Case Detail
Case Title | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY et al | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Case Number | 1:2006cv01912 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date Filed | 2006-11-09 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date Closed | 2009-10-21 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Judge | Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Plaintiff | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Case Description | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington submitted a FOIA request to the U.S. Secret Service for White House visitors' logs reflecting visits from several conservative religious leaders. CREW also requested a fee waiver. After hearing nothing further from the agency, CREW filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Litigation - Attorney's fees, Adequacy - Search | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Defendant | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Defendant | ALLEN WEINSTEIN in his official capacity as Archivist of the United States | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Defendant | JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Defendant | NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Appeal | D.C. Circuit 09-5014 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Opinion/Order [44] FOIA Project Annotation: In a closely watched case concerning whether the White House could exercise control over visitors' logs used by the Secret Service in performing its protective duties for both the President and Vice President, Judge Royce Lamberth has ruled that the records are agency records used by the Secret Service and not presidential records created and controlled by the White House or the Office of the Vice President. Lamberth observed that "the Secret Service has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that [the visitors' logs] are not 'agency records' under FOIA. To the contrary, the Court concludes that these visitor records at the White House Complex and Vice-President's Residence are created (or obtained) and controlled by the Secret Service and are therefore 'agency records' under our circuit's case law." The decision comes in a case filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington for visitors' logs showing whether several prominent evangelical leaders had visited the White House or vice-presidential residence. CREW brought the suit in part to confirm that such records were indeed agency records under FOIA after Judge Ricardo Urbina had ruled in favor of the Washington Post in its litigation for similar visitors' logs. When the government indicated it would appeal the Post's favorable ruling, the newspaper dropped its appeal due to time constraints. CREW then picked up the challenge based on its own FOIA request. The original Post litigation brought to light a controversial memorandum of understanding between the Secret Service and the White House and Office of the Vice President providing that the visitors' records were considered presidential records that were not subject to the control or custody of the Secret Service. Lamberth spent the first part of his decision explaining how the records were used. He found that the Secret Service had either turned over or deleted most visitors' records since January 2001, although it did not start such a practice until at least June 2001. Nevertheless, he also found that the Secret Service used the records both to verify the whereabouts of visitors and, in some cases, to conduct background checks on individuals invited to either location. The essence of the agency's argument was that most of the information contained in the visitors' log records came from White House or OVP personnel and that the agency, thus, was not the main creator of the records. But Lamberth pointed out that "while the Secret Service may be correct that Presidential and Vice-Presidential staff do at time provides much of the 'information' contained in these records, this fact does not, by itself, prove the Secret Service does not create these documents. The FOIA deals with documents, not information. By focusing on the contents of the records, the Secret Service overlooks the process by which the records are generated." He explained that "[Worker and Visitor Entrance System] records, for example, are comprised of information from three sources: the authorized pass holder [in the White House], the Secret Service, and the [Access Control Record System]. The Secret Service emphasizes the role the pass holder plays in the formation of a WAVES record, noting that an email from the pass holder to the Secret Service is typically the triggering event that leads to the creation of the record. Maybe so. But a WAVES record does not exist until the Secret Service uses the supplied information to perform a background check on the individual, adds security-related notations as necessary, and sends the completed filed to the [White House Access Control System] server, where it is stored. The record is updated via the ACR system after the visitor's arrival. That the White House pass holder may supply some, or even most, of the record's content does not change the fact that the record is created by the Secret Service." Rejecting the agency's creation theory, Lamberth observed that "by arguing it does not create a WAVES record because 'the bulk' of 'information' comes from an authorized pass holder, the Secret Service invites the Court to elevate the contents of the record ahead of its creation. Doing so, however, would place the Court in the awkward position of having to review the actual contents of each record (or more precisely, the origin of the record's contents) to identify its creator, which would effectively place the information source above the record's creator. This would insulate records that contain information supplied, perhaps even gleaned, from an external, non-agency source, even if the information represents only a part of the record, as it does here. It might also require the Court to classify a single record as part-agency and part-presidential record." Lamberth distinguished the holding of United We Stand America v. IRS, 359 F.3d 595 (D.C. Cir. 2004), in which the D.C. Circuit found that a congressional committee had expressed an intent to control some of the information it requested from the IRS, from these facts, noting that "no such confidentiality directive exists in this case. Indeed, the visitor information is transferred to the Secret Service, haphazardly at times, in many forms, including electronically and over the telephone, by many different individuals. Nowhere, however, has a member of the President's or Vice-President's staff manifested â€" contemporaneously with the request, as in United We Stand America â€" an intent to control the record. . .[U]nlike in United We Stand America, where the records were created for the congressional committee, the visitor records are created primarily for the agency's use." Next, Lamberth examined the issue of control using the four-part test enunciated by the D.C. Circuit in Burka v. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 87 F.3d 508 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Under the test in Burka, an agency's control of a record is based on (1) the intent of the document's creator to retain or relinquish control over the record, (2) the ability of the agency to use and dispose of the record as it sees fit, (3) the extent to which agency personnel has read or relied on the record, and (4) the degree to which the document was integrated into agency files. Lamberth found that, generally, the Secret Service's intent was to relinquish control of the records and noted that "the Secret Service's past practices do not, in short, demonstrate clear intent to relinquish control over all the records, notably the ACR records. Its retention practices have been too impermanent for that. Nonetheless, the Secret Service's stated intent is clear: it does not intend to retain control over these records once the visitor has left the White House Complex or the Vice-President's Residence." Indicating that the Secret Service was free to use and dispose of the records, he pointed out that "in each instance, the Secret Service is using the record to assist in protecting [the President or] Vice-President. The Secret Service has failed, in other words, to offer any explanation as to how its ability to use these documents is limited, and the Court can see none. Rather, the Secret Service uses these documents exactly as would be expected: to fulfill its statutorily mandated responsibility to protect the President and the Vice-President." As to disposal, Lamberth observed that "the most that can be said is the Secret Service acts as if the White House has legal control over these records." But he noted that the agency frequently disposed of the records on its own initiative and, pointing out that under D.C. Circuit precedent an agency's records disposal policy should not be given too much weight in determining whether a record was an agency record, he observed that "this cautionary instruction seems especially apt here, given the changing nature of the agency's retention practices." The agency argued that, while it read and relied on the records, its use of the records was usually only temporary. Lamberth explained, however, that "the limited use of the records is. . .inherent in the limited purpose for which they were created, but this does not mean the Secret Service does not read or rely on them." He also rejected the agency's claim that the records were not integrated into agency files because they were normally not retained longer than 30-60 days. He pointed out that "the length of time a record is saved skirts the salient issue of whether it was integrated into the agency's record system in the first place. The Secret Service does not, for example, attempt to explain where the record is stored on its computer system for this 30-60 day period." He added that "the problem, as the Court sees it, is that the Secret Service offers no explanation for why some electronic documents are integrated and others are not. Or how the Court should differentiate the two. Taken to its logical extreme, the Secret Service seems to be saying that no electronic document is ever fully integrated in an agency's system, at least not as long as the agency deletes the file within 60 days. This again, however, fails to provide the Court with a clear understanding of how to differentiate an integrated file from a non-integrated electronic file." Balancing the four factors, Lamberth ruled that "use trumps intent. Both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals have explained that an agency's actual use of a document is often more probative than the agency's subjective intent. Because the Secret Service creates, uses and relies on, and stores the visitor records, 'in the legitimate conduct of its official duties,' they are under its control." Lamberth then dismissed the agency's secondary argument that disclosure of the visitors' logs would raise constitutional questions because the records might be protected by executive privilege. But Lamberth, relying on an agency affidavit indicating that who visited the White House did not necessarily reflect on issues being discussed, observed that "knowledge of these visitors would not disclose presidential communications or shine a light on the President's or Vice-President's policy deliberations." He told the agency that if it thought the records were privileged it was free to claim Exemption 5 (privileges) after processing the request
Opinion/Order [75]Issues: Agency Record - Constructive possession FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Royce Lamberth has ruled that visitors' log records from the White House and the Vice President's Residence are not categorically protected by Exemption 5 ( presidential communications privilege). After once again rejecting Secret Service claims that visitors' log records were presidential records and not agency records, Lamberth proceeded to dismiss the agency's broad presidential communications claim as well. The leading case on the scope of the presidential communications privilege is In re Sealed Case, 121 F.3d 1108 (D.C. Cir. 1997), and the agency argued it stood for the proposition that all records provided to the president or his advisors were privileged. But Lamberth disagreed, noting that the privilege "extends only to communications. The visit records sought by plaintiff need only consist of the visitor's name, date and time of visit, and in some cases the name of the person requesting access for the visitor and in some cases the name of the person visited. Such information sheds no light on the content of communications between the visitor and the President or his advisors, whether the communications related to presidential deliberation or decisionmaking, or whether any substantive communication even occurred." Lamberth then observed that "while the Court does not rule out the possibility that there may exist some hypothetical situation wherein the factual circumstances surrounding such a visit might reveal the substance of presidential deliberations, such a scenario is certainly not presented by the facts in this action. In the Court's view, it would take near-omniscience for an observer to tease any accurate meaning out of the visits for which plaintiff seeks records." Lamberth also concluded that the Archivist had violated the Federal Records Act by failing to ask the Attorney General to initiate an action against the White House requiring preservation of the records. He agreed with the plaintiff, CREW, that Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F.2d 282 (D.C. Cir. 1991), specifically recognized a private right of action to force the Archivist to take action and that CREW had been injured by the Secret Service's memo of understanding with the White House and the Vice President's Residence transferring visitors' records from the agency to the presidential and vice-presidential offices where they were no longer accessible under FOIA. Lamberth ordered the Archivist to ask the Attorney General to take action to recover agency records improperly transferred under the memo of understanding. However, after the Archivist learned of the memo's existence in 2004, the agency stopped transferring the records at the Archivist's request and Lamberth indicated this provided sufficient relief to CREW and did not require further involvement of the Attorney General. The transfer practice at the Vice President's Residence did not halt until 2006, but Lamberth found that CREW had not shown that the Archivist was aware of the practice. Because under the FRA the Archivist's duty to inform the Attorney General comes into play only after he learns of a violation, Lamberth pointed out that "by failing to demonstrate the Archivist's awareness of [the Secret Service's] pre-June 2006 retention practices for VPR visit records, plaintiff falls short of showing that the Archivist had a mandatory duty under the FRA. . ."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges, Agency Record | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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