Stein v. CIA, No. 17-189, 2024 WL 4298757 (D.D.C. Sept. 26, 2024) (Chutkan, J.)

Stein v. CIA, No. 17-189, 2024 WL 4298757 (D.D.C. Sept. 26, 2024) (Chutkan, J.)

Re:  Requests for records “‘related to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and presidential transition,’ including ‘information related to background investigations of fifteen individuals reportedly under consideration for senior positions in the Trump administration’”

Disposition:  Granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment; denying plaintiff’s cross-motion for summary judgment

• Exemption 6; Exemption 7(C):  First, the court holds that “State properly redacted portions of the Adjudicative Analysis Worksheet page related to Rex Tillerson’s security background investigation.” “The redacted portions at issue include (1) a description of ‘the level of background investigation conducted, the agency that conducted it, and the timing of that investigation’; (2) ‘the [security clearance] recommendation itself’; and (3) ‘a sentence below the [security clearance] recommendation related to ineligible recommendations.’” “The court’s in camera review confirms State’s assertions about the substantial privacy interests that could be implicated by information in the page’s redacted fields.”  “Those fields could contain not only information revealing ‘the extent to which the agency viewed the applicant as a security risk,’ but also ‘anything in the applicant’s background investigation identified as a potential security concern.’” “These interests go beyond identifying an applicant’s ‘actions and whereabouts’ such that they could receive ‘unwanted attention or harassment.’”  “Notably, the range of sensitive information that could be in those fields is as important as the information actually in former Secretary of State Tillerson’s application (if any).”  “If State only redacted the fields when that kind of sensitive information was present, the fact of redaction itself would confirm the information’s presence.”  “The public interest in disclosure of those fields, while not insignificant, does not outweigh the privacy interests at stake.” “‘State’s participation in the security clearance process,’ including whether it identified ‘any issues of adjudicative concern,’ . . . could in theory contribute to some general ‘public understanding of the operations or activities of the government,’ . . . .” “But any public interest tied to Tillerson’s appointment as Secretary of State has diminished substantially in the eight years since Plaintiff’s FOIA request in 2016.”
  
  Additionally, the court holds that “the FBI permissibly applied Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold portions of records related to the background investigations of Stephen Bannon and General Michael Flynn.” “Plaintiff argues that ‘the date and place of Steve Bannon’s birth’ should not have been redacted because that information is already publicly available.”  “It is true that a privacy interest may ‘fade when the information involved already appears on the public record, . . . such as the date of [someone’s] birth,’ but that ‘does not mean that it should receive widespread publicity if it does not involve a matter of public concern.’”  “Plaintiff does not articulate any public interest in Bannon’s date and place of birth, nor explain how that interest would be served by disclosing that information here – particularly if, as he notes, it could be found by searching elsewhere.”  “As a result, even the relatively weak privacy interests at stake here tilt toward withholding under Exemptions 6 and 7(C).”
   
• Litigation Considerations, Evidentiary Showing, “Reasonably Segregable” Showing:  The court holds that “ODNI conducted an adequate segregability analysis for the 31 pages that the CIA referred to it for review.”  “The court has already decided that the pages are facially covered by Exemption 6, so all that remains in dispute is whether they contain ‘any non-exempt, reasonably segregable information.’”  “Defendants have produced declarations averring that ODNI ‘reviewed each line of each page of the 31 pages[]’ . . . .”  “These declarations fully comply with the agency’s duty to ‘describe what proportion of the information in a document is non-exempt and how that material is dispersed throughout the document.’”