Driggs v. CIA, No. 25-2177, 2026 WL 2235297 (4th Cir. Aug. 4, 2026) (Diaz, C.J.)

Driggs v. CIA, No. 25-2177, 2026 WL 2235297 (4th Cir. Aug. 4, 2026) (Diaz, C.J.)

Re: Request for records concerning American prisoners of war and government efforts to recover them

Disposition:  Affirming district court’s grant of government’s motion for summary judgment and denial of requester’s motion for summary judgment

• Exemption 3: The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit holds that “[t]he district court was right to deny [the requester’s] motion to compel a search of the CIA’s operational files.”  “Congress passed the CIA Information Act, giving the CIA Director discretion to exempt those files from disclosure under FOIA.” “But the Act still permits courts to compel the CIA to search the files under narrow circumstances.”  “The improper placement provision applies when a party ‘argues that if the records requested were properly filed where they should be filed, they would be outside exempted operational files and would therefore be subject to [FOIA’s] search, review and disclosure requirements.’” 
  
  First, the court notes that “[a] court may compel a search only after the ‘[a]gency has improperly withheld requested records,’ but here the CIA was still conducting its search and producing responsive documents.”  “With production ongoing, [the requester] categorically could not have met his burden to show that the CIA improperly withheld responsive records.” Additionally, the court finds that “[the requester did not] offer evidence to support a claim under 50 U.S.C. § 3141(f)(3) that the documents shouldn’t have been placed in operational files.”  “The two affidavits that [the requester] attached attest that the CIA overclassifies documents generally.”  “That’s not enough to meet [the requester’s] burden.”
   
• Exemption 1:  The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit holds that “[t]he CIA’s affidavit reasonably describes how disclosing those three categories of information contained in the Joint Report’s redacted portions would undermine the CIA’s work and U.S. national security.”  “The affidavit explains that divulgence ‘would allow intelligence targets to circumvent the CIA’s collection efforts’ because the Joint Report contains ‘certain priorities of specific U.S. intelligence targets, the locations of CIA activities, the targets of specific CIA operations and analysis, and Agency processes for handling intelligence information.’”  “According to the affidavit, ‘disclosure would reveal intelligence priorities and the CIA’s information-sharing relationships with specific foreign individuals and governments.’”  “That’s all the law requires.”  “Because the CIA described ‘the withheld material with reasonable specificity and explain[ed] how it falls under . . . the enumerated exemptions,’ it has met its burden.”
   
• Exemption 3:  The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit relates that “[t]he CIA attests that two statutes, the National Security Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3024(i)(1), and the Central Intelligence Agency Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3507, forbid it from disclosing the redacted information.”  “The National Security Act provides that ‘[t]he Director of National Intelligence shall protect . . . intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure.’”  “The CIA’s affidavit attests that ‘the redactions obfuscate specific types of intelligence methods’ it uses, which is necessary ‘to prevent foreign adversaries, hostile actors, terrorist organizations, and others from learning the ways in which the CIA operates, which would allow them to take measures to hide their activities from the CIA or target Agency officers.’”  “The CIA Act also exempts ‘publication or disclosure of the organization or functions of the [CIA], or of the names, official titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed by the Agency.’”  “The affidavit states that the redactions were made to protect exempted personnel information.”  “On this ground alone, the district court properly granted summary judgment.”
   
• Litigation Considerations, Evidentiary Showing, Declarations:  The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit relates that “[plaintiff] insists that [the court] can’t accept the affidavit’s credibility because the CIA acted in bad faith when it drafted the National Intelligence Estimate on prisoner of war issues.”  “[The court has not] endorsed either approach.”  “And even assuming it’s proper to assess an agency’s conduct outside of the present FOIA context, [the requester] hasn’t met the ‘very high standard’ to trigger review of past agency action.”  “[A] disagreement about the rigor and merits of the CIA’s work is not enough to show agency bad faith.”