ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Filing
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MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER granting in part and denying in part 26 Defendant's Motions for Summary Judgment and denying in part 27 Plaintiff's Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment. See the attached Memorandum Opinion and Order for additional details. Signed by Judge Amit P. Mehta on 02/21/2017. (lcapm2)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
_________________________________________
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ELECTRONIC PRIVACY
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INFORMATION CENTER,
)
)
Plaintiff,
)
)
v.
)
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FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, )
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Defendant.
)
_________________________________________ )
Case No. 1:14-cv-01311 (APM)
MEMORANDUM OPINION
I.
INTRODUCTION
Plaintiff Electronic Privacy Information Center brings this Freedom of Information Act
(“FOIA”) action against Defendant Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), seeking disclosure of
unpublished privacy assessments prepared by the agency. These assessments, known as “Privacy
Impact Assessments” and “Privacy Threshold Analyses,” are designed to evaluate whether the
FBI’s information technology systems effectively protect sensitive personal information that
comes into the agency’s possession. The FBI produced the privacy assessments sought by Plaintiff
but with heavy redactions.
This action is before the court on the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment.
Plaintiff contends that the FBI failed to: (1) conduct an adequate search; (2) justify its redactions
of the privacy assessments under FOIA Exemption 7(E); and (3) demonstrate that it disclosed all
reasonably segregable portions of the records responsive to Plaintiff’s request. Defendant, for its
part, seeks judgment on the adequacy of its search, its withholdings, and its segregability
determination.
The court agrees with Plaintiff that the FBI has neither adequately described its search nor
properly justified its withholding of information under FOIA Exemption 7(E). The court will not,
however, order disclosure of the withheld information at this time, but instead will give the FBI
an opportunity to supplement the record.
The court also will defer evaluating the FBI’s
segregability determination until after it renews its Motion for Summary Judgment. Accordingly,
for the reasons that follow, the court grants in part and denies in part the parties’ cross motions for
summary judgment.
II.
BACKGROUND
A.
Factual Background
On June 4, 2014, Plaintiff Electronic Privacy Information Center (“EPIC”) submitted a
FOIA request to Defendant the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) seeking all unpublished
FBI Privacy Impact Assessments (“PIAs”) and Privacy Threshold Analyses (“PTAs”). Def.’s Mot.
for Summ. J., ECF No. 26 [hereinafter Def.’s Mot.], Def.’s Stmt. of Mat. Facts, ECF No. 26-1
[hereinafter Def.’s Stmt.], ¶ 1; Pl.’s Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 27 [hereinafter Pl.’s Mot.], Pl.’s
Stmt. of Mat. Facts and Resp. to Def.’s Stmt., ECF No. 27-2 [hereinafter Pl.’s Stmt.], ¶ 1.
Generally speaking, PIAs and PTAs concern the FBI’s methods for collecting and storing
personal information. A PIA is “an analysis of how information in identifiable form is collected,
stored, protected, shared, and managed” in federal agency information technology (“IT”) systems.
More specifically, a PIA analyzes an agency’s IT systems in order to: “(1) ensure that handling
conforms to applicable legal, regulatory, and policy requirements regarding privacy; (2) determine
the risks and effects of collecting, maintaining, and disseminating information; and (3) examine
and evaluate protections and alternative processes for handling information to mitigate potential
privacy risks.” Def.’s Mot., Ex. 1, ECF. No. 26-2 [hereinafter Hardy Decl.], ¶ 6. A PTA is a
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more limited report that “contains basic questions about the nature of the system [in question] in
addition to a basic system description.” Id. ¶ 7. The purpose of a PTA is “to assess and document
whether a PIA is required.” Id. ¶ 7.
Specifically, Plaintiff’s FOIA request sought:
All Privacy Impact Assessments [“PIAs”] the FBI has conducted that are
not publicly
available
at http://www.fbi.gov/foia/privacy-impactassessments/department-of-justice-federal-bureau-of-investigation.
All Privacy Threshold Analysis [“PTAs”] documents and Initial Privacy
Assessments the FBI has conducted since 2007 to present.
Def.’s Stmt. ¶ 2.
On June 17, 2014, the FBI acknowledged receipt of Plaintiff’s FOIA request and informed
Plaintiff that it would search for responsive records in its Central Records System (“CRS”), as is
standard agency protocol. Id. ¶¶ 4, 6; Pl.’s Stmt. ¶ 2. Upon further review of Plaintiff’s request,
however, the FBI determined that it needed to conduct additional searches outside the CRS in order
to locate all potentially responsive documents. Def.’s Stmt. ¶¶ 9–16. The FBI designed a “targeted
search” to locate those records and, on June 27, 2014, directed the Privacy and Civil Liberties Unit
(“PCLU”) of the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel—the FBI division tasked with ensuring
agency compliance with privacy laws—to conduct the “targeted search.” Id. ¶¶ 18–21; Hardy
Decl. ¶ 23.
PCLU located approximately 4,720 pages of records potentially responsive to Plaintiff’s
request and, on December 15, 2014, the FBI began reviewing 500 pages of responsive records per
month for potential disclosure, providing Plaintiff with both monthly progress updates and several
rolling productions over the next two years. Def.’s Stmt. ¶¶ 9–16; Pl.’s Stmt. ¶ 2. The agency
made its final production on June 15, 2015, and concluded its review of responsive records on
January 11, 2016. Def.’s Stmt. ¶¶ 15–16; Pl.’s Stmt. ¶ 2. During that time, the FBI reviewed 4,379
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pages of potentially responsive documents; determined 2,490 of those pages were actually
responsive to Plaintiff’s request; released 2,275 of those actually responsive pages, in whole or in
part; and withheld 215 actually responsive pages in full. Def.’s Stmt. ¶¶ 24–25. The FBI informed
Plaintiff that its withholdings of certain responsive pages were based on a combination of FOIA
Exemptions 1, 3, 5, 6, 7(C), 7(D), and 7(E). Id. ¶ 17; Pl.’s Stmt. ¶ 2.
B.
Procedural History
Plaintiff filed this action on August 1, 2014. Compl., ECF No. 1. After the FBI finished
producing records, the parties met and conferred, and Plaintiff agreed to limit its challenges to:
(1) the sufficiency of the FBI’s search for responsive records; (2) the decision to withhold
responsive records pursuant to FOIA Exemption 7(E); and (3) the adequacy of its segregability
determination. See Joint Status Report, Feb. 16, 2016, ECF No. 23, ¶ 3.1 This matter is now before
the court on the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment.
III.
LEGAL STANDARD
Most FOIA cases are appropriately resolved on motions for summary judgment.
Brayton v. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 641 F.3d 521, 527 (D.C. Cir. 2011). A court
must grant summary judgment “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
A dispute is “genuine” only if a reasonable fact-finder could find for the nonmoving party, and a
fact is “material” only if it is capable of affecting the outcome of litigation. Anderson v. Liberty
Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). “Unlike the review of other agency action that must be
In the Joint Status Report, Plaintiff also indicated its intention to challenge the FBI’s invocation of Exemptions 5
and 7(D). Plaintiff’s Motion, however, does not respond to the agency’s arguments concerning Exemption 5.
Accordingly, the court grants summary judgment in favor of the FBI as to the FBI’s reliance on that exemption. See
Sykes v. Dudas, 573 F. Supp. 2d 191, 202 (D.D.C. 2008) (“[W]hen a party responds to some but not all arguments
raised on a Motion for Summary Judgment, a court may fairly view the unacknowledged arguments as conceded.”).
Separately, the FBI withdrew its assertion of Exemption 7(D) to justify its withholdings, see Hardy Decl. ¶ 43, so the
agency’s reliance on that exemption is not before the court.
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upheld if supported by substantial evidence and not arbitrary or capricious, the FOIA expressly
places the burden ‘on the agency to sustain its action’ and directs the district courts to ‘determine
the matter de novo.’” U.S. Dep’t of Justice v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of Press, 489 U.S.
749, 755 (1989) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B)).
Summary judgment in a FOIA case may be based solely on information provided in an
agency’s supporting affidavits or declarations if those affidavits or declarations are “relatively
detailed and non-conclusory.” SafeCard Servs., Inc. v. SEC, 926 F.2d 1197, 1200 (D.C. Cir. 1991)
(internal quotation marks omitted). The agency’s affidavits or declarations must “describe the
documents and the justifications
for nondisclosure with reasonably specific detail [and]
demonstrate that the information withheld logically falls within the claimed exemption.” Military
Audit Project v. Casey, 656 F.2d 724, 738 (D.C. Cir. 1981).
Further, they must not be
“controverted by either contrary evidence in the record [or] by evidence of agency bad faith.” Id.;
see Beltranena v. Clinton, 770 F. Supp. 2d 175, 181–82 (D.D.C. 2011). “To successfully challenge
an agency’s showing that it complied with the FOIA, the plaintiff must come forward with ‘specific
facts’ demonstrating that there is a genuine issue with respect to whether the agency has improperly
withheld extant agency records.” Span v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 696 F. Supp. 2d 113, 119 (D.D.C.
2010) (quoting U.S. Dep’t of Justice v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 142 (1989)).
IV.
DISCUSSION
The court first considers Plaintiff’s challenge to the adequacy of the FBI’s search before
turning to Plaintiff’s arguments concerning the agency’s reliance on Exemption 7(E) to withhold
information. Because the court concludes that the FBI has not sufficiently justified its assertion
of Exemption 7(E), the court does not reach Plaintiff’s challenge to the adequacy of its
segregability determination.
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A.
Adequacy of the Search
FOIA requires an agency to conduct a search for responsive records that is “reasonably
calculated to discover the requested documents.” SafeCard Servs., 926 F.2d at 1201. “In general,
the adequacy of a search is ‘determined not by the fruits of the search, but by the appropriateness
of [its] methods.’” Hodge v. FBI, 703 F.3d 575, 579 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (quoting Iturralde v.
Comptroller of the Currency, 315 F.3d 311, 315 (D.C. Cir. 2003)). In order to prevail on summary
judgment, “the agency must show that it made a good faith effort to conduct a search for the
requested records, using methods which can be reasonably expected to produce the information
requested.” Oglesby v. U.S. Dep’t of the Army, 920 F.2d 57, 68 (D.C. Cir. 1990). “The adequacy
of the search, in turn, is judged by a standard of reasonableness and depends, not surprisingly,
upon the facts of each case.” Weisberg v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 745 F.2d 1476, 1485 (D.C. Cir.
1984).
The FBI contends that its evidence—in the form of a declaration signed by David Hardy,
Section Chief of the Record/Information Dissemination Section of the FBI’s Records Management
Division—sufficiently demonstrates that it satisfied its search obligations. According to the Hardy
Declaration, the FBI first endeavored, pursuant to its “standard search protocol,” to search the
“indices [of] the FBI’s Central Records System.” Hardy Decl. ¶ 22. However, “[u]pon further
review of the plaintiff’s FOIA request,” the FBI decided that it needed to search outside the CRS
in order to locate all potentially responsive documents. Id. Accordingly, the FBI then designed a
“targeted search” that was “reasonably calculated to locate [responsive] records.” Id. ¶ 23. That
search was carried out by employees of the PCLU Privacy and Civil Liberties Unit (“PCLU”)
within the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel—the FBI division tasked with ensuring agency
compliance with privacy laws. Id. Hardy further avers that the PCLU is “the unit reasonably
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likely to maintain responsive material” for Plaintiff’s request and that “there is no indication from
the information located . . . that responsive material would reside in any other FBI system or
location.” Id. Plaintiff criticizes the Hardy Declaration as not sufficiently detailed because it
“fail[s] to provide the search terms used, fail[s] to explain with reasonable detail how the agency
conducted its targeted search, and fail[s] to even assert that all files likely to have responsive
records were searched.” Pl.’s Mot., Ex. 1, Pl.’s Mem. in Supp., ECF No. 27-1, at 27.
The court agrees with Plaintiff. At summary judgment, the FBI bears the burden of proving
that it met its obligations under FOIA, and the Hardy Declaration falls short of being “a reasonably
detailed affidavit, setting forth the search terms and the type of search performed, and averring
that all files likely to contain responsive materials . . . were searched.” See Iturralde, 315 F.3d at
313–14 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Hardy Declaration does not describe in
“reasonable detail[]” how the FBI—more specifically, the PCLU—conducted its “targeted
search.” The declaration does not, for instance, say whether PCLU staff searched paper files,
electronic files, or both. If it searched electronic files, then the declaration does not say what
search terms were used. Nor does it identify the persons within PCLU who most likely possessed
responsive materials. A declaration lacking such basic facts does not satisfy an agency’s burden
to demonstrate the adequacy of its search. See Morley v. CIA, 508 F.3d 1108, 1122–23 (D.C. Cir.
2007) (finding agency affidavit inadequate because it merely identified the employees charged
with carrying out the search and “provide[d] no information about the search strategies” used); see
also Bonaparte v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 531 F. Supp. 2d 118, 122 (D.D.C. 2008) (finding the
agency affidavit inadequate because it did “not describe the filing systems searched, the search
methods employed[,] and the search terms utilized”); Aguirre v. SEC, 551 F. Supp. 2d 33, 61
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(D.D.C. 2008) (finding the agency affidavit inadequate because “it fail[ed] to describe in detail
how each office conducted its search”).
In short, summary judgment cannot be entered for the FBI because the record does not
contain sufficient information for the court to assess whether the agency conducted a search
reasonably calculated to uncover all responsive records. The court, however, will permit the FBI
to supplement the record to cure the deficiencies and to renew its motion for summary judgment
as to the adequacy of its search. See Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 185 F. Supp. 2d
54, 65 (D.D.C. 2002) (“[W]hen an agency’s affidavits or declarations are deficient regarding the
adequacy of its search . . . the courts generally will request that the agency supplement its
supporting declarations.”).
B.
Exemption 7(E)
The court now turns to the sole exemption at issue in this case, Exemption 7(E). Under
Exemption 7(E), an agency may withhold information “compiled for law enforcement purposes”
if, among other reasons, its release “would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement
investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or
prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.”
5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E).
Exemption 7(E) “sets a relatively low bar for the agency to justify
withholding.” Blackwell v. FBI, 646 F.3d 37, 42 (D.C. Cir. 2011). Especially “where an agency
‘specializes in law enforcement, its decision to invoke [E]xemption 7 is entitled to deference.’”
Lardner v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 638 F. Supp. 2d 14, 31 (D.D.C. 2009) (quoting Campbell v. U.S.
Dep’t of Justice, 164 F.3d 20, 32 (D.C. Cir. 1998)). Such deference does not, however, excuse the
requirement that an agency describe its “justifications for withholding the information with
specific detail.” ACLU v. U.S. Dep’t of Defense, 628 F.3d 612, 619 (D.C. Cir. 2011)).
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Plaintiff challenges Defendant’s invocation of Exemption 7(E) on three grounds.
According to Plaintiff, the PIAs and PTAs at issue here: (1) were not compiled for law
enforcement purposes; (2) do not disclose law enforcement techniques, procedures, or guidelines;
and (3) would not, if disclosed, present a risk of circumvention of the law. Because the court
concludes that Defendant has not sufficiently shown that the PIAs and PTAs at issue here were
compiled for law enforcement purposes, the court does not reach Defendant’s second and third
arguments.
PIAs and PTAs are created pursuant to federal statute. In 2002, Congress passed the EGovernment Act, which was designed, in part, “[t]o provide enhanced access to Government
information and services in a manner consistent with laws regarding protection of personal
privacy.”
E-Government Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-347, 116 Stat. 2899 [hereinafter E-
Government Act], § 2(b)(11) (codified at 44 U.S.C. § 3501 note).
Section 208 of the E-
Government Act, entitled “Privacy Provisions,” requires federal agencies to undertake certain
actions designed “to ensure sufficient protections for the privacy of personal information as
agencies implement citizen-centered electronic Government.” Id. § 208(a). Those actions include
“conduct[ing] a privacy impact assessment” before (1) “developing or procuring information
technology that collects, maintains, or disseminates information that is in an identifiable form,” or
(2) “initiating the collection of new information that will be collected, maintained, or disseminated
using information technology,” which includes any information in identifiable form in certain
circumstances involving the public.
Id. §§ 208(b)(1)(A)(i)–(ii), (B)(i).
The Department of
Justice’s Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties has explained in an “Official Guidance” that a “PIA
demonstrates that the Department considers privacy from the beginning stages of a system’s
development and throughout the system’s life cycle” in order to “ensure[] that privacy protections
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are built into the system from the start—not after the fact—when they can be far more costly or
could affect the visibility of the project.” Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties, U.S. Dep’t of
Justice,
Privacy
Impact
Assessments
Official
Guidance,
3
(2015),
https://www.justice.gov/opcl/file/631431/download [hereinafter OPCL Guidance].
The public availability of PIAs is also governed by federal statute. The E-Government Act
requires agencies, “if practicable,” to make all PIAs available through “the website of the agency,
publication in the Federal Register, or other means.” E-Government Act § 208(b)(1)(B)(iii).
Consistent with that congressional directive, the PCLU has advised Justice Department agencies
to draft PIAs in a manner that “should be clear, unambiguous, and understandable to the general
public.” OPCL Guidance at 5. Although Congress expressed a preference for PIAs to be made
public, it also recognized that such assessments might contain sensitive information that is not
suitable for public release and, accordingly, provided that the general directive to publish PIAs
“may be modified or waived for security reasons, or to protect classified, sensitive, or private
information contained in an assessment.” E-Government Act § 208(b)(1)(C).
Against this statutory background, the FBI asserts that the PIAs and PTAs at issue here
were “compiled for law enforcement purposes,” which is “the threshold requirement of FOIA
Exemption 7.” Sack v. U.S. Dep’t of Defense, 823 F.3d 687, 693 (D.C. Cir. 2016). To support
that assertion, the FBI again points to the Hardy Declaration.
The declaration, in a single
paragraph, attempts to explain why the PIAs and PTAs were compiled for law enforcement
purposes:
Specifically, the pertinent records were compiled and or created in
furtherance of FBI’s law enforcement, national security, and
intelligence missions. To accomplish these missions, inherent tasks
and operational functions are required, to include the identification
of, development, and implementation of law enforcement and
intelligence gathering methods, techniques, procedures, and
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guidelines. The FBI uses sensitive information collection systems,
networks, infrastructure, and analytical application tools to conduct
surveillance, collect intelligence, analyze, and interpret collected
data, and maintain secure storage of law enforcement and
intelligence related data for future retrieval in support of operational
needs. Accordingly, there is a nexus between the FBI’s law
enforcement responsibilities and these responsive records,
especially those concerning the development of surveillance
technical abilities and associated logistical resources.
Hardy Decl. ¶ 34 (emphasis added).
This paragraph, without more, is insufficient to establish that the withheld materials were
compiled for law enforcement purposes within the meaning of FOIA. It devotes most of its
attention to establish a single, generic point: The FBI uses various technologies to carry out its
law enforcement duties. No one disputes that fact. Only in the emphasized text does Hardy
attempt to make the case that the privacy assessments at issue in this case were “compiled for law
enforcement purposes.” And there the declaration falls woefully short. The term “compiled” for
purposes of Exemption 7(E) “requires that a document be created, gathered, or used by an agency
for law enforcement purposes at some time before the agency invokes the exemption.”
Pub.
Employees for Envtl. Responsibility v. U.S. Section, Int’l Boundary & Water Comm’n, U.S.Mexico, 740 F.3d 195, 203 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (citing John Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 493 U.S.
146, 155 (1989)). The term “law enforcement” means “‘the act of enforcing the law, both civil
and criminal.” Sack, 823 F.3d at 694.
Applying those two definitions here, the Hardy Declaration does not adequately explain
how or why the PTAs and PIAs are created or used to enforce the law. It tells the court nothing
about the connection between the contents of the assessments and the agency’s law enforcement
function.
Rather, the declaration simply asserts, without any elaboration, that there is some
unspecified “nexus” between the privacy assessments and the agency’s law enforcement
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responsibilities. Such a conclusory assertion does not enable the court to conduct a de novo review
of the FBI’s withholdings under Exemption 7(E). Cf. id. And, when considered against a statutory
regime that favors public disclosure and an agency Official Guidance that counsels that “PIAs
should be clear, unambiguous, and understandable,” the FBI’s effort to establish the requisite
nexus between the privacy assessments and its law enforcement function is particularly inadequate.
Cf. Campbell v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 164 F.3d 20, 32 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (explaining that “[i]f the
FBI relies on declarations to identify a law enforcement purpose underlying withheld documents,
[then] such declarations must establish a rational nexus between the investigation and one of the
agency’s law enforcement duties” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
None of this should be taken to mean that the privacy assessments required by the EGovernment Act do not, in theory, have a rational nexus to the act of enforcing the law. Law
enforcement agencies, like the FBI, cannot effectively carry out their law enforcement function
unless their technology systems are capable of securing sensitive personal information that comes
into the agency’s possession. These agencies routinely collect personal information through a
variety of methods—interviews, surveillance, communication intercepts, and subpoenas, just to
name a few. The information collected relates not only to those who violate the law, but also to
those who are perfectly innocent.
Because of the sensitive nature of the contents of law
enforcement records, the D.C. Circuit has recognized that individuals possess a strong privacy
interest in the contents of those records. See, e.g., Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Gov’t
v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 746 F.3d 1082, 1091–92 (D.C. Cir. 2014). Accordingly, technology
systems that are vulnerable to being compromised, whether by internal or external means, do not
merely put investigations at risk, but also imperil the privacy interests of those individuals whose
personal information happens to come into possession of a law enforcement agency.
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The Hardy Declaration, however, draws no such connection between the privacy
assessments requested by Plaintiff and the FBI’s law enforcement function, and the court will not
recognize the propriety of the FBI’s withholdings based on an argument the agency has not made.
The court, however, will allow the FBI to supplement its declaration so that the court can determine
whether Exemption 7(E) applies to the withheld information.
*
*
*
Because the court concludes that the FBI has not established that the PIAs and PTAs meet
the threshold “compiled for law enforcement purposes” requirement under Exemption 7(E), the
court need not reach the parties’ disputes concerning the exemption’s secondary requirements;
namely, whether the withheld information “would disclose the techniques and procedures for law
enforcement investigations” and whether that disclosure would reasonably “risk circumvention of
the law.” See 5 U.S.C. § 522(b)(7)(E).
Nevertheless, the court offers the following observation for the FBI to consider before
renewing its request for summary judgment: The Hardy Declaration is far too laden with technical
jargon for the court to assess, on that Declaration alone, whether the FBI has satisfied FOIA. An
example sharpens the point.
The Hardy Declaration describes one category of withheld
information as relating to “the description of database structure, and program interface tools, used
in the development of sensitive information systems.” Hardy Decl. ¶ 39. It states that the FBI has
withheld such information to “protect the details pertaining to the information systems
transmission pathways, the access portals for shared system initiatives, and the operational
directives and integrity protocols of the information systems, system applications, databases, and
program interface tools.” Id. Were the withheld material to be disclosed, the Hardy Declaration
posits, the disclosure “could expose the devices, equipment, and/or databases to hackers and
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unauthorized users, who could disrupt official business and compromise the effectiveness of the
FBI internal computer systems by devising ways to access—and tamper with—the systems
without detection.” Id.
That is a mouthful. The heavy use of technical jargon makes it difficult, at least for this
court, to discern precisely what “techniques and procedures” the release of the withheld materials
would disclose. Likewise, saying that disclosure of withheld information “could” enable hackers
to infiltrate “the FBI’s internal computer systems” is simply a conclusory statement, unsupported
by any facts. The court does not mean to diminish the difficulties attendant to describing
technology systems and concepts to a non-technical audience. Nevertheless, those descriptions
cannot be written as if the court possesses an advanced degree in computer science. Unfortunately,
it does not. Thus, when the FBI revises its declaration, the court urges the agency to use less jargon
and opt instead for plain language that will more easily enable the court to determine if the
requirements of Exemption 7(E) are met. Further, the FBI also should evaluate its withholdings
in light of the purposes of Section 208 of the E-Government Act.
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IV.
CONCLUSION AND ORDER
For the reasons set forth above, Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment is granted as
to its invocation of Exemption 5, but is otherwise denied.
Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary
Judgment is granted insofar as it seeks further information about the FBI’s withholdings, but is
otherwise denied.
The parties shall meet and confer and, no later than March 3, 2017, propose to the court a
briefing schedule for renewed motions for summary judgment.
Dated: February 21, 2017
Amit P. Mehta
United States District Judge
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