Case Detail
| Case Title | NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE FUND, INC. v. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2004cv01821 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2004-10-20 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2005-10-14 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Rosemary M. Collyer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE FUND, INC. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Opinion/Order [21] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Rosemary Collyer has ruled that the CIA provided sufficient evidence to persuade the court that no part of its 2004 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq could be disclosed. The National Security Archive brought suit against the agency, accepting most of its exemption claims, but arguing that, because of the substantial amount of information that had been made public concerning agency intelligence on Iraq, some information in the Intelligence Estimate must already be public. The CIA withheld the Intelligence Estimate under Exemption 1 (national security), Exemption 3 (other statutes) and Exemption 5 (privileges). The Security Archive "argue[d] that 'the story' from [the agency's] declaration does not make 'reasonable logical sense in light of all the facts available to the Court' and that some parts of the 2004 Iraq NIE could be segregated and produced because the CIA already has given public and private briefings on Capitol Hill and has talked to the news media concerning events and progress in Iraq." Finding that the agency's affidavit provided a detailed explanation of why the NIE was considered exempt, Collyer pointed out that "the [Archive] does not dispute that information that would reveal past or present intelligence activities, intelligence methods, classified foreign activities or the internal organizational structure or personnel of the CIA is exempt from disclosure under FOIA. Its point is more refined: the [Archive] challenges paragraph 53 (of the 54-paragraph Declaration) as providing insufficient detail concerning segregability." She noted that "the [Archive] argues that, because the CIA has given extensive public testimony and issued other statements concerning the situation in and outlook for Iraq, it is not credible to believe that no information in the 2004 Iraq NIE can be segregated and released. It urges the Court to conduct an in camera review of the document 'to verify the agency's descriptions and provide assurances, beyond a presumption of administrative good faith, to FOIA plaintiffs that the descriptions are accurate and as complete as possible.'" Rejecting the Archive's claim, Collyer pointed out that "taken in its entirety, [the agency's] declaration provides sufficient detail of the nature of the classified and other exempt information contained in the document for the Court to conclude that those isolated words or phrases that might not be redacted for release would be meaningless." She concluded that "indeed, the Court would be hard-pressed to determine whether any specific information in the 2004 Iraq NIE would, by its very nature, reveal a confidential source or an intelligence-gathering methodology." Collyer then observed that "the Fund contends that the Court should make a side-by-side comparison of the key judgments of the 2004 Iraq NIE with 'statements by the White House, National Security Council, Department of State and Department of Defense' and that such a comparison 'would likely demonstrate that much of the information. . .had already been publicly aired by the government in officially authorized testimony, speeches, publications and the like.' A comparison must reach such a conclusion, according to the [Archive], unless official witnesses have been less than candid or accurate with the Congress." Rejecting the claim, Collyer indicated that "this argument constitutes pure speculation and does not answer the express dictates of the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit that the courts give substantial weight to the CIA's declaration. The [Archive's] bald assertion that it must be so does not establish either that the CIA made any official release of any part of the 2004 Iraq NIE or that any information now requested matches any information previously released. The courts do not play a 'guessing game' with such sensitive and potentially dangerous information."
Issues: Exemption 1 - Harm to national security, Exemption 3 - Statutory prohibition of disclosure | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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