Case Detail
| Case Title | LEOPOLD v. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2014cv00048 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2014-01-14 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2015-03-31 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge James E. Boasberg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | JASON LEOPOLD | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Leopold requested a copy of an internal CIA report on its interrogation and detention program which was referred to by Sen. Mark Udall during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. Leopold requested expedited processing and a fee waiver. After hearing nothing further from the agency, Leopold filed suit. Complaint issues: failure to grant expedited processing, improper withholding, attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Opinion/Order [30] FOIA Project Annotation: Handing another victory to the CIA, Judge James Boasberg has ruled that an internal study created by the agency as part of its review of the contents of the records being turned over to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee as part of the Committee's investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation program is entirely protected by Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege). When the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence announced in 2009 that it would review the CIA's detention and interrogation program, it negotiated access to millions of pages of unredacted records for certain staff members. Then-CIA Director Leon Panetta asked to be kept apprised of the Senate review and the agency created a Special Review Team that was tasked with researching various related topics. Team members would then include anything significant in written reviews. The project was abandoned, however, after a year because the agency concluded it could complicate a separate criminal investigation being conducted by the Justice Department. The team reviewed less than half the responsive documents and its reviews were left unfinished. Several years after the project was terminated, Sen. Mark Udall (D-NM) publicly referenced an "internal study" the agency had allegedly drafted about its detention program. Journalist Jason Leopold then made a FOIA request for the study. After some negotiation, Leopold agreed to limit his request to what was known as the Panetta Review. The agency then told Leopold that it was withholding the review entirely, citing Exemption 1 (national security) and Exemption 3 (other statutes) as well as Exemption 5. Boasberg, however, found the review was properly withheld under Exemption 5 and did not discuss either of the other exemptions. Relying on Senate of Puerto Rico v. Dept of Justice, 823 F.2d 574 (D.C. Cir. 1987), Leopold argued that "the agency's reference to various potential uses to which the Reviews might have been put is too general, and that the government must be able to point to a specific decisionâ€"e.g. 'whether to use particular methods of interrogation in the future'â€"to which the documents could have contributed." Unfortunately for Leopold, the D.C. Circuit had rejected the "specific decision" limitation in my one contribution to FOIA litigation, Access Reports v. Dept of Justice, 926 F.2d 1192 (D.C. Cir. 1991), in which the D.C. Circuit concluded the deliberative process privilege extended to a potentially endless series of deliberations an agency might conduct as long as they somehow were marginally connected together. Although Boasberg did not mention the Supreme Court's decision in NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132 (1975), a footnote in Sears indicating that agencies should be constantly deliberating on matters regardless of whether they reached a decision, was a crucial observation in rebutting the 'specific decision" analysis. Quoting from Access Reports, Boasberg observed that the deliberative process privilege was "aimed at protecting [an agency's] decisional process' and that it is unnecessary to identify a specific decision to which withheld materials contributed." He noted that the D.C. Circuit accepted "that the Justice Department's assertion that a memo was prepared to aid its 'study of how to shepherd [a] bill through Congress' sufficiently defined the decisionmaking process to which the document contributed, and that the agency had sustained it burden of showing that the memo was predecisional." Applying the holding of Access Reports to the case before him, Boasberg indicated that 'the decisionmaking process identified here is no more vague than the one described in Access Reports. According to the CIA, the Reviews were created to aid senior agency officials' deliberations about how to respond to the SSCI's investigation into its former program, as well as how to deal with other policy issues that might arise therefrom. Contrary to Plaintiff's assertions, a finding that the documents are predecisional would not stretch the meaning of the term too far or risk rendering every document exempt because it might someday be used by agency officials to make 'various policy decisions.' Here, there was a congressional inquiry underway about a specific CIA program. That program had already generated considerable international controversy, and senior CIA officials knew that they would have to respond to the Committee's eventual report. They also knew that they might be called upon to make other decisions stemming from the Committee's study, such as how to prepare for meetings with other agencies on the subject. The agency was thus engaged in an ongoing, multi-year, deliberative process about how to handle these issues, and the Reviews preceded the agency's final decisions in that process." Leopold argued that the reviews were not predecisional because they addressed the CIA's former detention and interrogation program. Unfortunately, Access Reports had rejected that argument as well. Boasberg explained that "the plaintiff there contended that a memo about the potential impacts of certain proposed amendments to FOIA could not be considered predecisional because it was drafted after the Department submitted its legislative proposals to Congress. The court explained, however, that the Department had not prepared the memo to explain its past decisions, but instead 'as ammunition for the expected fray.' It analogized the memo to 'a staffer's preparation of "talking points" for an agency chief about how to handle a potentially explosive press conference.' Such talking points, while they may relate to past decisions or events, are predecisional because they are drafted to aid future policy-oriented decisionsâ€"e.g., how to respond to press inquiries." Boasberg then found the reviews were deliberative. He rejected Leopold's contention that the agency was required to disclose factual materials. He pointed out, however, that "the Reviews were not comprehensive, matter-of-fact summaries about the selected topics, nor were they rote recitations of facts. Rather, the authors strove to write briefing materials that would aid senior officials' decisionmaking." He observed that "the Reviews, consequently, reflected a point of viewâ€"namely, what agency personnel thought important enough to bring to senior officials' attention in light of their understanding of the policy issues that the CIA might face as a result of the investigation." Leopold argued that because the reviews did not incorporate any feedback from the CIA's leadership disclosure would not reveal any internal give-and-take. Boasberg noted that "but the agency's intended editing process was not what makes the Reviews deliberative. Instead, it is their planned role in the agency's decisionmaking process and the significant discretion that the authors exercised in order to prepare useful briefing documents on their selected topics."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Predecisional | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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