI had indicated that
    James Baldwin was associating with persons and organiza-
    tions which were believed to be a threat to the security of the
    United States."  If this statement were offered to justify
    exemption of a particular document, it might suffice provided
    it contained sufficient detail about the scope of the association
    and the nature of the threat.  The problem, however, is that
    the Department relies on this statement to justify every
    withholding from each of at least three files collected over
    many years on different topics in different contexts.  The
    FBI appears to maintain that once it can justify its investiga-
    tion of a person, all documents related to that person are
    exempt from FOIA, even if the documents were collected for
    a different reason.  This position is untenable.  Rather, to
    justify summary judgment under exemption 7, the FBI must
    explain why each withheld document or set of closely similar
    documents relate to a particular law enforcement purpose.
    The Mack declaration does not attempt this inquiry.  Thus,
    although the FBI may possess some documents related to a
    valid law enforcement investigation of James Baldwin, we
    cannot conclude that each withheld document about James
    Baldwin related to such an investigation.  Absent a sufficient
    threshold showing that the withheld information was "com-
    __________
    this was a law enforcement file.  On remand, the district court
    should determine whether information was withheld from this file
    and whether it is related to a legitimate law enforcement purpose.
    piled for law enforcement purposes," we reverse;  on remand
    the FBI may again attempt to meet its statutory burden.
    See Summers v. Department of Justice, 
    140 F.3d 1077
    , 1083
    (D.C. Cir. 1998).
    Exemption 7(C) bars disclosures that "could reasonably be
    expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal
    privacy."  5 U.S.C. s 552(b)(7)(C).  An agency may not with-
    hold records under exemption 7(C) solely because disclosure
    would infringe legitimate privacy interests, but must balance
    privacy interests against the public's interest in learning
    about the operations of its government.  See United States
    Dep't of Defense v. Federal Labor Relations Auth., 
    510 U.S. 487
    , 495 (1994);  United States Dep't of Justice v. Reporters
    Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 
    489 U.S. 749
    , 762 (1989).
    The record suggests that the FBI made an abstract attempt
    to identify possible public interests in disclosure and accorded
    these interests surprisingly little weight.  This attitude is
    troubling given the presumption of openness inherent in
    FOIA, see Department of Air Force v. Rose, 
    425 U.S. 352
    , 361
    (1976), and the obvious historical value of documents describ-
    ing the FBI's role in the cold war and in the civil rights
    movement.  Undoubtedly there are important privacy rights
    of individuals caught in the web of a wide-ranging criminal
    investigation that warrant protection, but the balancing pro-
    cess in the instant case appears to have been somewhat of an
    empty formality.  On remand, the FBI will have the opportu-
    nity to provide additional explanation about the relative
    weight of the competing public and private interests at stake,
    and the district court will have an opportunity to provide an
    analysis that will "fully articulate the balance it reaches" and
    resolve "fact-intensive" issues to permit "efficient and mean-
    ingful" appellate review.  Summers, 140 F.3d at 1083.
    Insofar as Campbell contends that the FBI has wrongfully
    invoked exemption 7(C) to protect the privacy of people who
    are dead, two questions are presented:  how does death affect
    the exemption 7(C) balancing calculus, and what must the
    FBI do to ascertain whether the persons whose privacy it
    seeks to protect have died.  First, death clearly matters, as
    the deceased by definition cannot personally suffer the
    privacy-related injuries that may plague the living.  A court
    balancing public interests in disclosure against privacy inter-
    ests must therefore make a reasonable effort to account for
    the death of a person on whose behalf the FBI invokes
    exemption 7(C). See Summers, 140 F.3d at 1084-85 (Silber-
    man, J., concurring);  id. at 1085 (Williams, J., concurring);
    Kiraly v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
    728 F.2d 273
    , 277-
    78 (6th Cir. 1984).14  The court must also account for the fact
    that certain reputational interests and family-related privacy
    expectations survive death.  As was recently pointed out by
    the Supreme Court in Swidler & Berlin v. United States, 
    118 S. Ct. 2081
    , 2086 (1998), the attorney-client privilege survives
    the death of the client, who "may be concerned about reputa-
    tion, civil liability, or possible harm to friends or family."
    This instruction by the Court would appear to undercut the
    conclusion of the Third Circuit in Davin, 
    60 F.3d at 1058
    , and
    McDonnell v. United States, 
    4 F.3d 1227
    , 1257 (3d Cir. 1993),
    that under FOIA deceased persons "have no privacy interest
    in nondisclosure of their identities."  The scope and weight of
    these interests need not be resolved on the present record,
    however, although we note analysis of privacy under FOIA
    often differs from similar analysis in other areas of the law.
    See Reporters Committee, 
    489 U.S. at
    762 n.13.
    Second, the present record is insufficient to permit mean-
    ingful discussion of the extent, if any, to which the FBI must
    investigate to determine whether putative beneficiaries of
    7(C) are alive or dead.  See Summers, 140 F.3d at 1085
    (Williams, J., concurring).  On remand, the parties may docu-
    ment their respective positions, and the district court should
    order the FBI to take such action as is necessary to ensure
    proper implementation of exemption 7(C).  To the extent
    Campbell has also challenged specific redactions of names or
    categories of names, the district court, which will have the
    benefit of the FBI's supplemental declarations, can initially
    resolve these challenges more effectively.
    __________
    14  Death of a confidential source, in contrast, is not relevant
    under exemption 7(D).  See Schmerler v. FBI, 
    900 F.2d 333
    , 335-36
    (D.C. Cir. 1990).
    Exemption 7(D) covers "records or information compiled by
    criminal law enforcement authorities in the course of criminal
    investigations if their release could reasonably be expected to
    disclose the identity of, as well as information provided by, a
    confidential source."  Computer Prof'ls for Social Responsi-
    bility v. United States Secret Serv., 
    72 F.3d 897
    , 905 (D.C.
    Cir. 1996).  The mere fact that a person or institution pro-
    vides information to a law enforcement agency does not
    render that person a "confidential source" within the meaning
    of exemption 7(D).  See United States Dep't of Justice v.
    Landano, 
    508 U.S. 165
    , 178 (1993).  Rather, exemption 7(D)
    applies only when "the particular source spoke with an under-
    standing that the communication would remain confidential."
    
    Id. at 172
    .  Such understandings are reasonable when the law
    enforcement agency receiving information provides either an
    express or implied assurance of confidentiality.  See 
    id.
    The district court concluded that the FBI appropriately
    withheld information received from sources to whom the FBI
    had provided either express or implied assurances of confi-
    dentiality.  The district court's reasoning with respect to the
    implied assurances is correct,15 but the FBI's declarations
    with respect to express assurances are insufficient to warrant
    summary judgment.
    To withhold information under Exemption 7(D) by express
    assurances of confidentiality, the FBI must present "proba-
    tive evidence that the source did in fact receive an express
    grant of confidentiality."  Davin, 
    60 F.3d at 1061
    .  Such
    evidence can take a wide variety of forms, including notations
    on the face of a withheld document, the personal knowledge
    __________
    15  The district court concluded that local, state, and foreign law
    enforcement agencies, as well as a former member of an allegedly
    subversive organization, had cooperated with the FBI's anti-
    communist activities based upon an implied assurance of confiden-
    tiality.  This conclusion is consistent with the record and with the
    Supreme Court's analysis in Landano.  See Landano, 
    508 U.S. at 175-76
    ;  Ferguson v. FBI, 
    83 F.3d 41
    , 43 (2d Cir.1996);  Declaration
    of Debra Mack at pp  19-34.
    of an official familiar with the source, a statement by the
    source, or contemporaneous documents discussing practices
    or policies for dealing with the source or similarly situated
    sources.  See, e.g., id.;  Computer Prof'ls, 
    72 F.3d at 906
    .  No
    matter which method the agency adopts to meet its burden of
    proof, its declarations must permit meaningful judicial review
    by providing a sufficiently detailed explanation of the basis
    for the agency's conclusion.  For, as the Supreme Court has
    observed in regard to mere assertions that there is a confi-
    dential source:  "Once the FBI asserts that information was
    provided by a confidential source ... the requester--who has
    no knowledge about the particular source or the information
    being withheld--very rarely will be in a position to offer
    persuasive evidence that the source in fact had no interest in
    confidentiality."  Landano, 
    508 U.S. at 177
    .
    The FBI declaration simply asserts that various sources
    received express assurances of confidentiality without provid-
    ing any basis for the declarant's knowledge of this alleged
    fact.  Given that the declarant presumably lacks personal
    knowledge of the particular events that occurred more than
    30 years ago, more information is needed before the court can
    conclude that exemption 7(D) applies.  We also note that
    while the FBI's declaration maintains that many documents
    reveal express guarantees of confidentiality on their face,
    some of these guarantees have been redacted or the entire
    document withheld, rendering judicial review impossible.  On
    remand, the FBI can produce such additional information as
    is necessary to document its exemption 7(D) defenses.
    III.
    Finally, Campbell challenges the fee assessment for copy-
    ing certain FBI files.  FOIA permits an agency to charge a
    reasonable fee for searching, copying, and reviewing files.
    See 5 U.S.C. s 552(a)(4)(A)(ii).  The agency must waive or
    reduce this fee when disclosure of requested information is
    "in the public interest because it is likely to contribute
    significantly to public understanding of the operations or
    activities of the government and is not primarily in the
    commercial interest of the requester."  5 U.S.C.
    s 552(a)(4)(A)(iii).  The FBI has promulgated regulations to
    structure its discretion under this fee waiver provision.  See
    28 C.F.R. s 16.11(d).  Judicial review in "any action by a
    requester regarding the waiver of fees" is de novo, but is
    limited to the record before the agency.  5 U.S.C.
    s 552(a)(4)(A)(vii).
    The FBI did not charge Campbell any fees for search and
    review related to his FOIA request, but it did charge for
    approximately $165 in copying expenses.  Campbell did not
    pay the full amount because the FBI granted him a 60% fee
    waiver.  According to the FBI, the remaining 40% of the fees
    were not waivable because 40% of the released documents
    would not further public understanding about the operations
    of government.  Such documents were either redundant with
    material already in the public domain, repetitious with other
    material being produced, or contained administrative informa-
    tion of no importance to the public.  If a page contained any
    substantive information, even if embedded within mostly non-
    substantive material, the FBI granted a waiver.
    The district court accepted the FBI's reasoning and af-
    firmed the 60% waiver, noting that:
    Neither party disputes that FBI and CIA files of civil
    rights activist James Baldwin concern the 'operations or
    activities of the government.'  Nor is it disputed that
    plaintiff stands to gain commercially from responsive
    documents.  Indeed, plaintiff has already authored a
    biography about James Baldwin using materials respon-
    sive to his FOIA request.  The court concurs with the
    FBI's assertion that 40% of the releasable material was
    not new material.  As such, the court is persuaded that
    the material would therefore be less likely to contribute
    significantly to public understanding.  Accordingly, the
    court upholds the FBI decision to grant a 60 percent
    partial fee waiver and charge duplication fees for the
    remaining 40 percent.
    Memorandum Opinion at 18-19.  Campbell challenges this
    reasoning and contends that he is entitled to a 100% fee
    waiver.  We agree that the district court must reconsider its
    analysis, but we decline to hold that the FBI cannot charge
    Campbell any copying fees.
    The district court prominently noted its view that the
    parties agreed "that plaintiff stands to gain commercially
    from responsive documents."  Yet this statement is contra-
    dicted by the record, as the FBI did not take commercial
    profit into account when calculating a fee waiver because it
    concluded that Campbell "has no overriding commercial inter-
    est in this case."  The FBI's reasoning is consistent with the
    underlying purpose of the fee waiver provisions, which afford
    "special solicitude" to scholars whose archival research ad-
    vances public understanding of government operations.  Na-
    tional Treasury Employees Union v. Griffin, 
    811 F.2d 644
    ,
    649 (D.C. Cir. 1987).  The fact that a bona fide scholar profits
    from his scholarly endeavors is insufficient to render his
    actions "primarily ... commercial" for purposes of calculating
    a fee waiver, as Congress did not intend for scholars (or
    journalists and public interest groups) to forego compensation
    when acting within the scope of their professional roles.  The
    quasi-commercial nature of Campbell's research was there-
    fore irrelevant for purposes of calculating an appropriate fee
    waiver.
    The district court also agreed with the FBI "that 40% of
    the releasable material was not new material....  [and]
    would therefore be less likely to contribute significantly to
    public understanding."  Our review of the FBI's fee waiver
    decision indicates that the FBI reached this conclusion based
    on several flawed assumptions.  For example, the FBI con-
    cluded that previously unreleased summaries by its staff of
    newspaper articles constitute public domain material, because
    the underlying articles are public, that would not further
    public understanding.  Yet the fact that FBI work-product
    incorporates publicly available information does not detract
    from its value independent of the source material.  Indeed,
    insight into how the FBI reacts to the media is the kind of
    public understanding of government operations that FOIA
    was designed to foster.
    The district court also accepted the FBI's contention that
    portions of the requested materials were already in the public
    domain.  Yet the FBI has never explained where in the
    "public domain" these materials reside.  Such an explanation
    is necessary because the mere fact that material is in the
    public domain does not justify denying a fee waiver;  only
    material that has met a threshold level of public dissemina-
    tion will not further "public understanding" within the mean-
    ing of the fee waiver provisions.  See, e.g., Carney v. United
    States Dep't of Justice, 
    19 F.3d 807
    , 815-16 (2d Cir. 1994);
    Schrecker v. Department of Justice, 
    970 F. Supp. 49
    , 50-51
    (D.D.C. 1997);  Fitzgibbon v. Agency for Int'l Dev., 
    724 F. Supp. 1048
    , 1051 (D.D.C. 1989).  Likewise, the FBI has
    not indicated how closely related the requested material was
    to material already in the public domain, an omission that
    precludes deference to its ultimate conclusions.
    Furthermore, the presence of administrative material with-
    in files that also contain substantive documents does not
    justify charging fees for copying the non-substantive clutter.
    The fee waiver provisions implicitly assume that valuable
    government information tends not to be freestanding;  few
    files contain neatly segregated "substantive" documents shorn
    from their administrative accompaniments.  Congress pre-
    sumably did not intend agencies to pick through responsive
    records to determine the percentage of the record that con-
    tains interesting morsels and to deem the remainder of the
    record irrelevant to public understanding.  The more plausi-
    ble reading of the statute is that once a given record is
    deemed to contain information warranting a waiver, all of the
    related pages within that record that are responsive to the
    FOIA request fall under the waiver even if each individual
    page would not independently qualify.16  It would then fall to
    __________
    16  A different standard might apply to records or files that are
    uncommonly large or that contain only a few substantive documents
    relative to the volume of administrative information.
    the requester--here a scholar--rather than the FBI, to parse
    the wheat from the chaff.  Cf. Project on Military Procure-
    ment v. Department of the Navy, 
    710 F. Supp. 362
    , 366
    (D.D.C. 1989).
    In addition, the FBI impermissibly denied a waiver for
    copying repetitious, but non-duplicative, material.  A scholar
    has a strong interest in reviewing each repetition of a given
    topic within a file or set of files to explore nuances and assess
    the manner in which the government handled the information.
    Deeming repetitious documents within a single request to be
    of no value to "public understanding" is therefore inconsistent
    with the purposes of FOIA.17  Of course, repetition at some
    point shades into duplication, but the record on appeal does
    not explain how the FBI distinguished between permissible
    and impermissible repetition;  we learn only that the Bureau
    denied a waiver for documents with "substantially the same
    information" as other documents.
    Accordingly, we reverse the grant of summary judgment
    and remand the case to the district court so that the FBI can
    conduct an adequate search for ELSUR and tickler records,
    justify its defenses under exemptions 1, 7(C), and 7(D) in
    sufficient detail to permit meaningful judicial review, and
    recalculate its fee waiver ratio to comply with the statutory
    standards.18
    __________
    17  The FBI also denied a waiver for copying duplicate docu-
    ments.  This decision appears legitimate, although in certain cir-
    cumstances the fact that a given document was found in a given file
    could further public understanding even if the contents of the
    document are already known.
    18  In light of this disposition, the district court's discussion of
    attorney's fees is premature;  Campbell remains free to request
    such fees at a later stage in the litigation.
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 97-5269

Citation Numbers: 164 F.3d 20

Filed Date: 3/5/1999

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 2/19/2016

Authorities (42)

Herman Benjamin Ferguson v. Federal Bureau of Investigation , 83 F.3d 41 ( 1996 )

David Carney v. United States Department of Justice , 19 F.3d 807 ( 1994 )

william-kiraly-v-federal-bureau-of-investigation-william-h-webster , 728 F.2d 273 ( 1984 )

jonathan-m-wiener-v-federal-bureau-of-investigation-federal-bureau-of , 943 F.2d 972 ( 1991 )

Eric Davin v. United States Department of Justice, Federal ... , 60 F.3d 1043 ( 1995 )

robert-j-mcdonnell-frederick-n-rasmussen-at-nos-91-5951-5993-v , 4 F.3d 1227 ( 1993 )

Arthur B. Keys, Jr. v. United States Department of Justice , 830 F.2d 337 ( 1987 )

District of Columbia, a Municipal Corporation v. Air ... , 750 F.2d 1077 ( 1984 )

Kimberlin v. Department of Justice , 139 F.3d 944 ( 1998 )

Military Audit Project, Felice D. Cohen, Morton H. Halperin ... , 656 F.2d 724 ( 1981 )

Michael Meeropol, A/K/A Rosenberg v. Edwin Meese Iii, ... , 790 F.2d 942 ( 1986 )

Marc Truitt v. Department of State , 897 F.2d 540 ( 1990 )

Alan R. Marks v. United States of America (Department of ... , 578 F.2d 261 ( 1978 )

Nassar Afshar v. Department of State , 702 F.2d 1125 ( 1983 )

Jose M. Quinon and G. Richard Strafer v. Federal Bureau of ... , 86 F.3d 1222 ( 1996 )

Joan C. Baez v. United States Department of Justice , 647 F.2d 1328 ( 1980 )

Phe, Inc. v. Department of Justice , 983 F.2d 248 ( 1993 )

Gilbert R. Schmerler v. Federal Bureau of Investigation , 900 F.2d 333 ( 1990 )

julius-hobson-v-jerry-wilson-thomas-j-herlihy-jack-acree-christopher , 737 F.2d 1 ( 1984 )

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility v. United ... , 72 F.3d 897 ( 1996 )

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