Case Detail
| Case Title | Electronic Frontier Foundation v. Department of Commerce | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | Northern District of California | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | San Francisco | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 3:2012cv03683 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2012-07-13 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2013-07-22 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Hon. Thelton E. Henderson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | Electronic Frontier Foundation | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | Department of Commerce | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Appeal | Ninth Circuit 13-16480 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Opinion/Order [29] Opinion/Order [34] Opinion/Order [39] FOIA Project Annotation: To invoke Exemption 3 (other statutes), an agency must rely on a statutory provision. An agency regulation without a statutory basis does not qualify under Exemption 3. But what happens when an accepted Exemption 3 statute expires? A federal court in California has just provided an answer, finding that Section 12(c) of the Export Administration Act, long recognized as a bona fide Exemption 3 statute, no longer qualifies under FOIA because it has been expired since 2001. While the government has continued to use it to withhold information contained in dual-use export license applications for goods and technologies with both civilian and military applications, its continued use since 2001 has depended on an annual executive order issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the President to declare a national emergency and then regulate exports. EFF requested from the Commerce Department information for export license applications pertaining to devices and technologies primarily used to intercept or block communications. The Bureau of Industry and Security responded that it had located 45 responsive applications but was withholding them in their entirety under Section 12(c) of the EAA. Although Section 12(c) had been upheld ten years earlier by the Eleventh Circuit and the D.C. Circuit, EFF argued that since the EAA's most recent expiration in 2001, the statute's disclosure prohibition had continued to be enforced through a series of annual executive orders based on the IEEPA which did not qualify under Exemption 3. Judge Thelton Henderson sided with the public interest group, noting that "mindful that FOIA exemptions are to be construed narrowly in favor of disclosure, the Court agrees with EFF. Commerce has not shown that there is a statute within the scope of Exemption 3. [President Obama's] Executive Order 13222 is not a statute; it is an order by the President that the export control system be continued in effect 'to the extent permitted by law.' . . .Executive Order 13222 may not be interpreted as extending the EAA's August 20, 2001, expiration date." Further, he pointed out that "the IEEPAâ€"the only statute currently in effect to which Commerce pointsâ€"is not within Exemption 3's scope. The IEEPA permits the President upon declaring a national emergency, to regulate exports. . . [But] because the IEEPA makes no reference to withholding documents from the public, it cannot be a statute within the scope of Exemption 3." The last time the lapsed EEA was subject to litigation was ten years ago. In Times Publishing Co. v. Department of Commerce, 236 F.3d 1286 (11th Cir. 2001) and Wisconsin Project v Department of Commerce, 317 F.3d 275 (D.C. Cir. 2003), both the Eleventh Circuit and the D.C. Circuit ruled that the combination of an executive order and the IPEEA, even though not technically a statute, still satisfied Exemption 3 by expressing congressional intent to keep the EEA's disclosure prohibition in force. But Henderson pointed out that the two opinions dealt with FOIA requests made in 1999 and relied heavily on the fact that Congress had specifically reauthorized the EAA by passing the 2000 Export Administration Modification and Clarification Act, which expired in 2001. Henderson explained that "the legislative history of the EAMCA demonstrates that Congress understood and intended that the bill would extend the validity of the EEA through August 30, 2001, and that after that date, Commerce would not be able to rely on Exemption 3 to withhold information protected from disclosure by Section 12(c)." He observed that Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) had remarked that after that time he anticipated the EEA would be subject to a comprehensive review. Henderson observed that the Eleventh Circuit had found that the passage of the EAMCA was crucial to the continued viability of the EEA as an Exemption 3 statute. The Eleventh Circuit indicated that "in light of 'Congress' clear expression of its intent to protect the confidentiality of the requested export licensing information' by enacting the EAMCA to extend the EAA's expiration date, and of the fact that the EAA had been maintained in effect by executive order during the lapse, the court reasoned that an 'overly technical and formalistic reading of FOIA to disclose information clearly intended to be confidential' would deprive Exemption 3 of 'meaningful reach and application.'" In Wisconsin Project, the D.C. Circuit concluded that "the IEEPA qualifies as an Exemption 3 statute.' But Henderson noted that 'this is simply incorrectâ€"as Judge Randolph observed in dissent, '[t]he [IEEPA], which does not itself exempt anything from disclosure, flatly fails to qualify as an Exemption 3 statute.'" He added that "because the EAA is expired, the IEEPA is not an Exemption 3 statute, and Executive Order 13222 is not a statute, Commerce cannot rely on Exemption 3 to withhold materials responsive to EFF's request." Without the protection of Exemption 3, the agency was forced to fall back on Exemption 4 and Exemption 5. Although the agency claimed disclosure would make it difficult to get information from exporters in the future, Henderson indicated that "because would-be exporters have no choice but to submit the information [requested by the agency], disclosure would be unlikely, as a general matter, to impair the government's ability to obtain the information necessary to adjudicate applications in the future." Although the agency had submitted an affidavit from the head of a trade organization pertaining to competitive harm, Henderson noted that "without more detailed information about the contents of the withheld export license applications, it is impossible for the Court to determine whether any of the material they contain already has been disclosed." Henderson observed that some information likely qualified for protection under Exemption 5, but added that the agency had not provided enough detail for him to make such a determination. Henderson found the agency had conducted an adequate search. Although EFF argued the agency should have searched a category of export license applications for interception technology, Henderson pointed out that the category had been created after EFF's request. He noted that "while agencies should work with FOIA requesters to define the parameters of their requests, FOIA requesters must phrase their requests with sufficient particularity to enable the agency conducting the search to determine what records are being requested. Litigation is not an appropriate forum for expanding the scope of a FOIA request or hashing out the scope of an ambiguous one."
Issues: Exemption 3 - Statutory prohibition of disclosure | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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