Case Detail
| Case Title | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2006cv00173 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2006-01-31 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2008-07-22 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Richard J. Leon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington submitted a FOIA request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the Department of Homeland Security for records of the agency's performance during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. CREW also requested expedited processing. The agency denied CREW's request for expedited processing. CREW filed an administrative appeal of the denial of expedited processing, which was also denied. CREW then filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Expedited processing, Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Appeal | D.C. Circuit 08-5409 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Opinion/Order [26] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Richard Leon has ruled that FEMA properly invoked Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege) to withhold records pertaining to Hurricane Katrina, including some records he found were protected by the presidential communications privilege, although he concluded that for some records FEMA had failed to show a connection between the agency and presidential advisors. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked for a broad range of records concerning the government's response to Katrina. FEMA released 7468 pages but withheld 1503 pages in full or in part under Exemption 5. CREW claimed that records shared with non-federal parties were not protected by the privilege. Leon rejected the claim, noting that "FEMA withheld material drafted by contractors made in connection with researching and developing FEMA's 'catastrophic planning' initiatives. Nothing in the Vaughn index indicates that the contractors acted in an adversarial capacity, such that they negated the consulting relationship." He said that a meeting involving emergency management officials from Mississippi and Louisiana "involved extra-agency personnel acting in a consulting capacity. The state officials worked with FEMA to make and inform agency decisions regarding evacuation as participants in FEMA's deliberations, not as adversaries." Leon's distinction between fact and opinion was so blurred that virtually all facts became part of a larger deliberation. He noted that personnel decisions "were part of the overall deliberations on how to effectively respond to Hurricane Katrina and other catastrophic events" and that responding to a fire involved "gauging the appropriate response to a specific type of problem [which] is clearly part of the ongoing, deliberative process about how to respond to a natural disaster." Further, deciding who to include on a teleconference reflected "the decision to include certain individuals in discussions on how to respond to the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina." Turning to the presidential communications privilege, Leon observed that the D.C. Circuit, in Judicial Watch v. Dept of Justice, 365 F.3d1108 (D.C. Cir. 2004), had limited it to information that actually was provided to presidential advisors. Finding this applied to most of the records claimed under the presidential communications privilege, Leon observed that "many of the withheld communications were authored by, or requested and received by, the President's immediate White House advisers, and their staffs, who were formally charged with advising the President and providing him with recommendations in the wake of the hurricane." Rejecting CREW's claim that the advisers had to be identified by name, Leon noted that "whether the privilege applies depends on the nature of the adviser's responsibilities; not his or her name." But Leon agreed with CREW that FEMA had to do more to show that certain records claimed under the privilege actually went to presidential advisors. He pointed out that "communications solely between agency officials that were withheld as 'intended' for White House advisers or 'revealing' communications with White House advisers were not properly exempt under the presidential communications privilege. Although [an agency affidavit] states that 'it can be fairly inferred' that these withheld communications 'ultimately [were] transmitted' to the White House advisors or the President, this is, without more insufficient to meet FEMA's burden."
Opinion/Order [32]Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Richard Leon has ruled that documents memorializing advice considered by the White House in responding to Hurricane Katrina are protected by Exemption 5 (privileges). CREW made a wide-ranging request to FEMA and last year Leon upheld many of the exemption claims. Still at issue were claims that the presidential communications privilege protected 35 documents because they memorialized communications between FEMA and the White House. Leon had been concerned previously whether these documents constituted actual communications with the White House and had asked FEMA for further substantiation of its claims. This time, he noted that FEMA had clarified that "the redacted material does not consist of mere internal agency communications, but rather communications with the President or his immediate advisers or their staff that are memorialized in these internal documents." He relied on Judicial Watch v. Dept of Justice, 365 F.3d 1108 (D.C. Cir. 2004), in which the D.C. Circuit ruled that the presidential communications privilege protected "documents or communications with immediate presidential advisers," but not "internal agency documents never received by the White House." The D.C. Circuit indicated that "communications never received by the President or his Office are unlikely to be 'revelatory of his deliberations.'" But, in this case, Leon observed, "the redacted communications are 'revelatory' of presidential decisionmaking because they memorialize actual communications with the President or his staff; not merely internal agency communications." He pointed out that "CREW's argument that the presidential communications privilege is inapplicable because neither the President nor any other White House employee has seen the documents misses the mark. The privilege is not being claimed over the documents themselves, but rather the communications memorialized in them." He dismissed CREW's concern that such an interpretation could apply to "all communications with the White House regardless of whether the communications relate to presidential decisionmaking," by noting that "since the communications must relate to the President's shaping of policies or making of decisions in order to qualify for the privilege, the mere fact that it was communicated with or solicited and reviewed by a White House adviser or his staff is merely a threshold requirement in the first analysis." But Leon's subsequent description of the documents cast a rather wide net for his interpretation. He indicated that "these communications informed the President about the situation on the ground and were used to 'enable the President's advisers and their respective staffs to formulate advice and recommendations for the President in his decisions regarding how best to accommodate requests for Federal support, both in his capacity as Commander in Chief and as Chief Executive supervising the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina.' Thus, the declarations demonstrate that the communications relate to presidential decisions."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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