Case Detail
Case Title | Stahl v. Department of Justice et al | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
District | Eastern District of New York | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
City | Brooklyn | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Case Number | 1:2019cv04142 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date Filed | 2019-07-17 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date Closed | 2023-01-24 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Judge | Judge Brian M. Cogan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Plaintiff | Aviva Stahl | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Case Description | Journalist Aviva Stahl submitted a FOIA request to the Bureau of Prisons for records concerning the medical treatment of Mohammad Salameh as a result of his prison hunger strike. Stahl submitted a second request for records concerning videos taken of Salameh's forced feeding. Stahl provided an authorization from Salameh giving her permission to access his records. Stahl also requested expedited processing, a fee waiver, and inclusion in the news media fee category. The agency acknowledged receipt of the requests. After a number of inquiries from Stahl, the agency ultimately disclosed 1567 records in full and 37 pages with redactions. The agency withheld records under Exemption 7(E) (investigative methods and techniques) and Exemption 7(F) (harm to any person). Stahl filed an administrative appeal, which was denied. She then filed suit. Complaint issues: Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Defendant | Department of Justice | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Defendant | Federal Bureau of Prisons | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Opinion/Order [29] FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in New York has ruled that most portions of the videos taken of the forced-feeding of Mohammad Salameh, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 terrorist attack against the World Trade Center, by the Bureau of Prisons are protected by Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy), Exemption 7(C) (invasion of privacy concerning law enforcement records), Exemption 7(E) (investigative methods or techniques), and Exemption 7 (F) (harm to person) in response to FOIA requests from investigative journalist Aviva Stahl, but that the agency has not shown that it conducted a segregability analysis to determine if non-exempt portions of the videos could be separated and disclosed. As a result of a hunger strike Salameh began in 2015, his health deteriorated enough to require two medical interventions to force-feed him. Both episodes required Salameh to be physically restrained and fed intravenously. Stahl requested Salameh's medical records as well as videotapes of any involuntary medical treatment. By the time Judge Brian Cogan of the Eastern District of New York ruled on her suit, the only issue remaining was disclosure of the videos. Cogan first addressed whether the records qualified as law enforcement records under the threshold standard for Exemption 7. He noted that "they relate to an integral part of the execution of sentences. . .Salameh's hunger strikes threatened BOP's ability to fulfill its obligations. The BOP responded with the 'involuntary medical treatment' and 'calculated use of force,' and it compiled the videos to document those actions and to guard against allegations of impropriety. Under a commonsense understanding, therefore, the videos were 'compiled for law enforcement purposes' within the meaning of Exemption 7." Cogan found Exemption 7(F) applied to portions of the videos. He noted that "the videos also show 'protective gear,' 'security equipment,' and how the staff used the equipment to restrain an inmate, remove him from a cell, and move him to another part of the prison. Disclosing this information would enable inmates to circumvent the procedures, threatening the BOP's ability to perform them safely." Cogan observed that 7(F) also protected the identities of the prison staff that appeared in the videos, noting that "releasing the names and titles of the staff in the video could reasonably be expected to expose them to retaliation or reprisals." Having found those portions of the video protected by Exemption 7(F), Cogan indicated that "the fact that segments of the videos fall within an exemption does not mean that the entirety does so as well." He explained that "there is another, reasonably segregable portion that Exemption 7(F) does not reach: the segment that shows medical staff conducting the physical examination, ordering that Salameh undergo involuntary medical treatment, and implementing that treatment." Rejecting the agency's objections that medial staff could be identified, Cogan indicated that "that conclusion does not change simply because segregating non-exempt information will require some video editing." He pointed out that "because editing is routine and inexpensive, an agency cannot credibly claim that it lacks access to this technology. And if acquiring this software would stand in the way of complying with FOIA, no video would ever be disclosed." Rejecting the agency's claim that exempt information was inextricably intertwined with non-exempt information, Cogan observed that "but defendants' conclusory assertions do not make that showing, so I cannot conclude that Exemption 7(F) covers the entirety of the videos. If defendants wish to withhold the remaining portion, they must look to another exemption." Although Cogan concluded that Exemption 7(C) applied, he pointed out that "at this point, however, defendants are no better off than under Exemption 7(F). Defendants have not explained why they cannot edit the video to obscure the identities of BOP staff, just as they could have redacted a written document. If defendants wish to withhold the remainder of the video, they once again must look elsewhere." Cogan also rejected the agency's Exemption 7(E) claims. He noted that "defendants have not explained, even at the most general level, what the BOP could have been 'investigating' or 'prosecuting' while recording the remaining portion. Nor have they explained why disclosure would compromise their ability to perform investigations or prosecutions." Cogan concluded by telling the agency that it needed to either supplement its affidavits to justify the exemption claims to the portions of the videos he had found were not exempt or the agency could provide the videos for in camera review.
Opinion/Order [36]Issues: Choice of format - Burdensome, Exemption 7(F) - Harm to safety of any person, Segregability FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in New York has ruled that while videos of the force-feeding of Mohammad Salameh, convicted for his role in the 1993 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City are protected by Exemption 7(F) (harm to a person), the Bureau of Prisons failed to follow the judge's previous order to redact further information and disclose segregable portions. As the result of a 34-day hunger strike by Salameh in November 2015, BOP staff at the Maximum-Security Facility in Florence, Colorado decided to forcibly rehydrate Salameh. On November 4, a BOP lieutenant, accompanied by two camera operators, went to Salameh's cell to tell him they were going to forcibly rehydrate him. Salameh failed to respond, allegedly because he was too weak to come to the cell door. The BOP lieutenant and the two camera operators entered his cell, identified themselves on camera, and told Salameh what they intended to do. The BOP staff that would perform the forced rehydration then entered the cell and identified themselves. When Salameh refused to cooperate, he was restrained and was forcibly rehydrated. He was rehydrated a second time on November 11, but did not resist as strenuously as the previous time. Investigative journalist Aviva Stahl made two FOIA requests for the video tapes made of the two rehydration episodes. The agency located 13 responsive tapes â€" six for the November 4 forced rehydration and seven for the November 11 forced rehydration. Judge Brian Cogan of the Eastern District of New York indicated that the video tapes could be divided into three separate segments. The first segment included the identification of BOP personnel who participated in the forced rehydration. The second segment was the performance of the forced rehydration, where participants wore protective gear and could not be identified. The third segment was a debrief session where participants appeared in a separate room and discussed the performance of the forced rehydration. BOP withheld the tapes under Exemption 7(F). Cogan agreed that Exemption 7(F) applied to portions of the performances of the forced rehydration but found that some more information showing Salameh's reactions to the forced rehydration could be disclosed by further redaction of the personnel in the videos. Cogan explained that the agency's video editor had testified that he thought all the performance videos were exempt and thus did not consider anything but blurring the images, which he decided was not feasible. Cogan indicated that "presumably placing a black box or circle around BOP staff would be a far easier and more complete way to obscure their identity as opposed to merely blurring out portions of a frame. One could envision blacking out everything around an oval of Salameh and then placing a black box over any BOP staff member's hand or body part that entered the remaining frame." Cogan noted that "other courts have required the government to edit videos to obscure identifying information in order to comply with FOIA." He added that "more broadly, video editing has become commonplace in litigation." He told BOP to try once again to redact the videos to provide more footage of Salameh.
Issues: Exemption 7(F) - Harm to safety of any person, Segregability - Disclosure of all non-exempt records | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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