Case Detail
| Case Title | CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING v. U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION et al | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2018cv02901 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2018-12-11 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2020-05-20 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | The Center for Investigative Reporting submitted a FOIA request to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for contract proposals submitted to build to a wall on the Mexican-U.S. border near Chula Vista, CA. CIR also requested a fee waiver and expedited processing. The agency acknowledged receipt of the request. The agency denied the request under Exemption 4 (confidential business information). CIR filed an administrative appeal. In response to CIR's appeal, the agency told CIR that it had located 6,762 pages. It disclosed 1,019 unredacted pages and 155 pages with redactions, and withheld 5,558 pages under Exemption 3 (other statutes), Exemption 4, Exemption 5 (privileges), Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy), and Exemption 7 (law enforcement records). CIR then filed suit. Complaint issues: Litigation - Attorney's fees | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Complaint attachment 6 Complaint attachment 7 Complaint attachment 8 Opinion/Order [22] FOIA Project Annotation: Ruling in a case brought by the Center for Investigative Reporting for access to contract proposals submitted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to build a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico, Judge Beryl Howell has provided the first substantive discussion of the effects of the 2019 Supreme Court decision, Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, 139 S. Ct. 2356 (2019), rejecting the substantial harm test developed in National Parks and replacing it instead with a customarily confidential standard. Further, in rejecting CBP's Exemption 5 (privileges) claims, she has also explored in much greater detail the meaning of the codification of the foreseeable harm test to all the exemptions in the 2016 FOIA Improvement Act. In response to CIR's request, CBP located 6.762 pages of potentially responsive records stemming from over 150 submitted proposals. The agency's Office of Acquisition found 990 pages of responsive records and disclosed 946 in full and 44 in part. The Office of Facilities and Asset Management found 101 pages of responsive records, one page of which was released in full, one page was released in part, and 99 pages were withheld entirely. The Office of Information Technology, which had managed the email account for the border wall project, located an additional 5,671 pages of responsive records, 72 pages were released in full, 110 pages were released in part, and 5,489 pages were withheld in full. The agency claimed Exemption 4 (confidential business information), Exemption 5 (privileges), Exemption 3 (other statutes), Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy), Exemption 7(C) (invasion of privacy concerning law enforcement records), and Exemption 7(E) (investigative methods or techniques). However, CIR only chose to challenge withholdings under Exemption 4 and 5 of 110 pages of emails, and under Exemption 5, 216 pages of documents related to the border wall. CIR did little to challenge the agency's assertion that the deliberative process privilege applied to many of its Exemption 5 claims, but instead focused on whether the agency had met the foreseeable harm test. Howell noted that "this choice is not surprising. . .[T]he foreseeable-harm requirement is a 'heightened standard' and thus a FOIA requester may perceive a foreseeable-harm argument to be easier to advance than an argument about whether a FOIA exemption applies at the outset." But she pointed out that "focusing exclusively on foreseeable harm, however, risks conflating an agency's failure to establish the basis for an exemption with failure to demonstrate foreseeable harm." Howell found that the agency had failed to show that the records were deliberative. She noted that "the defendants have failed to identify the final decisions to which the withheld documents pertain." She explained that "some of the document descriptions in the defendants' Vaughn Index create the impression that the documents at issue might themselves be final subsidiary agency decisions." She then pointed out that "the defendants have made essentially no effort to satisfy the 'key feature' by identifying 'the relation between the author and recipients of the document'" and noted that for other records "the defendants do not identify the author to assess the deliberative nature of the contents." She also faulted the agency's failure to provide any chronology of the decision-making process. She observed that "given that the defendants have not identified the specific final agency decisions to which the documents withheld and redacted pursuant to Exemption 5 relate, they have, by extension, failed to establish that the documents predated those decisions." Having shown skepticism as to whether the records qualified under the deliberative process privilege, Howell found the agency's foreseeable harm claims suspect as well. Howell noted that the foreseeable harm standard was included in a presidential memorandum issued by former President Barack Obama on his first day in office, which was later implemented in the Holder memorandum. But in 2016 Congress decided to codify the foreseeable harm test. Howell noted Congress was particularly worried about the overuse of Exemption 5. She pointed out that "the text, history, and purpose of the FOIA Improvement Act confirm that the foreseeable-harm requirement was intended to restrict agencies' discretion in withholding documents under FOIA." After reviewing the agency's foreseeable harm claims, she indicated that "the defendants' claims of foreseeable harm consist of 'general explanations' and 'boiler plate language' that do not satisfy the foreseeable-harm requirement." She noted that "if the defendants wish to establish foreseeable harm when they supplement the record, they will need to provide 'context or insight into the specific decision-making processes or deliberations at issue, and how they in particular would be harmed by disclosure.'" All that remained in dispute under Exemption 4 were a series of question-and-concern emails. CIR agreed that the information was commercial and obtained from a person but challenged whether or not it was confidential. Howell began her discussion by noting that the D.C. Circuit had already applied the customarily confidential standard to voluntarily submitted commercial or financial information in its decision in Critical Mass Energy Project v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 975 F.2d 871 (D.C. Cir. 1992). She pointed out that in Food Marketing, the Supreme Court "set forth a single test for determining whether information â€" regardless of whether voluntarily or involuntarily submitted to the government â€" is confidential under Exemption 4. Specifically, 'commercial or financial information' is confidential for the purpose of Exemption 4 when it is 'both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner' and, perhaps as well, 'provided to the government under an assurance of privacy.'" Howell explained that "the import of Food Marketing's holding that the ordinary meaning of 'confidential' applies in all Exemption 4 cases, then, is clear: Critical Mass and its progeny now supply the framework in this Circuit for determining whether voluntarily and involuntarily submitted commercial or financial information are 'confidential' under Exemption 4." Howell pointed out that for the government to establish the confidentiality practice of the submitter, it had to show some degree of personal knowledge. She observed that "conclusory statements by an agency official about what the agency official may believe about how a submitter customarily treats the information at issue are simply insufficient." Howell found the agency had failed to support its confidentiality claims. She noted that "the defendants contend only that unsuccessful bidders have an interest in keeping their information private. They never claim, however, that unsuccessful bidders submitted the redacted questions and concerns." While the Supreme Court in Food Marketing suggested that agency assurances that submitter information would be considered confidential would probably be sufficient to show that the submitter could reasonably expect its information would be held confidential, the Supreme Court left that issue unaddressed. Because the Supreme Court left the issue of assurances unresolved, Howell noted that "suffice it to say that if Exemption 4 does so, the defendants must supply at least some evidence that this assurance was given." Howell then found that the foreseeable harm test also applied to Exemption 4. She observed that "to meet this requirement, the defendants must explain how disclosing, in whole or in part, the specific information withheld under Exemption 4 would harm an interest protected by the exemption, such as by causing 'genuine harm to [the submitter's] economic or business interests,' and thereby dissuading others from submitting information to the government."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Predecisional, Exemption 4 - Confidential business information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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