Elkins v. FAA, No., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125590 (D.D.C. Sept. 21, 2015) (Boasberg. J.)

Elkins v. FAA, No., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125590 (D.D.C. Sept. 21, 2015) (Boasberg. J.)

Re: Request for records concerning plane circling plaintiff's house

Disposition: Granting defendant's motion for reconsideration of court's prior order granting in part and denying in part defendant's motion for summary judgment

• Exemption 7, Threshold:  "[T]he Court will issue a contemporaneous Order granting the FAA's Motion for Reconsideration and permitting the agency to withhold the radar plot."  "The Court . . . now concurs with the FAA that the radar plot was indeed 'compiled for law-enforcement purposes.'"  "This is particularly so given that the agency has provided compelling (albeit classified) details about the investigation that release of the radar plot could compromise."  Generally, the court finds that "[i]n the current case, since the law-enforcement agency operating the aircraft  was compiling data on its own flight track, that data did not lose its protection when forwarded to the FAA."
   
• Exemption 7(E):  "Having so determined [the threshold issue], the remainder of the analysis under 7(E) is straightforward."  The court finds that "[defendant's] declarations demonstrate that the specific details of the government agency's techniques are not well known and that, if they were, criminal targets could act in such a manner as to impinge on the effectiveness of the surveillance."