Note by Michael Allyn Stroud
The plaintiff, a professional journalist, filed a request with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for records compiled on anti-Vietnam War activists. The records, summaries of information derived from FBI law enforcement files, had been provided to the White House at the request of the Nixon administration. The FBI denied his request, claiming that the records sought constituted law enforcement records precluded from FOIA disclosure by special statutory exemption. Plaintiff brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to enjoin the agency from withholding the records. The district court dismissed plaintiff's request on the ground that the information sought qualified for Exemption 7(C) of the FOIA, which excludes release of government documents compiled for law enforcement purposes when such release would constitute an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” The district court found that although the records were not compiled for law enforcement purposes, their release would result in an invasion of personal privacy. The District of Columbia Circuit reversed, holding that Exemption 7 was inapplicable to the records at issue, because they were not compiled for law enforcement purposes. The Supreme Court reversed and held that because the records sought were based on information from prior law enforcement records, which would have been exempt from FOIA disclosure in its original form, that information did not lose its exempt status when later incorporated into new records for purposes other than law enforcement. FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. 615 (1982).
About the Author
Michael Allyn Stroud.
Citation
57 Tul. L. Rev. 1564 (1983)