The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): A
Legal Overview
August 24, 2020
Daniel J. Sheffner
Originally enacted in 1966, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) establishes a three-part
Legislative Attorney
system that requires federal agencies to disclose a large swath of government information to the

public. First, FOIA directs agencies to publish substantive and procedural rules, along with
certain other important government materials, in the Federal Register. Second, on a proactive

basis, agencies must electronically disclose a separate set of information that consists of, among
other things, final adjudicative opinions and certain “frequently requested” records. And lastly, FOIA requires agencies to
disclose all covered records not made available pursuant to the aforementioned affirmative disclosure provisions to
individuals, corporations, and others upon request.
While FOIA’s main purpose is to inform the public of the operations of the federal government, the act’s drafters also sought
to protect certain private and governmental interests from the law’s disclosure obligations. FOIA, therefore, contains nine
enumerated exemptions from disclosure that permit—but they do not require—agencies to withhold a range of information,
including certain classified national security matters, confidential financial information, law enforcement records, and a
variety of materials and types of information exempted by other statutes. And FOIA contains three “exclusions” that
authorize agencies to treat certain law enforcement records as if they do not fall within FOIA’s coverage.
FOIA also authorizes requesters to seek judicial review of an agency’s decision to withhold records. Federal district courts
may “enjoin [an] agency from withholding agency records” and “order the production of any agency records improperly
withheld.” Judicial decisions—including Supreme Court decisions—have often informed or provided the impetus for
congressional amendments to FOIA.
Although Congress is not subject to FOIA, the act may inform communications between the legislative branch and FOIA-
covered entities. Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(d), an agency may not “withhold information from Congress” on the basis that such
information is covered by a FOIA exemption (although the provision does not dictate whether another source of law, such as
executive privilege, may shield information from disclosure). The executive branch has interpreted this provision to apply to
each house of Congress and congressional committees, but generally not to individual Members, whose requests for
information are generally treated as subject to the same FOIA rules as requests from the public. This interpretation is not
uniformly shared, with at least one federal appellate court interpreting § 552(d) as applying to individual Members acting in
their official capacities. In addition, although Congress is under no obligation to disclose its materials pursuant to FOIA,
whether a congressional document possessed by an agency is subject to FOIA depends on whether Congress clearly
expressed its intention to retain control over the specific document.
Lastly, although FOIA is the primary statutory mechanism by which the public may gain access to federal government
records and information, other laws—specifically the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Government in the Sunshine Act,
and Privacy Act—also set forth rights and limitations on the public’s access to government information or activities.

Congressional Research Service

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): A Legal Overview

he Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)1 confers on the public a right to access federal
agency information.2 Before FOIA’s enactment, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)3
T had required agencies to make certain government information available to the public. But
the exceptions to disclosure in the APA’s public information section had, in the estimation of
FOIA’s drafters, “become the major statutory excuse for withholding Government records from
public view.”4 The exceptions were broad. For example, agencies could withhold information if
doing so was “in the public interest”5 or—for “matters of official record”—when information was
“held confidential for good cause found.”6 In addition, the APA’s public information section
lacked a provision authorizing a person to seek judicial review of an agency’s decision to
withhold information.7
To rectify the APA’s perceived failure to provide the public with adequate access to government
information, Congress enacted FOIA in 1966 as an amendment to the APA. In FOIA, Congress
sought to establish a statutory scheme that embodied “a broad philosophy of ‘freedom of
information’” and ensured “the availability of Government information necessary to an informed
electorate.”8 To effectuate Congress’s desire for robust public access to agency information, FOIA
establishes a three-part system of disclosure by which agencies must disclose a large swath of
records and information.9 First, FOIA directs agencies to publish “substantive rules of general
applicability,” procedural rules, and specified other important government materials in the
Federal Register.10 Second, on a proactive basis, agencies must electronically disclose a separate
set of agency information including, among other things, final adjudicative opinions and certain
“frequently requested” records.11 And third, FOIA’s request-driven system of disclosure requires
that, “[e]xcept with respect to the records made available under” the statute’s proactive disclosure
provisions, agencies disclose covered records to individuals, corporations, and others upon
request.12
FOIA’s tripartite system of disclosure aims to open up a vast array of federal agency information
and records to private individuals, researchers, journalists, corporations, and other parties. In
addition, disclosure under FOIA may bring information to Congress’s attention that may inform
its oversight of FOIA-covered agencies.13 As one court has remarked, “FOIA is the legislative

1 5 U.S.C. § 552.
2 See Pratt v. Webster, 673 F.2d 408, 413 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (“[FOIA] was enacted by Congress . . . in order to provide a
statutory right of public access to documents and records held by agencies of the federal government.”).
3 5 U.S.C. §§ 551-59, 701-06.
4 H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 3 (1966); see also S. REP. NO. 813, at 5 (1965) (explaining that the APA’s public information
section allowed agencies to “withhold almost anything from any citizen under [its] vague standards”).
5 5 U.S.C. § 1002 (amended by Pub. L. No. 89-487, 80 Stat. 150 (1966)).
6 Id. § 1002(c); see also, e.g., id. (limiting the availability of matters of official record “to persons properly and directly
concerned”). See H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 5-6 (1966) (discussing agencies’ abuse of the APA’s public information
section).
7 S. REP. NO. 813, at 5 (1965).
8 Id. at 3; H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 12 (1966).
9 See Fed. Open Mkt. Comm. of Fed. Reserve Sys. v. Merrill, 443 U.S. 340, 352 (1979).
10 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1); id. § 552(a)(1)(C), (D).
11 Id. § 552(a)(2); id. § 552(a)(2)(A), (D).
12 Id. § 552(a)(3); see id. § 552(a)(4)(B) (providing that federal district courts have “jurisdiction to enjoin [agencies]
from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld”).
13 See, e.g., Letter to Donald J. Trump, President, from Representative Don Beyer, et al., at 2 (Apr. 6, 2018),
https://beyer.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=815 (describing information revealed by a FOIA
request about the activities of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) task force in letter urging the President to
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embodiment of Justice Brandeis’s famous adage” that “[s]unlight is . . . the best of
disinfectants.”14
While FOIA’s main purpose is to inform the public of the operations of the federal government,15
the act’s drafters sought to protect certain private and governmental interests from the new law’s
disclosure obligations.16 FOIA thus contains nine exemptions from disclosure that authorize, but
do not require, agencies to withhold information or records that are otherwise subject to release or
availability under the statute.17 Most of FOIA’s nine enumerated exemptions are designed to
protect against fairly general harms that may arise from disclosure,18 while others concern very
specific types of information,19 and one incorporates numerous exemptions contained in other
federal statutes.20And along with its nine exemptions, FOIA contains three records “exclusions”
that cover certain “especially sensitive law enforcement records.”21 If records protected by an
exclusion are subject to a FOIA request, an agency may “treat the records as not subject to the
requirements of” FOIA.22
Lastly, the statute authorizes requesters to challenge in federal court an agency’s decision to
withhold requested records.23 Federal district courts may “enjoin [an] agency from
withholding agency records” and “order the production of any agency records improperly
withheld.”24
This report provides an overview of FOIA.25 First, the report examines key terms that dictate the
scope of agencies’ disclosure obligations under FOIA.26 The report then provides an overview of

request the EPA Administrator’s resignation).
14 N.H. Right to Life v. HHS, 778 F.3d 43, 48-49 (1st Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration in
original) (quoting LOUIS D. BRANDEIS, OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY AND HOW THE BANKERS USE IT 92 (Frederick A. Stokes
Co. ed. 1914)).
15 DOD v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. 487, 495 (1994) (explaining that “the core purpose of FOIA . . . is
contributing significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government” (emphasis and
internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting DOJ v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 777
(1989))).
16 S. REP. NO. 813, at 3 (1965); FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. 615, 621 (1982).
17 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1)-(9).
18 See, e.g., id. § 552(b)(1) (appropriately classified national security matters); (b)(4) (trade secrets or certain
commercial or financial information submitted to the government by a third party); (b)(7) (certain law enforcement
records).
19 See id. § 552(b)(8) (certain financial institution reports), (b)(9) (geological and geophysical information concerning
wells).
20 Id. § 552(b)(3).
21 Id. § 552(c); Edwin Meese III, Attorney General’s Memorandum on the 1986 Amendments to the Freedom of
Information Act, at 2 (Dec. 1987) [hereinafter Meese Memorandum],
https://www.justice.gov/archive/oip/86agmemo.htm.
22 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(1)-(3).
23 Id. § 552(a)(4)(B).
24 Id.
25 This report is not intended to provide an exhaustive account of all topics related to FOIA. Sources that analyze FOIA
in greater detail include JAMES T. O’REILLY, FEDERAL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE (2019 ed.) and DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO.
POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (last updated Aug. 4, 2020.), https://www.justice.gov/oip/doj-
guide-freedom-information-act-0. An examination of agencies’ administration of FOIA can be found in CRS Report
R41933, The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): Background, Legislation, and Policy Issues, by Meghan M. Stuessy.
26 See infra “Key Terms.”
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FOIA’s three disclosure requirements.27 Following that discussion, the report reviews each of
FOIA’s nine exemptions28 and, in a later section, its three records exclusions.29 After an overview
of selected issues concerning judicial review of agency decisions to withhold information under
FOIA,30 this report discusses two topics of potential interest to Congress: FOIA’s “special access”
provision—which provides that FOIA does not authorize agencies “to withhold information from
Congress”31—and the status of congressional records under FOIA.32 Lastly, this report discusses
three other laws that, like FOIA, govern the availability of specific types of government
information and constitute significant elements of the federal government’s open government and
information legal regimes: the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA);33 Government in the
Sunshine Act (Sunshine Act);34 and Privacy Act.35
Key Terms
FOIA generally requires each federal “agency” to make “agency records” available to the public
and specifically to “any person” who requests them.36 FOIA does not, however, require every
federal entity to disclose government information to the public, nor must a covered entity disclose
every piece of information it possesses. And not all persons have a right to receive records under
the act. Three key statutory terms inform FOIA’s general scope: (1) “agency”;37 (2) “agency
records”;38 and (3) “any person.”39 The meaning of each of these terms determines which entities
must comply with FOIA, what materials must be disclosed under the act, and to whom FOIA
grants the right to request and receive records.
“Agency”
FOIA requires “agencies” to disclose a broad array of information to the public. The APA’s
general definition section in 5 U.S.C. § 551 defines “agency” as “each authority of the
Government of the United States, whether or not it is within or subject to review by another
agency.”40 FOIA embraces this general definition and provides that, for the act’s purposes, the
term “includes any executive department, military department, Government corporation,
Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the

27 See infra “Access to Government Information Under FOIA.”
28 See infra “Exemptions.”
29 See infra “Exclusions.”
30 See infra “FOIA-Related Litigation: Selected Issues.”
31 5 U.S.C. § 552(d).
32 See infra “Selected Issues of Potential Interest for Congress.”
33 5 U.S.C. app. 2.
34 Id. § 552b.
35 Id. § 552a; see infra “Related Open Government and Information Laws: FACA, the Sunshine Act, and the Privacy
Act.”
36 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A), (4)(B).
37 See id. §§ 551(1), 552(f)(2); see also id. § 552(a)(3)(A) (requiring that “each agency . . . make [requested] records
promptly available” upon receiving a proper request).
38 See id. § 552(a)(4)(B).
39 See id. § 552(a)(3)(A).
40 Id. § 551(1). Several entities are explicitly excepted from this definition. See, e.g., id. § 551(1)(A) (Congress), (B)
(federal courts).
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The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): A Legal Overview

Government (including the Executive Office of the President), or any independent regulatory
agency.”41 While this definition includes a large swath of the federal government, it does not
encompass the entire federal establishment. For example, FOIA does not apply to Congress, the
federal courts, or territorial governments.42
Although FOIA’s definition of “agency” includes the Executive Office of the President (EOP),43
courts have determined that several entities within the EOP are nevertheless not subject to the act.
In Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Supreme Court held that
transcripts of Henry Kissinger’s telephone conversations from his time as Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs were not subject to disclosure under FOIA.44 The Court

41 Id. § 552(f)(1).
42 Id. § 551(1) (providing that the definition of “agency” in the APA does not apply to, inter alia, “(A) the Congress;
(B) the courts of the United States; [or] (C) the governments of the territories or possessions of the United States”).
Courts have clarified that FOIA does not apply to the entirety of the legislative and judicial branches, including their
subcomponents. See, e.g., Mayo v. GPO, 9 F.3d 1450, 1451 (9th Cir. 1993) (recognizing that the Government
Publishing Office, as a legislative branch entity, was not covered by FOIA); Andrade v. U.S. Sentencing Comm’n, 989
F.2d 308, 309-10 (9th Cir. 1993) (ruling that FOIA does not apply to the Sentencing Commission as it is a judicial
branch entity). See also Mayo, 9 F.3d at 451 (explaining that “[j]ust as [FOIA] in excluding ‘the courts of the United
States,’ 5 U.S.C. § 551(1)(B), excludes not only the courts themselves but the entire judicial branch, so the entire
legislative branch has been exempted from [FOIA]”); Cause of Action v. Nat’l Archives & Records Admin., 753 F.3d
210, 212 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (explaining that “FOIA does not cover congressional documents, or documents of legislative
branch agencies”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). However, many entities that are not subject to FOIA
nonetheless authorize public access to many of their records. See, e.g., 4 C.F.R. pt. 81 (Government Accountability
Office). And some entities that fall outside FOIA’s coverage are nonetheless required to provide access to records
under non-FOIA statutes. See, e.g., 2 U.S.C. § 603 (Congressional Budget Office).
Further, FOIA’s disclosure obligations do not apply to state and local government entities. See, e.g., Grand Cent.
Partnership, Inc. v. Cuomo, 166 F.3d 473, 484 (2d Cir. 1999); Foley v. Vill. of Weston, No. 06-C-350-C, 2006 WL
3449414, at *5 (W.D. Wis. Nov. 28, 2006). States have enacted their own public records laws. See Daniel J. Solove,
Access and Aggregation: Public Records, Privacy and the Constitution, 86 MINN. L. REV. 1137, 1161 (2002).
Relatedly, in Forsham v Harris, 445 U.S. 169 (1980), the Supreme Court held that FOIA does not apply to private
recipients of federal grants that are not subject to “extensive, detailed, and virtually day-to-day supervision” by a
covered agency, id. at 178-80. See Ky. Emples. Ret. Sys. v. Seven Counties Servs., 901 F.3d 718, 728-29 (6th Cir.
2018) (explaining that Forsham held that federal grants do not “serve to convert the acts of the recipient from private
acts to governmental acts absent extensive, detailed, and virtually day-to-day supervision—even if . . . some measure of
federal agency supervision is a condition of the grant renewals”) (internal citations and quotations omitted); accord
Mo. ex rel. Garstang v. DOI, 297 F.3d 745, 750 (8th Cir 2001) (“To convert a private organization . . . into a federal
government agency, the government must engage in ‘extensive, detailed, and virtually day-to-day supervision.’”
(quoting Forsham, 445 U.S. at 180)).
Notably, in a rider to the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1999, Pub. L. No.
105-277, 112 Stat. 2681 (Oct. 21, 1998), Congress directed the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to amend
OMB Circular A–110, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal
Awards, to mandate that “Federal awarding agencies . . . ensure that all data produced under an award will be made
available to the public through the procedures established under” FOIA. Pub. L. No. 105-277, 112 Stat. at 2681-495.
The circular now provides that a recipient of a federal award must provide to its awarding agency, upon request,
“research data relating to published research findings produced under a Federal award that were used by the Federal
Government in developing an agency action that has the force and effect of law,” if such data has been requested under
FOIA, “so that [such data] can be made available to the public through the procedures established under the FOIA.” 2
C.F.R. § 200.315(e)(1). The awarding agency is required to request the data from the funding recipient upon receiving
a request therefor. Id. “Research data” does not include, among other things, “preliminary analyses, drafts of scientific
papers, plans for future research, peer reviews, or communications with colleagues.” Id. § 200.315(e)(3). Research
findings are “published” when they appear “in a peer-reviewed scientific or technical journal” or when an “agency
publicly and officially cites the research findings in support of an agency action that has the force and effect of law.”
Id. § 200.315(e)(2).
43 See 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(2).
44 445 U.S. 136, 156 (1980).
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The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): A Legal Overview

explained that the term “agency” as used in FOIA does not apply to “the President’s immediate
personal staff or units in the Executive Office whose sole function is to advise and assist the
President.”45 Courts have determined that several EOP entities are not FOIA “agencies” by virtue
of their solely advisory or operational functions, including the Council of Economic Advisers,46
Office of Administration,47 and National Security Council.48 On the other hand, courts have held

45 Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting H.R. REP. NO. 1380, at 15 (1974) (Conf. Rep.)). The standard set
forth by the Court in Kissinger was quoted from the conference report underlying the 1974 amendments to FOIA. Id.
That report states that “[t]he term [“Executive Office of the President”] is not to be interpreted as including the
President’s immediate personal staff or units in the Executive Office whose sole function is to advise and assist the
President.” H.R. REP. NO. 1380, at 15 (1974) (Conf. Rep.). Immediately before announcing this standard, the report
provides that “[w]ith respect to the meaning of the term ‘Executive Office of the President’ the conferees intend the
result reached in Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d 1067 (C.A.D.C. 1971).” In Soucie, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) held that the Office of Science and Technology (OST) was an agency under
FOIA. Id. at 1075. The court arrived at that result after concluding that “the APA apparently confers agency status on
any administrative unit with substantial independent authority in the exercise of specific functions.” Id. at 1073. While
the court observed that OST exercised substantial independent authority, it acknowledged that if the office’s “sole
function were to advise and assist the President, that might be taken as an indication that [it] is part of the President’s
staff and not a separate agency.” Id. at 1075. The Soucie decision and the conference report’s adoption thereof suggest
that the D.C Circuit and Congress “wished to avoid the serious separation-of-powers questions that too expansive a
reading of FOIA would engender.” Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Secret Service, 726 F.3d 208, 227 (D.C. Cir. 2013).
46 Rushforth v. Council of Econ. Advisers, 762 F.2d 1038, 1042-43 (D.C. Cir. 1985).
47 Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. (CREW) v. Office of Admin., 566 F.3d 219, 226 (D.C. Cir. 2009).
48 Main St. Legal Servs. v. Nat’l Sec. Council, 811 F.3d 542, 566 (2d Cir. 2016); Armstrong v. Exec. Office of the
President, 90 F.3d 553, 565 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Cf. Sweetland v. Walters, 60 F.3d 852, 854 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (per curiam)
(holding “that the staff of the Executive Residence is not an agency as defined in FOIA”). The 1974 House committee
report, which preceded the conference report relied on by the Supreme Court in Kissinger, stated that the “Executive
Office of the President” term included the National Security Council (NSC). H.R. REP. NO. 876 (1974), reprinted in
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT AND AMENDMENTS OF 1974 (P.L. 93-502), SOURCE BOOK: LEGISLATIVE HISTORY,
TEXTS, AND OTHER DOCUMENTS, at 121, 128 (Joint Comm. Print 1975). And the Court in Kissinger, in response to the
argument that some of the requested notes from Kissinger’s time as presidential adviser may have been NSC records,
referred to the committee report’s conclusion that NSC records were subject to FOIA. See 445 U.S. at 136 (writing that
the committee report “indicat[es] that the [NSC] is an executive agency to which the FOIA applies”). But the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Main Street Legal Services explained that the Kissinger Court’s
“assumption that the NSC was an agency was made only arguendo in concluding . . . that the plaintiffs in that case had
failed properly to make a FOIA request for any NSC records” and that “[s]uch an assumption is not even dictum.” 811
F.3d at 552; see Rushforth, 762 F.2d at 1040 (“Where . . . the specific mention of the [Council of Economic Advisers]
in the House Report was dropped and a specific, judicially formulated test was adopted by the Conference Committee
for determining the FOIA status of such entities, the House Report is entitled to little weight in this respect. Manifestly,
the Conference elected to embrace a test to be substituted for a listing of the entities to be included; the outcome of the
case before us should, accordingly, turn on an examination of Soucie and the sole-function test enunciated in that
case.”).
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that entities within the EOP that “wield[] substantial authority independently of the President,”49
such as the Office of Management and Budget,50 are agencies under FOIA.51
“Agency Records”
Just as only “agencies” are subject to FOIA’s disclosure requirements, only “agency records”
need be disclosed under the act.52 FOIA, however, does not define “agency records.”53 Without a
statutory definition, the Supreme Court, in Department of Justice (DOJ) v. Tax Analysts,54 held
that materials qualify as agency records if an agency (1) created or obtained the materials and (2)
was “in control of the requested materials at the time the FOIA request [was] made.”55 An agency
comes in control of materials if, per Tax Analysts, “the materials have come into the agency’s
possession in the legitimate conduct of its official duties.”56
As the two-part test makes clear, a record may be subject to disclosure even when an agency did
not create the record, as long as the agency obtained and controlled the record when it was
requested.57 To determine whether an agency exercises “control” of a record, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) developed the “Burka test,” which
considers
(1) the intent of the document’s creator to retain or relinquish control over the
records;
(2) the ability of the agency to use and dispose of the record as it sees fit;

49 CREW, 566 F.3d at 222-23 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Sweetland, 60 F.3d at 854). This test is
derived from Soucie decision, discussed supra note 45. In CREW v. Office of Administration, the D.C. Circuit
explained that it has articulated several tests for analyzing whether FOIA applies to an entity within the EOP, and that
“[t]hese tests have asked, variously, ‘whether the entity exercises substantial independent authority,’ ‘whether . . . the
entity’s sole function is to advise and assist the President,’ and in an effort to harmonize these tests, ‘how close
operationally the group is to the President,’ ‘whether it has a self-contained structure,’ and ‘the nature of its
delegat[ed]’ authority.” 566 F.3d at 222 (citations omitted) (ellipses and second alteration in original). But, the court
explained, “common to every case in which we have held that an EOP unit is subject to FOIA has been a finding that
the entity in question ‘wielded substantial authority independently of the President.’” Id. at 222-23 (quoting Sweetland,
60 F.3d at 854).
50 CREW, 566 F.3d at 223 (citing Sierra Club v. Andrus, 581 F.2d 895, 901-02 (D.C. Cir. 1978), and explaining that the
Andrus decision stands for the proposition that OMB “exercises substantial independent authority because it has a
statutory duty to prepare the annual federal budget, which aids both Congress and the President”).
51 See id.
52 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) (providing that federal district courts have “jurisdiction to enjoin [agencies] from improperly
withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld”) (emphasis
added).
53 Forsham v. Harris, 445 U.S. 169, 178 (1980). FOIA does define “record” (unmodified by “agency”). See 5 U.S.C.
§ 552(f)(2). However, that definition does not provide insight into the meaning of “agency record.” See id. (providing
that “record” refers to “(A) any information that would be an agency record subject to the requirements of this section
when maintained by an agency in any format, including an electronic format; and (B) any information described under
subparagraph (A) that is maintained for an agency by an entity under Government contract, for the purposes of records
management”).
54 492 U.S. 136 (1989).
55 Id. at 144-45 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
56 Id. at 145.
57 See id. at 144 (writing that, “[i]n performing their official duties, agencies routinely avail themselves of studies, trade
journal reports, and other materials produced outside the agencies both by private and governmental organizations” and
that “[t]o restrict the term ‘agency records’ to materials generated internally would frustrate Congress’ desire to put
within public reach the information available to an agency in its decision-making processes”).
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(3) the extent to which agency personnel have read or relied upon the document; and
(4) the degree to which the document was integrated into the agency’s record system
or files.58
That said, an agency’s mere ability to obtain materials, if not exercised, does not establish that
such materials are agency records.59 And FOIA does not require an agency to create agency
records in response to a FOIA request, only to disclose records it has already received or created
and that are already under its control.60
Because FOIA only applies to “agency records,” it does not obligate agencies to disclose publicly
the “personal records” of agency employees.61 As the Supreme Court in Tax Analysts explained,
“the term ‘agency records’ is not so broad as to include personal materials in an employee’s
possession, even though the materials may be physically located at the agency.”62 The D.C.
Circuit has employed “a totality of the circumstances test” to assess whether material constitutes
an “agency record” subject to FOIA or a “personal record” excluded from the statute’s
coverage.63 This “test focuses on a variety of factors surrounding the creation, possession, control,
and use of the document by an agency.”64 In applying the totality of the circumstances test in

58 Burka v. HHS, 87 F.3d 508, 515 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (numerical
formatting altered). Despite its name, the court originally set forth the Burka test in Tax Analysts v. DOJ, 845 F.2d 160-
69 (D.C. Cir. 1988), aff’d on other grounds, 492 U.S. 136.
59 See Forsham v. Harris, 445 U.S. 169, 186 (1980) (holding, in the context of information generated by a private
grantee of federal funds as to which agency had a right to access and obtain custody over, that “FOIA applies to records
which have been in fact obtained, and not to records which merely could have been obtained”); cf. Burka, 87 F.3d at
515 (holding that data possessed by third-party were agency records where agency had “constructive control” of the
data); but see Bloomberg L.P. v. Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., 649 F. Supp. 2d 262, 275 (S.D.N.Y. 2009)
(holding that “[t]he Supreme Court’s teachings in Tax Analysts, Forsham, and Kissinger certainly do not compel
adoption of the constructive obtainment and control theory, and thus this Court declines to do so under the facts
presented here”). Further, the Supreme Court explained in Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press,
445 U.S. 136 (1980), that the fact that materials are physically located in an agency is not sufficient, alone, to render
such materials agency records. See id. at 157 (“We simply decline to hold that the physical location of the notes of
telephone conversations renders them ‘agency records.’ The papers were not in the control of the State Department at
any time. They were not generated in the State Department. They never entered the State Department’s files, and they
were not used by the Department for any purpose. If mere physical location of papers and materials could confer status
as an ‘agency record’ Kissinger’s personal books, speeches, and all other memorabilia stored in his office would have
been agency records subject to disclosure under the FOIA.”).
60 See NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 162 (1975) (writing that FOIA “only requires disclosure of
certain documents which the law requires the agency to prepare or which the agency has decided for its own reasons to
create”); Kissinger, 445 U.S. at 152 (stating that FOIA “does not obligate agencies to create or retain documents; it
only obligates them to provide access to those which it in fact has created and retained”).
61 See Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 25 F.3d 1241, 1247 (4th Cir. 1994) (“[P]ersonal records of an agency employee are not
agency records and are not subject to the FOIA.”); DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF
INFORMATION ACT, PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS, at 16 (Sept. 4, 2019) [hereinafter DOJ GUIDE, PROCEDURAL
REQUIREMENTS], https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1199421/download.
62 Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. at 145 (citing Kissinger, 445 U.S. at 157).
63 CREW v. DHS, 527 F. Supp. 2d. 76, 88 n.15 (D.D.C. 2007); see DOJ GUIDE, PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS, supra
note 61, at 16.
64 Consumer Fed’n of Am. (CFA) v. USDA, 455 F.3d 283, 287 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks, alterations,
and citation omitted). The CFA court cited Burka and Tax Analysts in a footnote when it explained the focus of the
“totality of the circumstances” test. See id. at 287 n.7 (citing Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. at 144-45; Burka, 87 F.3d at 515).
However, the court explicitly based its analysis of whether the documents at issue in the case were “agency records” on
a prior D.C. Circuit decision with similar facts, Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (BNA) v. DOJ, 742 F.2d 1484 (D.C.
Cir. 1984). See CFA, 455 F.3d at 288 (explaining that BNA “provides the template necessary to decide this case”). BNA
preceded the Supreme Court’s Tax Analysts decision and the D.C. Circuit’s use of the four-factor control test. The
concurring opinion in CFA argued that the Burka test, not BNA, “provide[d] a better guide to decide th[e] case.” Id. at
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Consumer Federation of America v. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the D.C. Circuit held that
electronic calendars of several USDA officials qualified as “agency records” under FOIA.65 The
calendars “were created by agency employees and were located within the [officials’] agency,”
updated and accessed daily, and maintained on the agency’s computer system.66 The court
determined, however, that the “creation, possession, and control” factors were “not dispositive in
determining whether the calendars [were] ‘agency records’” in the case.67 Instead, the court held
that the officials’ use of the calendars was the “decisive factor.”68 Specifically, the court found it
significant that the calendars were used to schedule agency operations and were distributed to
other agency staff and top officials.69 But the court determined that the electronic calendar of a
separate USDA official was not an agency record subject to disclosure under FOIA because the
official only shared the calendar with his secretaries and, therefore, no one else within the agency
depended on his calendar to conduct agency business.70
Although FOIA does not require the disclosure of personal materials, issues may arise when
agency personnel use nonofficial electronic accounts to communicate.71 In Competitive
Enterprise Institute v. Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP),72 the requester sought “all
policy/OSTP-related email[s]” contained within the private email account of the director of
OSTP.73 A private entity maintained an account that the director used for work-related purposes.74
OSTP denied the request, asserting that the private entity (the director’s former employer)

295 (Henderson, J., concurring).
The D.C. Circuit later wrote that the court did apply the Burka test in CFA. See Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Fed. Hous. Fin.
Agency, 646 F.3d 924, 927 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (writing that the CFA court “used the Burka factors to decide whether
FOIA applied” to the materials at issue in that case); cf. Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Secret Service, 726 F.3d 208, 220 (D.C.
Cir. 2013) (writing that the D.C. Circuit has at different times suggested that all of the Burka factors must be satisfied
to establish control and, in contrast, “described the test as a ‘totality of the circumstances test.’” (quoting CFA, 455
F.3d at 287)). But see, e.g., Edelman v. SEC, 172 F. Supp. 3d 133, 150 (D.D.C. 2016) (explaining that the “‘totality of
the circumstances’ test applied in CFA and BNA—rather than the [Burka] four-factor framework []—best fits this
case”).
65 CFA, 455 F.3d at 293.
66 Id. at 288-90.
67 Id. at 290; see id. at 289 (“As was true of both the daily agendas and the desk calendars in [BNA]—and thus
insufficient by itself to distinguish between agency and personal records—all six USDA calendars were created by
agency employees and were located within the agency . . . .”); id. at 290 (“[E]ven if the USDA calendars never entered
USDA’s files, that would not decide the question before us. In [BNA], the court found that neither the desk calendars
nor the daily agendas were ‘placed into agency files.’ Nonetheless, the latter were held to be ‘agency records.’”
(quoting BNA, 742 F.2d at 1494))).
68 Id. at 288.
69 Id. at 291. See Edelman 172 F. Supp. 3d at 153 (explaining that the court found the “distribution” aspect of the “use”
factor in CFA and BNA, important because “distribution served as evidence that [the records] ‘were created for the
purpose of conducting agency business.’” (emphasis omitted) (quoting BNA, 742 F.2d at 1496)).
70 CFA, 455 F.3d at 293.
71 Congress was aware of the practice of federal employees conducting government business on private electronic
accounts when it passed the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-187, 128 Stat.
2003. That act, in part, prohibits employees of “executive agencies” from “creat[ing] or send[ing] a record using a non-
official electronic messaging account unless” they copy their official account when creating or sending the record or
“forward[] a complete copy of the record to [their] official electronic messaging account” within twenty days. Id.
§ 10(a), 128 Stat. at 2014 (codified at 44 U.S.C. § 2911(a)(1)-(2)). An individual’s intentional violation of this
requirement, “as determined by the appropriate supervisor, shall be a basis for disciplinary action in accordance with
subchapter I, II, or V of chapter 75 of title 5, as the case may be.” Id. (codified at 44 U.S.C. § 2911(b)).
72 827 F.3d 145 (D.C. Cir. 2016).
73 Id. at 146 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
74 Competitive Enter. Inst. (CEI) v. OSTP, 241 F. Supp. 3d 14, 18 (D.D.C. 2017).
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controlled the account and that the agency, therefore, could not search it.75 The district court
dismissed the suit in favor of the agency.76 However, the D.C. Circuit reversed, explaining that
“records do not lose their agency character just because the official who possesses them takes
them out the door or because he is the head of the agency.”77 Instead, the court wrote, “[i]f the
agency head controls what would otherwise be an agency record, then it is still an agency record
and still must be searched or produced.”78 The D.C. Circuit’s decision in Competitive Enterprise
Institute, therefore, stands for the proposition that agency records are subject to FOIA even if
contained in nongovernmental electronic accounts.79
“Any Person”
Lastly, FOIA directs agencies to disclose nonexempt agency records to “any person” upon
request.80 A “person” is defined as “an individual, partnership, corporation, association, or public
or private organization other than an agency.”81 Courts have therefore held that, along with
individuals, organizational entities such as corporations, as well as state and foreign governments,

75 See CEI v. OSTP, 82 F. Supp. 3d 228, 232-34 (D.D.C. 2015), rev’d, 827 F.3d 145; CEI, 827 F.3d at 146-47.
76 CEI, 82 F. Supp. 3d at 237.
77 CEI, 827 F.3d at 507.
78 Id. On remand, the district court held that OSTP was not required to disclose the work-related emails in the director’s
private email account. CEI, 241 F. Supp. 3d at 21, 24. The court determined that the government had successfully
shown that the director had complied with OSTP’s policy that employees must forward work-related emails on private
accounts to their official OSTP accounts and that, therefore, “any work-related emails in [his private account] are
duplicates of emails located in his OSTP account.” Id. at 21, 22. “FOIA,” the court explained, “does not require
agencies to produce duplicate records”; therefore, the government needed only to disclose responsive records contained
in the director’s official OSTP email account. Id. at 22-23. Further, the court determined that OSTP conducted an
adequate search of the director’s official email account. Id. at 23, 24 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
79 See CEI, 827 F.3d at 146 (“[A]n agency cannot shield its records from search or disclosure under FOIA by the
expedient of storing them in a private email account controlled by the agency head . . . .”); Claudia Polsky, Open
Records, Shuttered Labs: Ending Political Harassment of Public University Researchers, 66 UCLA L. REV. 208, 271
n.199 (2019) (explaining that the Competitive Enterprise Institute court “held . . . that the federal FOIA can reach
private email accounts where those accounts contain agency records”) (citing CEI, 827 F.3d at 146).
80 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A). See infra “Request-Driven Disclosure.”
81 5 U.S.C. § 551(2). Cf. Bloomberg L.P. v. Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., 649 F. Supp. 2d 262, 277 n.12
(S.D.N.Y. 2009) (stating that “the only way the FRBNY [Federal Reserve Bank of New York] could qualify as a
person is if this Court determined that the FRBNY does not qualify as an agency because FOIA defines ‘person’ as an
‘individual, partnership, corporation, association, or public or private organization other than an agency’” (emphasis
omitted) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 551(2))), aff’d, 601 F.3d 143 (2d Cir. 2010).
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have access rights under FOIA.82 That said, federal agencies have no right to records under
FOIA.83
Access to records under FOIA does not hinge on whether an individual is an American citizen;
noncitizens are also entitled to records under the act.84 Further, the Supreme Court has explained
that the requester’s identity generally does not factor into whether records are subject to
disclosure, nor is a requester generally required to supply a reason to an agency for his or her
request.85

82 See, e.g., Judicial Watch of Fla., Inc. v. DOJ, 102 F. Supp. 2d 6, 10 (D.D.C. 2000) (noting 5 U.S.C. § 551(1)’s
definition of “person” and explaining that “[a] corporation is a person entitled to make FOIA requests”); Texas v.
Interstate Commerce Comm., 935 F.2d 728, 729, 734 (5th Cir. 1991) (denying attorney’s fees in action brought by
state-requester); Neal-Cooper Grain Co. v. Kissinger, 385 F. Supp. 769, 776 (D.D.C. 1974) (“A foreign government or
instrumentality thereof would appear to be a ‘public or private organization’ within the terms of [FOIA].”). Cf.
Tembec, Inc. v. United States, 441 F. Supp. 2d 1302, 1322 (Ct. Int’l Trade 2006) (writing that “[i]n cases litigating
[FOIA] requests filed by foreign agencies and sovereigns, courts have generally assumed that such entities
are ‘persons’ within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 551”). However, as to foreign governments, FOIA prohibits “element[s]
of the intelligence community (as that term is defined in section 3(4) of the National Security Act of 1947)” from
disclosing agency records to foreign governmental entities or representatives thereof. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(E) (citation
omitted); see All Party Parliamentary Grp. on Extraordinary Rendition v. DOD, 754 F.3d 1047, 1053 (D.C. Cir. 2014)
(holding that “FOIA requesters who have authority to file requests on behalf of foreign government entities are
‘representatives’ of such entities [under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(E)] when they file requests of the sort they have authority
to file”).
83 See 5 U.S.C. § 551(2) (defining “person” under the APA as “an individual, partnership, corporation, association, or
public or private organization other than an agency”) (emphasis added); cf. Ebling v. DOJ, 796 F. Supp. 2d 52, 63
(D.D.C. 2011) (“Congress deliberately conferred the right to make a FOIA request upon ‘any person,’ a term that is
defined broadly to include any individual or organization other than a federal agency” (internal citations omitted)
(quoting 5 U.S.C. §§ 551(2), 552(a)(3)(A))).
84 See, e.g., Doherty v. DOJ, 596 F. Supp. 423, 428 (S.D.N.Y. 1984) (holding that resident alien who entered country
under a fraudulent passport was able to request records under FOIA); see also De Laurentiis v. Haig, 528 F. Supp. 601
(E.D. Penn. 1981) (plaintiff in FOIA lawsuit was a foreign citizen residing in country of citizenship). But, under the
“fugitive disentitlement doctrine,” some courts have rejected FOIA claims asserted by fugitives where there was a
sufficient relationship between the individual’s status as a fugitive and his FOIA lawsuit. See Maydack v. DOE, 150 F.
App’x 136 (3d Cir. 2005) (affirming district court’s dismissal of fugitive’s FOIA lawsuit under the fugitive
disentitlement doctrine); see also Lazaridis v. DOJ, 713 F. Supp. 2d 64, 69, 70 (D.D.C. 2010) (explaining that “[u]nder
the fugitive disentitlement doctrine, a court, in its discretion, may dismiss a civil action if the plaintiff is a fugitive, his
fugitive status has a connection to the present proceedings, and dismissal ‘is necessary to effectuate the concerns
underlying the . . . doctrine,’” but denying DOJ’s motion to dismiss fugitive’s FOIA lawsuit “[i]n the absence of a
demonstrable connection between [the requester’s] fugitive status and these FOIA proceedings” (ellipses in original)
(citations omitted) (quoting Magluta v. Samples, 162 F.3d 662, 664 (11th Cir. 1998))). See DOJ GUIDE, PROCEDURAL
REQUIREMENTS, supra note 61, at 19 & n.90.
85 See Nat’l Archives & Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U.S. 157, 170 (2004) (“As a general rule, withholding
information under FOIA cannot be predicated on the identity of the requester.”); id. at 172 (“[A]s a general rule, when
documents are within FOIA’s disclosure provisions, citizens should not be required to explain why they seek the
information. A person requesting the information needs no preconceived idea of the uses the data might serve. The
information belongs to citizens to do with as they choose. Furthermore, as we have noted, the disclosure does not
depend on the identity of the requester. As a general rule, if the information is subject to disclosure, it belongs to all.”);
see also NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 143 n.10 (1975) (explaining that a requester’s “rights under
[FOIA] are neither increased nor decreased by reason of the fact that it claims an interest in [records] greater than that
shared by the average member of the public”). See DOJ GUIDE, PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS, supra note 61, at 21-22.
The identity of a requester does factor, however, in the assessment of fees under FOIA. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii).
For information on FOIA fees, see CRS In Focus IF11272, Freedom of Information Act Fees for Government
Information, by Meghan M. Stuessy.
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Access to Government Information Under FOIA
FOIA sets forth a three-part system for disclosing government information.86 The first two
disclosure schemes require agencies to affirmatively disclose specific categories of information to
the public, either through publication in the Federal Register or electronic disclosure.87 The third
disclosure provision requires that, “[e]xcept with respect to the records made available” pursuant
to FOIA’s affirmative disclosure requirements, agencies disclose covered records after receiving
a request from “any person.”88
Affirmative Disclosure
While FOIA may be known predominately for its request-driven system of disclosure,89 the
statute also contains affirmative disclosure provisions that require federal agencies to proactively
disseminate to the public certain agency records. FOIA imposes two affirmative (also known as
mandatory or proactive)90 disclosure obligations. Under the first requirement—codified in
subsection (a)(1) of § 552—agencies must publish certain important government materials—
including “substantive rules of general applicability” and “rules of procedure”—in the Federal
Register.91 The second affirmative disclosure requirement—codified in subsection (a)(2) of §
552—requires agencies to provide electronic access to a separate set of agency materials that
consists of, among other things, final agency adjudicative opinions and certain “frequently
requested” records.92
Publication in the Federal Register
Under § 552(a)(1), agencies must publish certain information “in the Federal Register for the
guidance of the public.”93 The provision seeks “to enable the public ‘readily to gain access to the
information necessary to deal effectively and upon equal footing with the Federal agencies.’”94 It
instructs agencies to publish the following:

86 Fed. Open Mkt. Comm. of Fed. Reserve Sys. v. Merrill, 443 U.S. 340, 352 (1979) (noting that FOIA “makes
available to any person all agency records, which it divides into three categories: [1] some must be currently published
in the Federal Register; [2] others must be promptly [published] or made publicly available and indexed; and [3] all
others must be promptly furnished on request”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (third alteration in
original).
87 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1)-(2).
88 Id. § 552(a)(3)(A), 4(B). See supra “Agency Records” & “Any Person”
89 See CREW v. DOJ, 846 F.3d 1235, 1240 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (stating that provision governing agencies’ response-
driven obligation under FOIA is FOIA’s “most familiar provision”).
90 See DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, PROACTIVE DISCLOSURES, at 1 (Aug.
4, 2020) [hereinafter DOJ GUIDE, PROACTIVE DISCLOSURES], https://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-
guide/proactive_disclosures/download.
91 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1); id. § 552(a)(1)(C), (D).
92 Id. § 552(a)(2); id. § 552(a)(2)(A), (D).
93 Id. § 552(a)(1).
94 Ramsey Clark, Attorney General’s Memorandum on the Public Information Section of the Administrative Procedure
Act (1967), in 20 ADMIN. L. REV. 263, 271 (1968) (quoting S. REP. NO. 1219, at 3 (1964)).
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(1) descriptions of agency organization and information regarding how, where, and
from whom “the public may obtain information, make submittals or requests, or
obtain decisions”;95
(2) information on how agency “functions are channeled and determined, including
the nature and requirements of all formal and informal procedures available”;96
(3) procedural rules, descriptions of available agency forms “or the places at which
forms may be obtained, and instructions as to the scope and contents of all
papers, reports, or examinations”;97
(4) “substantive rules of general applicability adopted as authorized by law,” as well
as agency “statements of general policy or interpretations of general
applicability”;98 and
(5) every “amendment, revision, or repeal of the foregoing.”99
FOIA imposes a penalty for an agency’s failure to publish the above information, providing that
no person shall “in any manner be required to resort to, or be adversely affected by, a matter
required to be published in the Federal Register and not so published.”100 In other words, an
agency may not enforce any material against an affected party that the agency did not publish in
the Federal Register as required under subsection (a)(1), unless the affected party received “actual
and timely notice of the terms thereof.”101
Courts have held that FOIA authorizes judicial review of an agency’s withholding of (a)(1)
materials.102 However, available remedies in such cases may be limited. In Kennecott Utah

95 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1)(A).
96 Id. § 552(a)(1)(B).
97 Id. § 552(a)(1)(C).
98 Id. § 552(a)(1)(D).
99 Id. § 552(a)(1)(E). See generally DOJ GUIDE, PROACTIVE DISCLOSURES, supra note 90, at 2.
100 Id. § 552(a)(1). See S. REP. NO. 813, at 6 (1965) (stating that “[t]he new sanction imposed for failure to publish the
matters enumerated in” the Federal Register publication provision “gives added incentive to the agencies to publish the
required material”); H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 7 (1966) (writing that the sanction is “[a]n added incentive for agencies to
publish necessary details about their official activities in the Federal Register”).
101 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1); Emily S. Bremer, American and European Perspectives on Private Standards in Public Law,
91 TUL. L. REV. 325, 346 (2016) (explaining that, “[i]f an agency does not fulfill the [Federal Register] publication
requirement, it will be prevented from enforcing the nonpublished material against any person or entity that did not
have actual notice of the material in question”); see Appalachian Power Co. v. Train, 566 F.2d 451, 455-56 (4th Cir.
1977); see also United States v. San Juan Lumber Co., 313 F. Supp. 703, 706-08 (D. Col. 1969) (holding that failure to
publish in the Federal Register was not a defense where the defendant had received actual notice of the Federal Trade
Commission’s resolution authorizing an investigation).
Section 552(a)(1) also states that “matter reasonably available to the class of persons affected thereby is deemed
published in the Federal Register when incorporated by reference therein with the approval of the Director of the
Federal Register.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1) (emphasis added). This provision allows agencies to integrate external
publications into agency regulations simply by referring to—as opposed to reprinting—the outside material in the
Federal Register, as long as the Office of the Federal Register approves of the incorporation and the matter
incorporated is “reasonably available.” Id. This authorization is intended to effectuate Congress’s intent to ensure the
Federal Register is “kept down to a manageable size.” S. REP. NO. 1219, at 4 (1964); see also S. REP. NO. 813, at 6
(1965) (writing that “there have been few complaints about omission from the Federal Register of necessary official
material” and that, “[i]n fact, what complaints there have been have been more on the side of too much publication
rather than too little.”). For more on incorporation by reference, see Daniel J. Sheffner, Integrating Technical
Standards into Federal Regulations: Incorporation by Reference, in 2 THE CAMBRIDGE HANDBOOK OF TECHNICAL
STANDARDIZATION LAW: FURTHER INTERSECTIONS OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LAW 108-23 (Jorge Contreras, ed., 2019).
102 See CREW v. DOJ, 846 F.3d 1235, 1240 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (“Our precedent makes clear that FOIA’s remedial
provision . . . governs judicial review of . . . requests for information under section[] 552(a)(1) . . . .”) (first ellipses in
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Copper Corporation v. Department of the Interior (DOI), the D.C. Circuit held that FOIA does
not authorize reviewing courts, as a remedy, to order an agency to publish materials in the Federal
Register.103 The court explained that FOIA’s judicial review provision “allows district courts to
order ‘the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant,’ not
agency records withheld from the public.”104 Whereas, as explained by the court, “[p]roviding
documents to the individual fully relieves whatever informational injury may have been suffered
by that particular complainant,” requiring “publication goes well beyond that need.”105 The court
explained that the penalty in subsection (a)(1), which provides that materials required to be
published in the Federal Register that an agency has not so published generally are
unenforceable,106 is “an alternative means for encouraging agencies to fulfill their obligation to
publish materials in the Federal Register” and “gives agencies a powerful incentive to publish any
[(a)(1) materials] they expect to enforce.”107
Electronic Disclosure
FOIA’s second affirmative disclosure provision does not require disclosure in a particular
publication, as does subsection (a)(1). Instead, subsection (a)(2) of § 552 (often referred to as the
“reading-room provision”)108 directs agencies to “make available for public inspection in an
electronic format” certain information, unless the information is “promptly published and copies
[are] offered for sale.”109 The following information must be electronically disclosed under
FOIA’s second affirmative disclosure provision:
(1) “final opinions . . ., as well as orders, made in the adjudication of cases”;110

original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Kennecott Utah Copper Corp. v. DOI, 88 F.3d 1191, 1202 (D.C.
Cir. 1996)))); Campaign for Accountability v. DOJ, 278 F. Supp. 3d 303, 307 (D.D.C. 2017) (explaining that “[a]
FOIA complaint that seeks judicial review of an agency’s withholding of records can allege that the government’s
withholding violates any one of the statute’s . . . disclosure requirements,” including the requirement contained in
“section[] 552(a)(1)”); cf. CREW v. DOJ, 922 F.3d 480, 486 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (“An agency withholds its records
‘improperly’ if it fails to comply with one of FOIA’s ‘mandatory disclosure requirements.’” (quoting DOJ v. Tax
Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 150 (1989), and 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B))).
103 Kennecott, 88 F.3d at 1202-03.
104 Id. at 1203 (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(A)(4)(B)) (emphasis in original).
105 Id.
106 See supra text accompanying notes 100-101.
107 Kennecott, 88 F.3d at 1203.
108 See, e.g., CREW v. DOJ, 922 F.3d 480, 483 (D.C. Cir. 2019). Agencies used to make materials covered by
subsection (a)(2) available in physical “reading rooms.” Upon enactment of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act
Amendments of 1996 (E-FOIA Amendments), Pub. L. No. 104-231, 110 Stat. 3048, which required agencies to make
subsection (a)(2) materials available “by electronic means,” the locations within agency websites housing (a)(2)
materials became known as “electronic reading rooms.” See Daniel J. Sheffner, Access to Adjudication Materials on
Federal Agency Websites, 51 AKRON L. REV. 447, 454-55 (2017); see also DOJ, OIP Guidance: Agency FOIA
Websites 2.0 (last updated Nov. 30, 2017) (explaining that the 1996 E-FOIA Amendments “required agencies to use
electronic information technology to enhance the public availability of their FOIA ‘reading room’ records”),
https://www.justice.gov/oip/oip-guidance/OIP%20Guidance%3A%20%20Agency%20FOIA%20Websites%202.0.
DOJ now refers to such website locations as “FOIA Libraries.” See DOJ GUIDE, PROACTIVE DISCLOSURES, supra note
90, at 6 (explaining that what it now refers to as a “FOIA Library” was “previously referred to as an ‘electronic
Reading Room’”).
109 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2). The provision requires that agencies make covered information available “in accordance with
published rules.” Id. § 552(a)(2).
110 Id. § 552(a)(2)(A). This provision provides that “[f]inal opinions” include “concurring and dissenting opinions.” Id.
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(2) policy statements and interpretations not appearing in the Federal Register;111
(3) “administrative staff manuals and instructions to staff that affect a member of the
public”;112
(4) copies of records that had been released in response to a FOIA request and that
(a) “the agency determines have become or are likely to become the subject of
subsequent requests for substantially the same records” due to the nature of the
records’ subject or (b) “have been requested 3 or more times”;113 and
(5) indexes of such previously released records.114
The 1966 House report underlying FOIA explained that this provision was intended to open up to
the public the “thousands of orders, opinions, statements, and instructions issued by hundreds of
agencies,” information that the report described as constituting “the bureaucracy[’s] . . . own form
of case law.”115 In that vein, the Supreme Court has explained that FOIA’s second affirmative
disclosure provision “represents a strong congressional aversion to ‘secret [agency] law.’”116
Materials subject to subsection (a)(2) are now generally made accessible on agency websites.117
In addition to public dissemination of the above materials, subsection (a)(2) requires that agencies
“maintain and make available for public inspection in an electronic format” indexes of (a)(2)
material.118 And an agency may not rely on, use, or cite as precedent a “final order, opinion,

111 Id. § 552(a)(2)(B).
112 Id. § 552(a)(2)(C).
113 Id. § 552(a)(2)(D).
114 Id. § 552(a)(2)(E). See generally DOJ GUIDE, PROACTIVE DISCLOSURES, supra note 90, at 2-4. Subsection (a)(2)
authorizes agencies to “delete identifying details” from (a)(2) materials in order “to prevent a clearly unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy.” Id. An agency must generally explain its reason for doing so and indicate “the extent of
such deletion . . . on the portion of the record which is made available or published.” See id. (“[I]n each case the
justification for the deletion shall be explained fully in writing, and the extent of such deletion shall be indicated on the
portion of the record which is made available or published, unless including that indication would harm an interest
protected by the exemption in subsection (b) under which the deletion is made. If technically feasible, the extent of the
deletion shall be indicated at the place in the record where the deletion was made.”).
115 H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 7 (1966). In the 1966 act, this provision only governed the disclosure of adjudicative
opinions and orders, policy statements and interpretations, and staff manuals and instructions (the first three types of
materials listed above). See Pub. L. No. 89-487, 80 Stat. 250, 250-51 (July 4, 1966). The previously-requested-records
requirement and the related index requirement pertaining to such records, see 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2)(D)-(E), were added
to FOIA in 1996. See E-FOIA Amendments, Pub. L. No. 104-231, § 4, 110 Stat. at 3049. The “requested 3 or more
times” prong of § 552(a)(2)(D) was added in 2016. See FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-185, § 2, 130
Stat. 538, 538.
116 NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 153 (1975) (alteration in original) (quoting Kenneth Culp Davis, The
Information Act: A Preliminary Analysis, 34 U. CHI. L. REV. 761, 797 (1967)).
117 See DOJ GUIDE, PROACTIVE DISCLOSURES, supra note 90, at 6 (“Agencies often accomplish this electronic
availability requirement by posting records on their FOIA websites in a designated area known as a ‘FOIA Library’. . .
.”); see, e.g., 40 C.F.R. § 2.101(c) (“All records created by [the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)] on or after
November 1, 1996, which the FOIA requires an agency to make regularly available for public inspection and copying,
will be made available electronically through EPA’s website, located at http://www.epa.gov, or, upon request, through
other electronic means.”).
118 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2) (“Each agency shall . . . maintain and make available for public inspection in an electronic
format current indexes providing identifying information for the public as to any matter issued, adopted, or
promulgated after July 4, 1967, and required by this paragraph to be made available or published.”); see also id.
(stating that agencies must “promptly publish . . . and distribute (by sale or otherwise) copies of each index or
supplements thereto unless it determines by order published in the Federal Register that the publication would be
unnecessary and impracticable, in which case the agency shall nonetheless provide copies of such index on request at a
cost not to exceed the direct cost of duplication”).
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statement of policy, interpretation, or staff manual or instruction that affects a member of the
public” unless the agency has (1) indexed the material and published or made it available, or (2)
given the affected party “actual and timely notice of the terms” of such material.119
As with (a)(1) materials,120 FOIA authorizes judicial review of challenges to the availability of
materials subject to disclosure under subsection (a)(2).121 Courts do not appear to agree, however,
whether they have authority under FOIA to order agencies to make (a)(2) records available in
agency reading rooms, or whether their authority under the statute is limited to ordering the
production of records to individual complainants.122
Request-Driven Disclosure
Under the two affirmative disclosure provisions discussed above, agencies must proactively
disclose specific types of information.123 By contrast, under FOIA’s third system of disclosure,
agencies disclose covered records not “made available under” the affirmative disclosure
provisions on a case-by-case basis after receiving a request.124 As discussed below, FOIA imposes
certain procedural requirements on requesters and agencies in making and responding to requests
for records.125 And, also as discussed below, the act allows requesters to internally appeal agency
decisions to withhold records, a process requesters generally must take advantage of prior to
seeking review in federal court.126
Section 552(a)(3)(A) of title 5 of the U.S. Code governs the production of records requested
under FOIA. Under that section, “each agency . . . shall make . . . records promptly available to
any person” after receiving a FOIA request.127 An agency must respond to a request that satisfies
two requirements. First, a request must “reasonably describe[]” the records sought.128 The House

119 Id.
120 Id. § 552(a)(1); see supra “Publication in the Federal Register.”
121 See CREW v. DOJ, 846 F.3d 1235, 1240 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (“Our precedent makes clear that FOIA’s remedial
provision . . . governs judicial review of . . . requests for information under section[] 552(a). . . (2) . . . .”) (first ellipses
in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Kennecott Utah Copper Corp. v. DOI, 88 F.3d 1191, 1202
(D.C. Cir. 1996)))).
122 Compare id. at 124 (holding that “a court has no authority under FOIA to issue an injunction mandating that an
agency ‘make available for public inspection’ documents subject to” § 552(a)(2), but that “nothing in [its precedent]
prevents a district court from, consistent with [FOIA’s judicial review provision], ordering an agency to provide to the
plaintiff documents covered by” § 552(a)(2)) with Animal Legal Def. Fund v. USDA, 935 F.3d 858, 869 (9th Cir.
2019) (holding that FOIA’s judicial review “provision cloaks district courts with the authority to order an agency to
post records in an online reading room” under § 552(a)(2)).
123 See supra “Affirmative Disclosure.”
124 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A), (a)(4)(B); see CREW v. DOJ, 922 F.3d 480, 484 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (“Unlike its more
commonly invoked neighbor—which imposes a ‘reactive’ duty on agencies[]—the reading-room provision
affirmatively obligates agencies to ‘make available for public inspection’ several categories of documents even absent a
specific request.” (citation omitted) (quoting CREW v. DOJ, 846 F.3d 1235, 1240 (D.C. Cir. 2017), and 5 U.S.C. §
552(a)(2))). The meaning of “agency records” under FOIA is discussed above. See supra “Agency Records”
125 See infra; see generally DOJ GUIDE, PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS, supra note 61.
126 See infra; see generally DOJ GUIDE, PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS, supra note 61.
127 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A). However, agencies are not required to disclose records covered by one of FOIA’s nine
exemptions or three exclusions upon receiving a request. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b), (c); see infra “Exemptions” (discussing
FOIA’s exemptions contained in 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)); “Exclusions” (discussing FOIA’s exclusions contained in 5 U.S.C.
§ 552(c)). And, as indicated above, § 552(a)(3)’s request-based disclosure obligation does not apply to “records made
available under” FOIA’s affirmative disclosure provisions. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A). FOIA’s affirmative disclosure
provisions are discussed above. See supra “Affirmative Disclosure.”
128 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A)(i).
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committee report underlying the 1974 amendments to FOIA states that a “‘description’ of a
requested document would be sufficient if it enabled a professional employee of the agency who
was familiar with the subject area of the request to locate the record with a reasonable amount of
effort.”129 Second, a FOIA request must comply with the agency’s “published rules stating the
time, place, fees (if any), and procedures to be followed.”130
If a requester submits a valid request, an agency must execute an “adequate” or “reasonable”
search.131 This standard requires that an agency conduct a search that is “reasonably calculated to
uncover all relevant documents.”132 The D.C. Circuit has explained that “[t]he issue is not
whether any further documents might conceivably exist but rather whether the government’s
search for responsive documents was adequate.”133 FOIA also states that agencies must “make
reasonable efforts to search for . . . records in electronic form or format,” unless doing so “would
significantly interfere with the operation of the agency’s automated information system.”134 DOJ
guidance provides that this latter requirement “promotes electronic database searches and
encourages agencies to expend new efforts in order to comply with the electronic search
requirements of particular FOIA requests.”135
To facilitate its disclosure mandate, FOIA requires agencies to respond within certain timeframes
and authorizes administrative review of unfavorable agency decisions.136 Once it receives a valid

129 H.R. REP. NO. 876, at 6 (1974); see Yagman v. Pompeo, 868 F.3d 1075, 1081 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Marks v.
United States, 587 F.2d 261, 263 (9th Cir. 1978) (quoting H.R. REP. NO. 876, at 6 (1974))) (same). Relatedly, courts
have determined that agencies are not compelled to perform “unreasonably burdensome search[es].” Am. Fed’n of
Gov’t Emp.’s, Local 2782 v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, 907 F.2d 203, 209 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (internal quotation marks
omitted) (quoting Goland v. CIA 607 F.2d 339, 353 (D.C. Cir. 1978)); see DOJ GUIDE, PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS,
supra note 61, at 52 (stating that “courts have held that the FOIA does not require agencies to conduct ‘unreasonably
burdensome’ searches for records”).
130 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A)(ii). Many agencies apply special scrutiny to certain sensitive requests that involve review
by agency officials or political appointees. See, e.g., Memorandum from Stephen W. Warren, Executive in Charge and
Chief Information Officer for Information and Technology, Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, to Under Secretaries, Assistant
Secretaries, and Other Key Officials (Oct. 31, 2013) (declaring that, on a temporary basis, “all responses to FOIA
requests by [the Department of Veterans Affairs’ central] offices and field components will be reviewed by the
designated officials prior to release to the public” for the purpose of making “sensitivity determination[s]”).
131 See Hamdan v. DOJ, 797 F.3d 759, 770 (9th Cir. 2015); Wilbur v. CIA, 355 F.3d 675, 678 (D.C. Cir. 2004); see
also Edelman v. SEC, 172 F. Supp. 3d 133, 144 (D.D.C. 2016) (“An agency has an obligation under FOIA to conduct
an adequate search for responsive records.”).
132 Hamdan, 797 F.3d at 770 (quotation marks omitted); see Edleman, 172 F. Supp. 3d at 144.
133 Perry v. Block, 684 F.2d 121, 128 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (per curiam); cf. In re Clinton, No. 20-5056, 2020 U.S. App.
LEXIS 25876, at *21 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 14, 2020) (“It is well established that the reasonableness of a FOIA search does
not turn on whether it actually uncovered every document extant, and that the failure of an agency to turn up a specific
document does not alone render a search inadequate.”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
134 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(C); cf. id. § 552(a)(3)(B) (“In making any record available to a person under this paragraph, an
agency shall provide the record in any form or format requested by the person if the record is readily reproducible by
the agency in that form or format.”).
135 DOJ, Office of Info. Pol’y, FOIA Update: Congress Enacts FOIA Amendments (Jan. 1, 1996),
https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-congress-enacts-foia-amendments.
136 See Judicial Watch, Inc. v. DHS, 895 F.3d 770, 774 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (explaining that “[t]o ensure [FOIA’s
disclosure] mandate did not become a dead letter, Congress,” inter alia, “established timetables for agencies to respond
to requests” and “provided members of the public whose records requests were denied a right to an administrative
appeal”). In addition to the timeframes discussed herein, FOIA also imposes other related requirements on agencies.
For example, agencies are required to create a program for assigning and providing to requesters tracking numbers for
requests “that will take longer than ten days to process,” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(7), and to develop rules “providing for
expedited processing of requests,” id. § 552(a)(6)(E). Agencies must also develop regulations governing fees for
processing requests, including in regard to “when such fees should be waived or reduced.” Id. § 552(a)(4)(A).
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FOIA request, an agency has twenty business days to “determine . . . whether to comply with
[the] request” and “shall immediately notify the” requester of its “determination and the reasons
therefor,” as well as of the requester’s right to appeal an “adverse determination” within the
agency.137 In “unusual circumstances”—as defined by the statute—an agency may extend the
twenty-day period by ten additional days.138 In Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington
v. Federal Election Commission,139 the D.C. Circuit, in an opinion authored by then-Judge Brett
Kavanaugh, held that to make a proper “determination,” an “agency must at least indicate within
the relevant time period the scope of the documents it will produce and the exemptions it will
claim with respect to any withheld documents.”140 The court explained that an agency need not
produce requested records when it makes its initial determination, determining that it may fulfill

137 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i)(I), (III)(aa). An agency must also notify the requester of his or her “right . . . to seek
assistance from the FOIA Public Liaison of the agency,” as well as “to seek dispute resolution services from the
[agency’s] FOIA Public Liaison . . . or the Office of Government Information Services.” Id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i)(II)-(III).
The twenty-day period does not include Saturdays, Sundays, or public holidays. Id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i). An agency is
authorized to toll this period in certain circumstances. See id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(ii)(I) (authorizing agencies to “make one
request to the requester for information and toll the 20-day period while it . . . await[s] such information that it has
reasonably requested from the requester”); id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(ii)(II) (providing that the twenty-day period may be tolled
“if necessary to clarify with the requester issues regarding fee assessment”).
138 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(B)(i). FOIA defines “unusual circumstances” to mean the following—“but only to the extent
reasonably necessary to the proper processing of the particular requests”:
(I) the need to search for and collect the requested records from field facilities or other establishments
that are separate from the office processing the request;
(II) the need to search for, collect, and appropriately examine a voluminous amount of separate and
distinct records which are demanded in a single request; or
(III) the need for consultation, which shall be conducted with all practicable speed, with another agency
having a substantial interest in the determination of the request or among two or more components of the
agency having substantial subject-matter interest therein.
Id. § 552(a)(6)(B)(iii).
Relatedly, during litigation challenging an agency’s decision to withhold information under FOIA, see infra “FOIA-
Related Litigation: Selected Issues,” FOIA allows courts to “retain jurisdiction and allow [an] agency additional time to
complete its review of [its] records” if “exceptional circumstances exist and . . . the agency is exercising due diligence
in responding to the request.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(C)(i) (emphasis added). “Exceptional circumstances” is not a
limitless term. FOIA states that the term “does not include a delay that results from a predictable agency workload of
requests . . ., unless the agency demonstrates reasonable progress in reducing its backlog of pending requests.” Id.
§ 552(a)(6)(C)(ii). A refusal to reasonably modify a request’s scope or processing timeframe is “a factor in determining
whether exceptional circumstances exist.” Id. § 552(a)(6)(C)(iii). Stays granted under § 552(a)(6)(C) are often called
“Open America stays,” from the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Open America v. Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 547
F.2d 605 (D.C. Cir. 1976). In Open America, the court held that “‘exceptional circumstances exist,’” and therefore a
stay is warranted under subsection (a)(6)(C), “when an agency . . . is deluged with a volume of requests for information
vastly in excess of that anticipated by Congress, when the existing resources are inadequate to deal with the volume of
such requests within the time limits of subsection (6)(A), and when the agency can show that it ‘is exercising due
diligence’ in processing the requests.” Id. at 616. Open America was decided before subsections (a)(6)(C)(ii) and (ii)
were added to FOIA in 1996. See E-FOIA Amendments, Pub. L. 104-231, § 7(c), 110 Stat. at 3051. The legislative
history of the E-FOIA Amendments provides that subsection (a)(6)(C)(ii) clarifies “that routine, predictable agency
backlogs for FOIA requests do not constitute exceptional circumstances for purposes of” FOIA, and that the provision
“is consistent with the holding in Open America.” H.R. REP. NO. 795, at 24 (1996); see Democracy Forward Found. v.
DOJ, 354 F. Supp. 3d 55, 59 (D.D.C. 2018). Courts have held that “[o]ther circumstances warranting an Open America
stay may include an agency’s efforts to reduce the number of pending requests, the amount of classified material, [and]
the size and complexity of other requests processed by the agency.” Clemente v. FBI, 71 F. Supp. 3d 262, 266 (D.D.C.
2014) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (alteration in original).
139 711 F.3d 180 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (Kavanaugh, J.).
140 Id. at 182-83.
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its responsibility under § 552(a)(3)(A) to “make . . . records promptly available” after it indicates
the scope of the records it will disclose and the exemptions it will invoke.141
A requester who receives an adverse determination may appeal the determination within the
agency.142 Upon receiving an administrative appeal, an agency has twenty business days to make
a determination, although, as in the context of initial determinations, it may extend this timeline
by ten days for unusual circumstances.143 If the agency—in whole or in part—upholds its adverse
determination, it must inform the requester of FOIA’s provisions governing judicial review of
agency withholding decisions.144 Judicial review can proceed if the requester remains
dissatisfied.145
Before challenging an agency’s nondisclosure decision in federal court, a requester typically must
exhaust any remedies that an agency affords the requester.146 Plaintiffs will fail to exhaust
administrative remedies if they did not submit a valid FOIA request to the agency or did not
internally appeal the agency’s adverse determination.147 However, if the agency does not adhere
to the response timeframes FOIA imposes on agencies, a requester “shall be deemed to have
exhausted his administrative remedies.”148 If this occurs, the requester is viewed as having
constructively exhausted administrative remedies and may seek review in federal court.149
However, if an agency belatedly responds to a request before the requester files suit, the requester
must still internally appeal the agency’s adverse determination before seeking recourse in the
federal courts.150
Exemptions
As explained above, FOIA establishes a statutory right of public access to a wide array of
government information. However, FOIA’s drafters also desired to protect certain private and

141 Id. at 188. Cf. Judicial Watch, 895 F.3d at 785 (Pillard, J., concurring) (writing that “FOIA . . . sets a default 20-day
deadline for the underlying determination, and simply requires that the ensuing production of records be made to the
requester ‘promptly’ thereafter”).
142 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A). Within twenty (or, in the event of unusual circumstances, thirty) days of receiving a proper
request, id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i), (B)(i), an agency must inform the requester of his or her ability to appeal an adverse
determination “within a period determined by the head of the agency that is not less than 90 days after the date of such
adverse determination,” id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i)(III)(aa).
143 Id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(ii), (B)(i). The same unusual circumstances listed above in relation to initial determinations, see
supra note 138, apply in the case of administrative appellate determinations, see id. § 552(a)(6)(B)(i), (iii).
144 Id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(ii).
145 See infra “FOIA-Related Litigation: Selected Issues.”
146 Oglesby v. U.S. Dep’t of Army, 920 F.2d 57, 61 (1990).
147 See Debrew v. Atwood, 792 F.3d 118, 123-24 (D.C. Cir. 2015); Oglesby, 920 F.2d at 61-62. See also DOJ, OFFICE
OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, LITIGATION CONSIDERATIONS, at 29, 32-33 (Sept. 25,
2019) [hereinafter DOJ GUIDE, LITIGATION CONSIDERATIONS],
https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1205066/download.
148 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(C)(i) (“Any person making a request to any agency for records under paragraph (1), (2), or (3)
of this subsection shall be deemed to have exhausted his administrative remedies with respect to such request if the
agency fails to comply with the applicable time limit provisions of this paragraph.”); see DOJ GUIDE, LITIGATION
CONSIDERATIONS, supra note 147, at 34-35.
149 See Oglesby, 920 F.2d at 62 (“If the agency has not responded within the statutory time limits, then, under 5 U.S.C.
§ 552(a)(6)(C), the requester may bring suit.”).
150 See id. at 64 (“The ten-day [now twenty-day] constructive exhaustion under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(C) allows
immediate recourse to the courts to compel the agency’s response to a FOIA request. But once the agency responds to
the FOIA request, the requester must exhaust his administrative remedies before seeking judicial review.”)
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governmental interests from the law’s broad disclosure mandate.151 FOIA reflects this desire by
exempting a variety of records and information from mandatory disclosure pursuant to nine
enumerated exemptions.152 Information protected by FOIA’s exemptions ranges from certain
classified national security information to geological information pertaining to wells.153 Together,
the statute’s policy of otherwise maximum disclosure and its exemptions seek to strike a “balance
between the right of the public to know and the need of the Government to keep information in
confidence to the extent necessary without permitting indiscriminate secrecy.”154
FOIA’s exemptions are codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552(b). Table 1 lists each exemption. All nine
exemptions are explained more fully below.
Table 1. FOIA Exemptions
5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1)-(9)
Exemptions
Text of Exemptions
Exemption 1: National Security (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1))
Matters that are . . . (A) specifically authorized under
criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret
in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and
(B) are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive
order
Exemption 2: Personnel Rules and Practices (5 U.S.C.
Matters that are . . . related solely to the internal personnel
§ 552(b)(2))
rules and practices of an agency
Exemption 3: Matter Exempted by Other Statutes (5
Matters that are . . . specifically exempted from disclosure
U.S.C. § 552(b)(3))
by statute (other than section 552b of this title), if that
statute-
(A)(i) requires that the matters be withheld from the public
in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the issue; or
(ii) establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to
particular types of matters to be withheld; and
(B) if enacted after the date of enactment of the OPEN
FOIA Act of 2009, specifically cites to this paragraph

151 S. REP. NO. 813, at 3 (1965); FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. 615, 621 (1982). FOIA’s exemptions apply to materials
subject to both FOIA’s request-driven and affirmative disclosure provisions. See 3 KRISTIN E. HICKMAN & RICHARD J.
PIERCE, JR., ADMINISTRATIVE LAW TREATISE § 21.2, at 2185 (6th ed. 2019) [hereinafter 3 HICKMAN & PIERCE, JR.].
152 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1), (9). In certain circumstances, agencies may issue what is known as a “Glomar response” in
response to request for records. Pursuant to the “Glomar doctrine,” agencies “may refuse to confirm or deny the
existence of records where to answer the FOIA inquiry would cause harm cognizable under a[ ] FOIA” exemption.
Wilner v. NSA, 592 F.3d 60, 68 (2d Cir. 2009) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting
Gardels v. CIA, 689 F.2d 1100, 1103 (D.C. Cir. 1982)). The doctrine “is named for the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a
ship used in a classified Central Intelligence Agency project to raise a sunken Soviet submarine from the floor of the
Pacific Ocean to recover the missiles, codes, and communications equipment onboard for analysis by United States
military and intelligence experts.” Roth v. DOJ, 642 F.3d 1161, 1171 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks
omitted) (quoting Phillippi v. CIA, 655 F.2d 1325, 1327 (D.C. Cir. 1981)). Agencies commonly issue Glomar
responses in the national-security context, where acknowledging that certain records do or do not exist “could itself
compromise national security.” Military Audit Project v. Casey, 656 F.2d 724, 730 (D.C. Cir. 1981).
153 See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1)-(9); Abramson, 456 U.S. at 621 (remarking that “Congress realized that legitimate
governmental and private interests could be harmed by release of certain types of information and provided nine
specific exemptions under which disclosure could be refused”).
154 John Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 493 U.S. 146, 152 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting H.R.
REP. NO. 1497, at 6 (1966)); cf. RICHARD J. PIERCE, JR., ET AL., ADMINISTRATIVE LAW AND PROCESS 374 (6th ed. 2014)
(“The exemptions are an attempt to balance the benefits of disclosure against the particular disadvantages to the
government or the economy if the information were released.”).
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Exemptions
Text of Exemptions
Exemption 4: Trade Secrets and Commercial or
Matters that are . . . trade secrets and commercial or
Financial Information (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4))
financial information obtained from a person and privileged
or confidential
Exemption 5: Inter- or Intra-Agency Materials (5 U.S.C.
Matters that are . . . inter-agency or intra-agency
§ 552(b)(5))
memorandums or letters that would not be available by law
to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency,
provided that the deliberative process privilege shall not
apply to records created 25 years or more before the date
on which the records were requested
Exemption 6: Personal Privacy (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6))
Matters that are . . . personnel and medical files and similar
files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly
unwarranted invasion of personal privacy
Exemption 7: Law Enforcement (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7))
Matters that are . . . records or information compiled for
law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the
production of such law enforcement records or information
(A) could reasonably be expected to interfere with
enforcement proceedings, (B) would deprive a person of a
right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) could
reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy, (D) could reasonably be
expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source,
including a State, local, or foreign agency or authority or any
private institution which furnished information on a
confidential basis, and, in the case of a record or
information compiled by criminal law enforcement authority
in the course of a criminal investigation or by an agency
conducting a lawful national security intelligence
investigation, information furnished by a confidential source,
(E) would disclose techniques and procedures for law
enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose
guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions
if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk
circumvention of the law, or (F) could reasonably be
expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any
individual
Exemption 8: Financial Institution Reports (5 U.S.C.
Matters that are . . . contained in or related to examination,
§ 552(b)(8))
operating, or condition reports prepared by, on behalf of, or
for the use of an agency responsible for the regulation or
supervision of financial institutions
Exemption 9: Wells (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(9))
Matters that are . . . geological and geophysical information
and data, including maps, concerning wells
Source: 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1)-(9).
Despite the scope afforded to agencies to withhold certain records by FOIA’s exemptions, the
statute is fundamentally a disclosure statute.155 In that vein, the Supreme Court has directed that
FOIA’s exemptions should “be narrowly construed.”156 The statute reflects FOIA’s presumption
in favor of disclosure by explicitly requiring that agencies “take reasonable steps necessary to

155 See Dep’t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 372 (1976) (declaring that “the basic purpose of the Freedom of
Information Act to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
156 See id. at 361 (stating that FOIA’s “exemptions do not obscure the basic policy that disclosure, not secrecy, is the
dominant objective of [FOIA]” and that they “must be narrowly construed”).
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segregate and release nonexempt information”157 and disclose “[a]ny reasonably segregable
portion of a record” that has been requested “after deletion of the portions which are exempt.”158
More fundamentally, FOIA’s exemptions do not impose mandatory withholding obligations on
agencies, and pursuant to the 2016 amendments to FOIA,159 an agency may not withhold
government information protected by an exemption unless it “reasonably foresees that disclosure
would harm an interest protected by an exemption,” or if disclosing the information is legally
prohibited.160 Such limitations on the potential breadth of FOIA’s exemptions may aid in the
implementation of the statute’s prodisclosure mandate.
The Supreme Court has instructed that, due to the “exclusivity” of FOIA’s exemptions, the act
does not authorize an agency to withhold a covered record or information that is not protected by
an applicable exemption.161 And in American Immigration Lawyers Association v. Executive
Office for Immigration Review,162 the D.C. Circuit held that, when disclosing a record under
FOIA, an agency may not redact information from that record on the basis that the information is
“non-responsive,” but instead is limited by FOIA’s nine exemptions in the types of information it
may redact.163 The court explained that, although an agency may apply a FOIA exemption to
withhold matter from a record, “once an agency identifies a record it deems responsive to a FOIA
request, the statute compels disclosure of the responsive record . . . as a unit.”164 Thus, per the
court, although “the focus of the FOIA is information, not documents” when the agency is
deciding whether to exempt matter from a record, “outside of that context, FOIA calls for
disclosure of a responsive record, not disclosure of responsive information within a record.”165

157 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(8)(A)(ii)(II).
158 Id. § 552(b). See also id. (“The amount of information deleted, and the exemption under which the deletion is made,
shall be indicated on the released portion of the record, unless including that indication would harm an interest
protected by the exemption . . . under which the deletion is made. If technically feasible, the amount of the information
deleted, and the exemption under which the deletion is made, shall be indicated at the place in the record where such
deletion is made.”).
159 See FOIA Improvement Act, Pub. L. No. 114-185, 130 Stat. 538 (June 30, 2016).
160 Id. § 2(1), 130 Stat. at 539 (codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(8)(A)(i)(I)-(II)).
161 DOJ v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 151 (1989).
162 830 F.3d 667 (D.C. Cir. 2016).
163 Id. at 677-78, 679.
164 Id. at 677.
165 Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The court explained that “[t]he practical significance of FOIA’s
command to disclose a responsive record as a unit . . . depends on how one conceives of a ‘record.’” Id. at 678. The
court wrote, however, that FOIA does not contain a definition of that term, and it did not supply a definition of its own.
Id. (“[T]he parties have not addressed the antecedent question of what constitutes a distinct ‘record’ for FOIA purposes,
and we have no cause to examine the issue. Rather, for purposes of this case, we simply take as a given [the agency’s]
own understanding of what constitutes a responsive ‘record,’ as indicated by its disclosures in response to [the subject]
request”); id. (“Although FOIA includes a definitions section, [5 U.S.C.] § 551, that section provides no definition of
the term ‘record.’ Elsewhere, the statute describes the term ‘record’ as ‘includ[ing] any information that would be an
agency record . . . when maintained by an agency in any format, including an electronic format,’ id. § 552(f), but that
description provides little help in understanding what is a ‘record’ in the first place.”) (second alteration and ellipses in
original). The court explained that, in the absence of a definition, “agencies instead in effect define a ‘record’ when
they undertake the process of identifying records that are responsive to a request.” Id. Others disagree that FOIA does
not define “record.” See, e.g., DOJ GUIDE, PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS, supra note 61, at 11 (“As a result of the 1996
amendments to the FOIA, Congress included a definition of the term ‘records’ in the FOIA, defining it as including
‘any information that would be an agency record . . . when maintained by an agency in any format, including an
electronic format.’” (ellipses in original) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(2)(A))).
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An agency may be prohibited by another source of law from disclosing material that is exempt
under FOIA.166 For example, under FOIA’s Exemption 3, certain statutes that prohibit or place
limits on agencies’ disclosure of information may serve as bases under FOIA for withholding
covered information.167 An agency’s disclosure of information protected by an Exemption 3
withholding statute, therefore, could, depending on the statute’s terms, violate that particular
statute. As another example, although FOIA’s Exemption 4 authorizes an agency to withhold
certain confidential “commercial or financial information” and trade secrets,168 the Trade Secrets
Act (TSA)169 imposes criminal penalties for disclosing certain confidential materials if disclosure
is not “authorized by law.”170 Thus, while Exemption 4 grants agencies discretion to withhold
information covered by both the exemption and the TSA, the TSA would prohibit the
unauthorized disclosure of the information.171 Ultimately, however, if records within FOIA’s
coverage are not exempt under FOIA or prohibited from being disclosed by another law, an
agency must disclose such records upon request.172
Under certain circumstances, an agency may be held to have waived its ability to apply an
exemption to a requested record due to its prior disclosure of information. For example, the D.C.
Circuit has “held . . . that the government cannot rely on an otherwise valid exemption claim to
justify withholding information that has been ‘officially acknowledged’ or is in the ‘public
domain.’”173 Courts often have held that an agency’s prior disclosure of information to Congress
has not foreclosed application of an exemption in response to a subsequent FOIA request.174

166 See DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, WAIVER AND DISCRETIONARY
DISCLOSURE, at 15-16 (Aug. 28, 2019) [hereinafter DOJ GUIDE, WAIVER AND DISCRETIONARY DISCLOSURE],
https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1198006/download. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3)(A)(i).
167 See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3). Exemption 3 is discussed below. See infra “Exemption 3: Matters Exempted by Other
Statutes.”
168 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4). Exemption 4 is discussed below. See infra “Exemption 4: Trade Secrets and Commercial or
Financial Information.”
169 18 U.S.C. § 1905.
170 Id.
171 See Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U.S. 281, 291-94, 318-19 (1979). Courts have recognized that “the scope of the
[TSA] is at least co-extensive with that of Exemption 4.” CNA Fin. Corp. v. Donovan, 830 F.2d 1132, 1144 (D.C. Cir.
1987). Some commentators, however, have expressed skepticism over whether this view remains true given the
Supreme Court’s recent interpretation of Exemption 4’s scope in Food Marketing Institute (FMI) v. Argus Leader
Media, 139 S. Ct. 2356 (2019). See, e.g., Bernard Bell, Food Marketing Institute: A Preliminary Assessment (Part II),
NOTICE & COMMENT: YALE J. ON REG. (July 8, 2019), https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/food-marketing-institute-a-
preliminary-assessment-part-ii/.
172 Cf. NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 221 (1978) (“Unless the requested material falls within one
of these nine statutory exemptions, FOIA requires that records and material in the possession of federal agencies be
made available on demand to any member of the general public.”).
173 Davis v. DOJ, 968 F.2d 1276, 1279 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (citations omitted). See also NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.,
421 U.S. 132, 161 (1975) (“W]e hold that if an agency chooses expressly to adopt or incorporate by reference an intra-
agency memorandum previously covered by Exemption 5 in what would otherwise be a final opinion, that
memorandum may be withheld only on the ground that it falls within the coverage of some exemption other than
Exemption 5.”); Shell Oil Co. v. IRS, 772 F. Supp. 202, 209 (D. Del. 1991) (“Where an authorized disclosure is
voluntarily made to a non-federal party . . . the government waives any claim that the information is exempt from
disclosure under the deliberative process privilege [of FOIA’s Exemption 5].”).
174 See, e.g., Fla. House of Representatives v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, 961 F.2d 941, 946 (11th Cir. 1992) (holding
that the agency’s disclosure of information to Congress did not constitute a waiver because the agency did so “only
under the threat of Congress’s power of subpoena” and, therefore, the “disclosure was involuntary”); Murphy v. Dep’t
of Army, 613 F.2d 1151, 1156 (D.C. Cir. 1979) (“[W]e conclude that, to the extent that Congress has reserved to itself
in [5 U.S.C. § 552(d)] the right to receive information not available to the general public, and actually does receive
such information pursuant to that section (whether in the form of documents or otherwise), no waiver occurs of the
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However, whether an agency has waived an exemption is necessarily dependent on “the specific
nature and circumstances of the prior disclosure.”175
Exemption 1: National Defense or Foreign Policy
The first FOIA exemption authorizes agencies to withhold certain matters that pertain to “national
defense or foreign policy.”176 Specifically, Exemption 1 allows an agency to withhold information
that is “(A) specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept
secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and (B) [which is] in fact properly
classified pursuant to such Executive order.”177 This exemption reflects Congress’s interest in
maintaining the confidentiality of information implicating national defense and security.178
However, as the text makes clear, not all national-security-related information may be withheld
under Exemption 1. Instead, only those national defense or foreign policy matters that have been
properly classified through an applicable executive order are covered.179
At present, Executive Order 13526 primarily governs the classification of national security
information by the executive branch.180 The executive order prescribes the procedures for
classifying national security information and lists the categories of information to which the order
applies, which include “military plans, weapons systems, or operations”; “scientific,
technological, or economic matters relating to the national security”; and “United States
Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities.”181 Information that an
agency seeks to withhold from disclosure under Exemption 1 must satisfy the substantive and
procedural requirements contained in Executive Order 13526.182

privileges and exemptions which are available to the executive branch under the FOIA with respect to the public at
large.”); see also Rockwell Int’l Corp. v. DOJ, 235 F.3d 598, 604 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (acknowledging “that
communications between an agency and Congress would receive protection as intra-agency memoranda [under
Exemption 5] if they were ‘part and parcel of the agency’s deliberative process’” (quoting Dow Jones & Co. v. DOJ,
917 F.2d 571, 575 (D.C. Cir. 1990)); DOJ GUIDE, WAIVER AND DISCRETIONARY DISCLOSURE, supra note 166, at 10
(“When an agency shares information with Congress, without making an official disclosure of the information to the
public, courts have ruled that this exchange of information does not result in waiver.”); but see, e.g., Dow Jones, 917
F.2d at 575 (explaining that, “[i]n the case at bar, [DOJ] had unquestionably ended its consideration as to whether to
prosecute, or in any other way proceed against, [a Member of Congress] before it sent the letter to Congress” and,
“[f]or that reason, we do not think that [DOJ’s] letter to the House Ethics Committee can be withheld under Exemption
5.”).
175 DOJ GUIDE, WAIVER AND DISCRETIONARY DISCLOSURE, supra note 166, at 1.
176 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1).
177 Id.
178 See Clark, supra note 94, at 298 (citing 112 CONG. REC. 13022 (June 20, 1966) (Statement of Representative Robert
Dole)); id. (citing 112 CONG. REC. 13008 (June 20, 1966) (Statement of Representative John Moss)); Lyndon B.
Johnson, Statement by the President Upon Signing S. 1160 (July 4, 1966).
179 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1).
180 DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXEMPTION 1, at 3 (Aug. 21, 2019)
[hereinafter DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 1], https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1197091/download.
181 See, e.g., Exec. Order No. 13,526 §§ 1.4, 1.6, 3 C.F.R. 298 (2010); id. § 1.4(a), (e), (f). Although Exemption 1 only
applies to information that has been classified pursuant to an applicable executive order, Executive Order No. 13,526
specifically authorizes agencies to classify or reclassify, as the case may be, previously undisclosed information upon
receipt of a FOIA request. Id. § 1.7(d). Such classifications and reclassifications must be made “on a document-by-
document basis with the personal participation or under the direction of the agency head” or other senior executive
branch official specified in the executive order and comply with the executive order’s requirements. Id.
182 See Shoenman v. FBI, 575 F. Supp. 2d 136, 151-52 (D.D.C. 2008) (“To show that it has properly withheld
information under FOIA Exemption 1, the [agency] must show both that the information was classified pursuant to the
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Exemption 2: Internal Personnel Rules and Practices
FOIA’s second exemption applies to records that are comparatively more “routine” and generally
prone to less public interest than the national-security-related matters agencies may withhold
under Exemption 1.183 Exemption 2 authorizes agencies to exempt from disclosure information
that is “related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.”184 The Supreme
Court has held that “personnel rules and practices” under Exemption 2 are those that address
“employee relations or human resources.”185 This exemption covers rules and practices pertaining
to “hiring and firing, work rules and discipline, [and] compensation and benefits.”186 To fall under
Exemption 2, information must pertain “exclusively or only” to personnel rules and practices,187
and, as the Supreme Court has explained, an “agency must typically keep [such] records to itself
for its own use.”188
For years, many courts interpreted this provision to cover not only the employee relations and
humans resources information described above, but also records that were predominantly internal
and whose release would “significantly risk[] circumvention of agency regulations or statutes.”189
But in Milner v. Department of the Navy, the Supreme Court held that this broad view of
Exemption 2 contravened the ordinary meaning of “personnel rules and practices”—which the
Court read as applying only to employee relations and human resources records190—and

proper procedures, and that the withheld information substantively falls within the scope of [the governing executive
order].”); H.R. REP. NO. 1380, at 11-12 (1974) (Conf. Rep.); S. REP. NO. 1200, at 11-12 (1974) (Conf. Rep.); see also
DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 1, supra note 180, at 1-2.
183 Dep’t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 370 (1976); cf. id. at 369 (discussing that, as opposed to the case
summaries of Air Force Academy honor and ethics proceedings at issue in that case, “Exemption 2 is not applicable to
matters subject to such a genuine and significant public interest”). In Vaughn v. Rosen, 523 F.2d 1136 (D.C. Cir. 1973),
quoted in Rose, 425 U.S. at 365, the D.C. Circuit declared that “the [1965] Senate Report” underlying FOIA “indicates
that the line sought to be drawn [in Exemption 2] is one between minor or trivial matters”—which are covered by the
exemption—“and those more substantial matters which might be the subject of legitimate public interest.” 521 F.3d at
1142.
184 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(2).
185 Milner v. Dep’t of Navy, 562 U.S. 562, 570 (2011). See also id. at 581 (holding that “Exemption 2, consistent with
the plain meaning of the term ‘personnel rules and practices,’ encompasses only records relating to issues of employee
relations and human resources”).
186 Id. at 570.
187 Id. at 570 n.4 (defining the “related solely” element of Exemption 2).
188 Id. (defining the “internal” element of Exemption 2).
189 Milner, 562 U.S. at 567 (explaining that many courts embraced a bifurcated reading of Exemption 2 that protected
both “materials concerning human resources and employee relations, and . . . records whose disclosure would risk
circumvention of the law”); Crooker v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, 670 F.2d 1051, 1074 (D.C. Cir. 1981)
(en banc) (holding “that if a document for which disclosure is sought meets the test of ‘predominant internality,’ and if
disclosure significantly risks circumvention of agency regulations or statutes, then Exemption 2 exempts the material
from mandatory disclosure”), abrogated by Milner, 562 U.S. 562. The first category of information was protected by
what courts referred to as the “Low 2” component of Exemption 2. See Milner, 562 U.S. at 567 (explaining that “the
‘Low 2’ exemption” referred to “materials concerning human resources and employee relations”); see also Schiller v.
NLRB, 964 F.2d 1205, 1207 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (explaining that “[p]redominantly internal documents that deal with
trivial administrative matters fall under the ‘low 2’ exemption”), abrogated by Milner, 562 U.S. 562. The second was
protected by the exemption’s so-called High 2 component. See Milner, 562 U.S. at 567; see also Schiller, 964 F.2d at
1207 (“Predominantly internal documents the disclosure of which would risk circumvention of agency statutes and
regulations are protected by the so-called ‘high 2’ exemption.”), abrogated by Milner, 562 U.S. 562. See DOJ, OFFICE
OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXEMPTION 2, at 4-5 (May 7, 2019)
https://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-guide/exemption_2/download.
190 Milner, 562 U.S. at 581 (holding that “Exemption 2, consistent with the plain meaning of the term ‘personnel rules
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impermissibly incorporated an extrastatutory “circumvention requirement” into the exemption.191
After Milner, agencies wishing to withhold information that would have previously qualified as
High 2 information must locate possible alternatives to Exemption 2 in other FOIA
exemptions.192
Exemption 3: Matters Exempted by Other Statutes
With the exceptions of Exemptions 8 and 9, exemptions for information on a particularly specific
subject or issue tend to be governed by FOIA’s third exemption.193 Exemption 3 generally allows
agencies to withhold information if it is “specifically exempted from disclosure by” a non-FOIA
statute.194 In other words, disclosure under Exemption 3 is determined not by the category of
information at issue, but rather by the information’s protection by another statute.195 Congress has
enacted a variety of statutes that prohibit or place limitations on the disclosure of information by
the government. These statutory confidentiality requirements cover a wide range of information,
including such diverse categories as information pertaining to visa determinations,196 drug pricing
data,197 patent applications,198 and tax returns,199 to name but a few.
Congress, however, did not intend for Exemption 3 to apply to every statute that authorizes or
requires the withholding of information.200 Congress limited the exemption’s coverage to two
particular categories of statutes “to assure,” as the D.C. Circuit has written, “that basic policy
decisions on governmental secrecy be made by the Legislative rather than the Executive
branch.”201 The first category of laws that Exemption 3 covers are statutes that direct agencies to

and practices,’ encompasses only records relating to issues of employee relations and human resources”).
191 Id. at 573 (declaring that “[t]he High 2 test ignores the plain meaning of the adjective ‘personnel,’ and adopts a
circumvention requirement with no basis or referent in Exemption 2’s language,” and stating that “High 2 is better
labeled ‘Non 2’ (and Low 2 . . . just 2)”).
192 See Stuessy, supra note 25, at 18.
193 Exemptions 8 and 9 are discussed below. See infra “Exemption 8: Financial Institution Reports” & “Exemption 9:
Geological and Geophysical Information and Data Concerning Wells.”
194 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3); cf. H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 10 (1966) (writing in regard to the first iteration of Exemption 3 that
“[t]here are nearly 100 statutes or parts of statutes which restrict public access to specific Government records. These
would not be modified by [FOIA].”). The exemption explicitly states that the Sunshine Act is not an Exemption 3
statute. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3).
195 Cf. Goland v. CIA, 607 F.2d 339, 350 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (“[T]he sole issue for decision is the existence of a relevant
statute and the inclusion of withheld material within that statute’s coverage.”).
196 See 8 U.S.C. § 1202(f); see also Medina-Hincapie v. Dep’t of State, 700 F.2d 737, 741 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (holding
that § 1202(f) is an Exemption 3 withholding statute).
197 See 42 U.S.C. § 1396r-8(b)(3)(D).
198 See 35 U.S.C. § 122(a); see also Irons & Sears v. Dann, 606 F.2d 1215, 1220-21 (D.C. Cir. 1979) (holding that
§ 122 is an Exemption 3 withholding statute).
199 See 26 U.S.C. § 6103(a); see also Adamowicz v. IRS, 402 F. App’x 648, 652 (2d Cir. 2010) (holding information
exempt under Exemption 3 and § 6103(a)).
200 H.R. REP. NO. 1441, at 14 (1976) (Conf. Rep.).
201 Am. Jewish Cong. v. Kreps, 574 F.2d 624, 628 (D.C. Cir. 1978). The conference report underlying the 1976
amendments to FOIA, which imposed the limitations to Exemption 3 discussed in this paragraph, see infra text
accompanying notes 202-207, explained that the limitations were a response to the Supreme Court’s decision in
Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) v. Robertson, 422 U.S. 255 (1975). See H.R. REP. NO. 1441, at
14 (1976) (Conf. Rep.). Section 1104 of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 provided that the FAA Administrator shall
withhold certain information where, in the Administrator’s opinion, disclosure “would adversely affect the interests of”
a person objecting to its disclosure and would not be “required in the interest of the public.” 49 U.S.C. § 1504 (1976)
(quoted in Robertson, 422 U.S. at 258 n.4 (emphasis added)). The Robertson Court held that Section 1104, with its
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withhold information “from the public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the issue.”202
The second embraces statutes that “establish[] particular criteria for withholding or refer[] to
particular types of matters to be withheld.”203 In American Jewish Congress v. Kreps, the D.C.
Circuit explained that the first category “embraces only those statutes incorporating a
congressional mandate of confidentiality that, however general, is absolute and without
exception.”204 The second category, however, “does leave room for administrative discretion”;205
statutes embraced by that category cabin or direct an agency’s discretion by specific standards or
criteria.206 A record must fall within the terms of a statute embraced by either category to fall
under Exemption 3.207
Exemption 3 limits the universe of statutes subject to its coverage in one additional way. Any
statute enacted after the date of the OPEN FOIA Act of 2009208 must “specifically cite[] to” the
exemption to qualify as an Exemption 3 withholding statute.209 Courts, accordingly, have held
that statutes enacted after October 28, 2009, that fail to cite to Exemption 3 do not qualify as an
exemption statute under FOIA, even if they would otherwise fall within the first two categories
described above.210

broad grant of authority to the FAA Administrator to determine whether disclosure was in the public interest, was a
withholding statute under Exemption 3. See 422 U.S. at 266-67. The subsequent 1976 amendment to Exemption 3 was
“intend[ed] . . . to overrule the decision of the Supreme Court in . . . Robertson,” H.R. REP. NO. 1441, at 14 (1976)
(Conf. Rep.), and “exclude from its compass laws . . . which Congress perceived as giving the agency carte blanche to
withhold any information [it] pleases,” Kreps, 574 F.2d at 628 (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks
omitted) (quoting H.R. REP. NO. 880, pt. I, at 23 (1976)).
202 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3)(A)(i).
203 Id. § 552(b)(3)(A)(ii). For examples of statutes courts have found qualify under this category, see DOJ, OFFICE OF
INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXEMPTION 3, at 15-26 (Aug. 20, 2019) [hereinafter DOJ
GUIDE, EXEMPTION 3], https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1197096/download.
204 Kreps, 574 F.2d at 628 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see Baldrige v. Shapiro, 455 U.S. 345, 352
(1982) (explaining that the first disjunctive prong requires that a “statute afford[] the agency no discretion on
disclosure”).
205 Kreps, 574 F.2d at 628; cf. Irons & Sears v. Dann, 606 F.2d 1215, 1220 (D.C. Cir. 1979) (writing that “the mere
presence of some residual administrative discretion does not take [the statute under review] out of Exemption 3”).
206 Legal & Safety Emplr. Research Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Army, No. S-00-1748 WBS/JFM, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
26278, at *10 (E.D. Cal. May 7, 2001) (explaining that “[t]o satisfy subsection [(A)(ii)], a statute must limit agency
discretion to a particular item or class of items, or it must limit agency discretion by prescribing guidelines for the
exercise of that discretion”) (citing Long v. IRS, 742 F.2d 1173, 1178 (9th Cir. 1984)); see also 2 O’REILLY, supra note
25, § 13:1, at 350-51 (writing that Exemption 3 “applies to information which is required by statute to be held in
confidence; is permitted to be held in confidence by particular statutory criteria; or is permitted to be withheld by the
agency upon a statutory reference to one particularly type of information”) (emphasis omitted). One court has
explained that Exemption 3’s second category applies to statutes that “provide a measurable yardstick for [agencies] to
use in determining whether disclosure is permissible.” Nat’l Western Life Ins. Co. v. United States, 512 F. Supp. 454,
459 (N.D. Tex. 1980). For examples of statutes courts have found qualify under the second category of Exemption 3
statutes, see DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 3, supra note 203, at 26-44.
207 Cf. CIA v. Sims, 471 U.S. 159, 167 (1985). Therefore, a court’s inquiry under Exemption 3 requires that it
determine both that a given statute qualifies as an Exemption 3 withholding statute and that the records that have been
requested are protected by the statute. See id.; see also A. Michael’s Piano, Inc. v. FTC, 18 F.3d 138, 143 (D.C. Cir.
1994) (“The two threshold criteria needed to obtain exemption 3 exclusion from public disclosure are that (1) the
statute invoked qualifies as an exemption 3 withholding statute, and (2) the materials withheld fall within that statute’s
scope.”).
208 Pub. L. No. 111-83, 123 Stat. 2184 (2009).
209 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3)(B) (providing that Exemption 3 only applies to a statute “enacted after the date of enactment of
the OPEN FOIA Act of 2009” if it “specifically cites to this paragraph”).
210 See, e.g., Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund v. BATFE, No. 18-cv-2296 (AJN), 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
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Exemption 4: Trade Secrets and Commercial or Financial
Information
Third parties regularly submit an enormous amount of sensitive proprietary information to the
federal government, including in such varied situations as military and other government
contracts;211 settlement negotiations with agencies;212 and applications for drug approvals by the
Food and Drug Administration.213 FOIA’s Exemption 4 authorizes agencies to exempt from
disclosure many types of sensitive information that individuals and entities from outside the
federal government transmit to the government. Specifically, the exemption protects (1) “trade
secrets” and (2) “commercial or financial information obtained from a person . . . [that is]
privileged or confidential.”214
The D.C. Circuit defines a “trade secret” for purposes of Exemption 4 as any
secret, commercially valuable plan, formula, process, or device that is used for the making,
preparing, compounding, or processing of trade commodities and that can be said to be the
end product of either innovation or substantial effort.215
Courts have interpreted the exemption to embrace a broad range of information, allowing, for
example, agencies to exempt as trade secrets “documents contain[ing] information consisting of
drug product manufacturing information, including manufacturing processes or drug chemical
composition and specifications,”216 as well as “information regarding the quantities of menthol
contained in cigarettes by brand and by quantity in each brand and subbrand.”217

140108, at *25 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 19, 2019); Long v. ICE, 149 F. Supp. 3d 39, 54 (D.D.C. 2015) (holding that the Federal
Information Security Modernization Act of 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-283, 128 Stat. 3073 was not a withholding statute
under Exemption 3 because, inter alia, it failed to cite to Exemption 3 despite the fact that it “was enacted after the
OPEN FOIA Act of 2009”).
211 See, e.g., McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. U.S. Dep’t of Air Force, 375 F.3d 1182, 1185 (D.C. Cir. 2004).
212 See, e.g., M/A-Com Inf. Sys. v. HHS, 656 F. Supp. 691, 692 (D.D.C. 1986).
213 See 21 U.S.C. § 355.
214 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4).
215 Pub. Citizen Health Research Grp. v. FDA, 704 F.2d 1280, 1289 (D.C. Cir. 1983); accord Anderson v. HHS, 907
F.2d 936, 943-44 (10th Cir. 1990). In Public Citizen Health Research Group, the D.C. Circuit rejected the argument
that FOIA adopted the Restatement (First) of Torts’ definition of “trade secret.” 704 F.2d at 1288. That definition
provides that “[a] trade secret may consist of any formula, pattern, device or compilation of information which is used
in one’s business, and which gives him an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use
it.” RESTATEMENT (FIRST) OF TORTS § 757 cmt. b (1939). The court held that “the broad Restatement approach . . . [is]
inconsistent with the language of the FOIA and its underlying policies” because (1) FOIA’s legislative history offers no
evidence in support of such an expansive definition, (2) the definition contained in the Restatement “renders
meaningless the second prong of Exemption 4,” and (3) the Restatement’s definition “is ill-suited for the public law
context in which FOIA determinations must be made.” Pub. Citizen Health Research Grp., 704 F.2d at 1288-89.
Accordingly, the court’s basis for finding that the Restatement’s definition of “trade secret” would leave the
“commercial or financial information” prong of Exemption 4 meaningless was at least partially based on the fact that
the term “confidential” under Exemption 4 included, under the test then in use by the D.C. Circuit, information whose
disclosure was “likely . . . to cause substantial harm to the competitive position of the person from whom [] information
was obtained.” Nat’l Parks & Conserv. Ass’n v. Morton, 498 F.2d 765, 770 (D.C. Cir. 1974). It is worth noting that, as
discussed below, the Supreme Court subsequently rejected that definition of “confidential” for Exemption 4 in FMI v.
Argus Leader Media, 139 S. Ct. 2356 (2019). See infra text accompanying notes 223-225.
216 Appleton v. FDA, 451 F. Supp. 2d 129, 141 (D.D.C. 2006).
217 Rozema v. HHS, 167 F. Supp. 3d 324, 328, 340-41 (N.D.N.Y. 2016) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
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Most Exemption 4 litigation, however, does not concern trade secrets, but rather information
potentially exempt under the “commercial or financial information” prong of Exemption 4.218
Under that prong, materials may be withheld under FOIA if they (1) constitute “commercial or
financial information,”219 (2) have been supplied to an agency by a “person,”220 and (3) are
“privileged or confidential.”221 While each element of the prong must be satisfied for information
other than a trade secret to qualify as exempt, a particularly significant question courts face in
Exemption 4 litigation is whether commercial or financial information is “confidential” within the
meaning of Exemption 4.222
Prior to 2019, the leading test for determining the meaning of “confidential” under the exemption
was developed by the D.C. Circuit in National Parks & Conservation Association v. Morton.
Under the National Parks test, commercial or financial information was deemed confidential “if
disclosure of the information [was] likely . . . (1) to impair the Government’s ability to obtain
necessary information in the future; or (2) to cause substantial harm to the competitive position of
the person from whom the information was obtained.”223 Under National Parks, therefore, the

218 DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXEMPTION 4, at 4 (Oct. 9, 2019)
[hereinafter DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 4], https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1207891/download (“The overwhelming
majority of Exemption 4 cases focus on this standard.”).
219 Courts have accorded “the terms ‘commercial’ and ‘financial’ in the exemption . . . their ordinary meanings.” Pub.
Citizen Health Research Grp., 704 F.2d at 1290; see, e.g., Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Treasury, 802 F. Supp.
2d 185, 204 (D.D.C. 2011) (“‘Commercial’ is defined broadly to include ‘records that reveal basic commercial
operations or relate to income-producing aspects of a business’ as well as situations where the ‘provider of the
information has a commercial interest in the information submitted to the agency.’” (quoting Baker & Hostetler, LLP v.
United States Dep’t of Commerce, 473 F.3d 312, 319, 374 (D.C. Cir. 2006))).
220 See 5 U.S.C. § 551(2) (defining the word “person” to “include[] an individual, partnership, corporation, association,
or public or private organization other than an agency”).
221 Id. § 552(b)(4); Pub. Citizen Health Research Grp., 704 F.2d at 1290 (“Information other than trade secrets falls
within the second prong of the exemption if it is shown to be (1) commercial or financial, (2) obtained from a person,
and (3) privileged or confidential.”).
Though the term “confidential” has been subject to considerable litigation, considerably less litigation has focused on
the meaning of “privileged” in Exemption 4. Cf. Jordan v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 273 F. Supp. 3d 214, 231 (D.D.C.
2017) (noting that “case law examining privilege under Exemption 4 is sparse”) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). The district court in Jordan explained that “‘[p]rivileged’ information” for purposes of Exemption 4 “is
generally understood to be information that falls within recognized constitutional, statutory, or common law
privileges.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Courts, for example, have held that commercial or
financial records were exempt under Exemption 4 on account of their protection under the attorney-client privilege. See
e.g., id. at 231-32; McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. EEOC, 922 F. Supp. 235, 242 (E.D. Mo. 1996). FOIA’s legislative
history explicitly mentions the attorney-client privilege and other privileges in relation to Exemption 4. See, e.g., H.R.
REP. NO. 1497, at 31 (1966) (stating that Exemption 4 embraces “information customarily subject to the doctor-patient,
lawyer-client, or lender borrower privileges such as technical or financial data submitted by an applicant to a
Government lending or loan guarantee agency”); accord S. REP. NO. 813, at 44 (1965). Claims that a record is protected
by the attorney-client privilege in the context of communications with a federal government attorney may implicate
Exemption 5. See infra “Exemption 5: Inter- or Intra-Agency Memoranda or Letters.”
222 See DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 4, supra note 218, at 13.
223 498 F.2d at 770 (footnote omitted). In Critical Mass Energy Project v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 975 F.2d
871 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (en banc), the D.C. Circuit had limited the National Parks test to situations in which entities were
obligated to provide commercial or financial information to an agency, id. at 879. If a submitter had voluntarily
provided the government with financial or commercial information, the Critical Mass court held that such information
“is ‘confidential’ . . . if it is of a kind that would customarily not be released to the public by the person from whom it
was obtained.” Id. at 879. Critical Mass was not widely accepted outside of the D.C. Circuit. See Pet. for a Writ of
Certiorari at 28, FMI v. Argus Media Leader, No. 18-481 (Oct. 2018) (asserting that, “[t]o date, the
voluntary/involuntary Critical Mass test has been adopted by the D.C. and Tenth Circuits”).
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courts looked to the effect of disclosing commercial or financial information on the federal
government or submitter of information.224
But in Food Marketing Institute (FMI) v. Argus Leader Media, the Supreme Court rejected the
D.C. Circuit’s test and instead held that “[a]t least where commercial or financial information is
both [1] customarily and actually treated as private by its owner and [2] provided to the
government under an assurance of privacy, the information is ‘confidential’ within the meaning of
Exemption 4.”225 This definition is broader than the National Parks test and permits agencies to
withhold a larger category of information from FOIA’s disclosure mandate.226 But the Supreme
Court did not define the precise boundaries of its new test in FMI; although the Court determined
that “[a]t least the first condition” must be present for information to qualify as confidential, it did
not decide whether the government must always provide assurances that information will be kept
private in order for information to fall within Exemption 4’s coverage.227
Exemption 5: Inter- or Intra-Agency Memoranda or Letters
Exemption 5 applies to “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be
available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.”228 The 1966 House
report accompanying the FOIA legislation indicates that the exemption was drafted with the
intention of ensuring the “full and frank exchange of opinions” within the executive branch and
based on the proposition that requiring an agency to release information prior to finalizing an
action or decision will hinder its ability to effectively function.229 To fall within Exemption 5’s

224 See, e.g., Charles River Park “A,” Inc. v. Dep’t of Housing & Urban Dev., 519 F.2d 935, 941 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1975)
(writing that “the National Parks test for confidentiality looks in one instance to the effect of disclosure on the provider
of the information”).
225 139 S. Ct. 2356, 2363-66 (2019); see id. at 2367 (Breyer, J., dissenting). As discussed below, see infra “Reverse-
FOIA Litigation,” the definition of “confidential commercial information” in Executive Order 12,600, which governs
agencies’ general requirement to notify submitters of information before disclosing certain commercial or confidential
information in response to a FOIA response, conflicts with the Supreme Court’s definition of “confidential” in FMI.
The executive order defines “confidential commercial information” as “records provided to the government by a
submitter that arguably contain material exempt from release under Exemption 4 . . . because disclosure could
reasonably be expected to cause substantial competitive harm.” Exec. Order No. 12,600, § 2(a) (Jan. 1, 1987).
226 See CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10294, When Does the Government Have to Disclose Private Business Information in
its Possession?, by Daniel J. Sheffner, at 1.
227 FMI, 139 S. Ct. at 2363 (“Contemporary dictionaries [from the time of FOIA’s enactment] suggest two conditions
that might be required for information communicated to another to be considered confidential. In one sense,
information communicated to another remains confidential whenever it is customarily kept private, or at least closely
held, by the person imparting it. In another sense, information might be considered confidential only if the party
receiving it provides some assurance that it will remain secret.”) (citations omitted); id. (explaining that “[a]t least the
first condition has to be” present for information to qualify as confidential under Exemption 4, but that it was not
necessary to determine whether “privately held information [may] lose its confidential character for purposes of
Exemption 4 if it’s communicated to the government without assurances that the government will keep it private,”
because that condition had been satisfied in the case).
228 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5). As discussed below, infra text accompanying note 247, Exemption 5 also provides that the
deliberative process privilege—a discovery privilege incorporated by Exemption 5—does “not apply to records created
25 years or more before the date on which the records were requested.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5).
229 H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 10 (1966) (“Agency witnesses argued that a full and frank exchange of opinions would be
impossible if all internal communications were made public. They contended, and with merit, that advice from staff
assistants and the exchange of ideas among agency personnel would not be completely frank if they were forced to
‘operate in a fishbowl.’ Moreover, a Government agency cannot always operate effectively if it is required to disclose
documents or information which it has received or generated before it completes the process of awarding a contract or
issuing an order, decision or regulation.”); accord S. REP. NO. 813, at 9 (1965).
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coverage, a document must both (1) qualify as an “inter-agency or intra-agency” document and
(2) “fall within the ambit of a privilege against discovery under judicial standards that would
govern litigation against the agency that holds it.”230
Material is “inter-agency or intra agency” if it originates from an “agency,” as that term is defined
by FOIA.231 Some courts have also recognized what is known as the “consultant corollary” to
Exemption 5, under which the exemption protects certain materials that have been supplied to an
agency by external consultants.232 Nonetheless, Exemption 5 does not protect all such
communications. In DOI v. Klamath Water Users Protective Association, for example, the
Supreme Court held that information submitted to DOI by certain American Indian tribes
concerning the allocation of water rights did not constitute “intra-agency” records because the
tribes had “communicate[d] with the [agency] with their own, albeit entirely legitimate, interests
in mind” and sought “a Government benefit at the expense of other applicants.”233
An inter- or -intra-agency document will only qualify as exempt if, in the context of pretrial
discovery, it would not “be routinely or normally disclosed upon a showing of relevance” in
litigation against the agency.234 Accordingly, agency materials that would be routinely or normally
disclosed in such contexts are not covered by the exemption.235 That a record must be disclosed in
discovery upon a sufficient showing of need does not remove the record from Exemption 5’s
protection, as records subject to disclosure in such circumstances “are . . . not ‘routinely’ or
‘normally’ available to parties in litigation.”236
The Court has explained that Exemption 5 “incorporates the privileges which the Government
enjoys under the relevant statutory and case law in the pretrial discovery context.”237 The
exemption has been construed to embrace privileges mentioned in FOIA’s legislative history, but

230 DOI v. Klamath Water Users Protective Ass’n, 532 U.S. 1, 8-9 (2001). In this context, a privilege is a protection
from required disclosure that is afforded to information or materials under certain circumstances. See, e.g., Privileged,
BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 598 (4th pkt. ed. 2011) (defining “privileged” as, inter alia, “[n]ot subject to the usual rules
or liabilities; esp., not subject to disclosure during the course of a lawsuit”).
231 See Klamath, 532 U.S. at 9; 5 U.S.C. §§ 551(1), 552(f)(1). See also supra “‘“Agency”
232 Klamath, 532 U.S. at 9-10. See, e.g., McKinley v. Bd. of Governors of Fed. Reserve Sys., 647 F.3d 331, 336 (D.C.
Cir. 2011) (explaining that “[u]nder the ‘consultant corollary’ to Exemption 5 . . . we interpret ‘intra-agency’ ‘to
include agency records containing comments solicited from nongovernmental parties’” (quoting Nat’l Inst. of Military
Justice v. DOD, 512 F.3d 677, 680, 682 (D.C. Cir. 2008))).
233 Klamath, 532 U.S. at 13 & n.4. The Klamath Court considered whether the exemption applied to the
communications at issue “on analogy to consultants’ reports.” Id. at 12. The Court assumed, but did not decide, the
existence of such a corollary. Id. & n.4.
234 FTC v. Grolier, Inc., 462 U.S. 19, 26 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted); accord Klamath, 532 U.S. at 8;
EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 86 (1973) (Exemption 5 “clearly contemplates that the public is entitled to all such
memoranda or letters that a private party could discover in litigation with the agency.”).
235 Cf. NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 148 (1975) (“[I]t is reasonable to construe Exemption 5 to
exempt those documents, and only those documents, normally privileged in the civil discovery context.”). In DOJ v.
Julian, 486 U.S. 1 (1988), the Supreme Court held that Exemption 5 did not authorize the withholding of presentence
investigation reports in response to requests made by the subjects of such reports, for while “the courts have typically
required some showing of special need before they will allow a third party to obtain a copy of a presentence report,” the
Court explained that “there is simply no privilege preventing disclosure” of such reports to the subjects thereof, id. at
12-15.
236 Grolier, 462 U.S. at 27; DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXEMPTION 5,
at 2 (Aug. 26, 2019), https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1197816/download.
237 Renegotiation Bd. v. Grumman Aircraft Eng’g Corp., 421 U.S. 168, 184 (1975); cf. Martin v. Office of Special
Counsel, Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 819 F.2d 1181, 1185 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (“[Exemption 5 incorporates] all civil discovery
rules into FOIA Exemption (b) (5). Nothing on the face of the provision indicates it incorporates the deliberative
process privilege in a vacuum.”).
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privileges not mentioned may also be incorporated.238 However, a privilege not expressly listed in
the legislative history and considered “novel” or having “less than universal acceptance” would
be less likely to fall within Exemption 5’s scope.239
Both the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have identified several privileges that
Exemption 5 embraces and that may, therefore, serve as bases for withholding agency documents,
including the privileges discussed below.
Deliberative Process Privilege. The deliberative process privilege is recognized as a component
of the more general “executive privilege.”240 The Supreme Court has explained that the
deliberative process privilege applies to agency “advisory opinions, recommendations and
deliberations comprising part of a process by which governmental decisions and policies are
formulated.”241 The privilege protects agency records that are “predecisional”242 (i.e., they predate
an agency decision)243 and “deliberative” (i.e., they reflect “the give-and-take of the consultative
process”).244 The privilege does not protect materials that an “agency chooses expressly to adopt
or incorporate by reference,” nor does it generally cover factual material.245 Notably, the FOIA
Improvement Act of 2016246 amended Exemption 5 to exclude application of the privilege to
documents that were “created 25 years or more before the date on which [they] were
requested.”247

238 United States v. Weber Aircraft Corp., 465 U.S. 792, 800 (1984) (explaining that the Court in Federal Open Market
Committee of the Federal Reserve System v. Merrill, 443 U.S. 340 (1979), held “that a privilege that was mentioned in
the legislative history of Exemption 5 is incorporated by the Exemption —not that all privileges not mentioned are
excluded”).
239 Id. at 801; see 3 HICKMAN & PIERCE, JR., supra note 151, § 21.11, at 2219 (explaining that the Weber “Court noted
that exemption five is more likely to be held to incorporate ‘well-settled’ privileges than to incorporate privileges that
are ‘novel’ or that have ‘found less than universal acceptance’”). Thus, for example, in Burka v. Department of Health
& Human Services, 87 F.3d 508 (D.C. Cir. 1996), the D.C. Circuit held that Exemption 5 did not incorporate a
privilege for “research data . . . on the grounds that disclosure would harm a researcher’s publication prospect” because
such a practice was not “established or well-settled” in civil discovery. Id. at 521.
240 Sears, 421 U.S. at 149 (citing Mink, 410 U.S. at 86-87). For a discussion of executive privilege in the context of
congressional oversight, see CRS Report R45653, Congressional Subpoenas: Enforcing Executive Branch Compliance,
by Todd Garvey, at 20-25.
241 Klamath, 532 U.S. at 8 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Sears, 421 U.S. at 150)).
242 See Sears, 421 U.S. at 151.
243 See Pub. Citizen v. OMB, 598 F.3d 865, 874 (D.C. Cir. 2009).
244 Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
245 Sears, 421 U.S. at 161 (“[I]f an agency chooses expressly to adopt or incorporate by reference an intra-agency
memorandum previously covered by Exemption 5 in what would otherwise be a final opinion, that memorandum may
be withheld only on the ground that it falls within the coverage of some exemption other than Exemption 5.”); see
Mead Data Cent., Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 256 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (acknowledging that “[m]any
exemption five disputes may be able to be decided by application of the simple test that factual material must be
disclosed but advisory material, containing opinions and recommendations, may be withheld”); but see, e.g., Wolfe v.
HHS, 839 F.2d 768, 774 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (writing that, “[i]n some circumstances, even material that could be
characterized as ‘factual’ would so expose the deliberative process that it must be covered by the privilege”); City of
Va. Beach v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, 995 F.2d 1247, 1253 (4th Cir. 1993) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted) (“[P]urely factual material does not fall within the exemption unless it is inextricably intertwined with
policymaking processes such that revelation of the factual material would simultaneously expose protected
deliberation.”).
246 Pub. L. No. 114-185, 130 Stat. 538 (June 30, 2016).
247 Id. § 2(2), 130 Stat. at 540 (codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5)). In March 2020, the Supreme Court granted a petition
for a writ of certiorari in Fish & Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, No. 19-547. See Order List, Mar. 2, 2020, at 3,
https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/030220zor_l5gm.pdf. The petition asks the Court to determine
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Presidential Communications Privilege. The presidential communications privilege is also a
component of executive privilege and has been recognized as applicable in the Exemption 5
context.248 The Supreme Court has held that the privilege protects from mandatory disclosure
“communications in performance of [a President’s] responsibilities, of his office, and made in the
process of shaping policies and making decisions.”249 The D.C. Circuit has held that the privilege
also protects “communications authored or received in response to . . . solicitation[s] by” senior
White House advisers “in the course of gathering information and preparing recommendations on
official matters for presentation to the President,”250 as well as records “authored or solicited and
received by . . . members of an immediate White House adviser’s staff who have broad and
significant responsibility for investigating and formulating the advice to be given to the President
on a particular matter.”251 Unlike the deliberative process privilege, the presidential
communications privilege “applies to documents in their entirety, and covers final and post-
decisional materials as well as pre-deliberative ones.”252
Attorney-Client Privilege. Exemption 5 also incorporates the attorney-client privilege.253 The
attorney-client privilege generally protects “communication[s] made between privileged persons
in confidence for the purpose of obtaining or providing legal assistance for the client.”254

whether the deliberative process privilege, in the context of FOIA, “protects against compelled disclosure a federal
agency’s draft documents that were prepared as part of a formal interagency consultation process under Section 7 of the
Endangered Species Act [(ESA)] of 1973 . . . that concerned a proposed agency action that was later modified in the
consultation process.” Petition for a Writ of Certiorari at i, Sierra Club, Oct. 25, 2019. The U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit had ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service (Services) to
disclose certain materials, including draft “biological opinions,” see 50 C.F.R. § 402.14(h), the Services had created
during their review of a draft EPA regulation pursuant to Section 7 of the ESA. See Sierra Club v. Fish & Wildlife
Serv., 925 F.3d 1000, 1018 (9th Cir. 2019); 16 U.S.C. § 1536. The Services had disclosed portions of those draft
biological opinions to EPA, but neither agency had disclosed either opinion in full. Sierra Club, 925 F.3d at 1008. EPA
later modified its draft regulation, and the Services subsequently issued a joint final biological opinion. Id. The
Supreme Court’s decision in Sierra Club could impact the scope of Exemption 5, particularly as the deliberative
process privilege is applied to putative draft or interim documents generated during inter-agency consultations of the
kind at issue in the case.
Oral argument in Sierra Club is scheduled for Monday, November 2, 2020. See SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES, October Term 2020, For the Session Beginning November 2, 2020 (Aug. 19, 2020),
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_calendars/MonthlyArgumentCalNovember2020.pdf.
248 See Judicial Watch, Inc. v. DOJ, 365 F.3d 1108, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2004).
249 Nixon v. Adm’r of Gen. Servs. 433 U.S. 425, 449 (1977) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and
citations omitted).
250 In re Sealed Case (Espy), 121 F.3d 729, 757 (D.C. Cir. 1997).
251 Id.
252 Judicial Watch, 365 F.3d at 1113-14 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Espy, 121 F.3d at 745). At least
one court has explicitly stated that the presidential communications privilege can be waived in regard to information an
agency expressly adopted or incorporated by reference into a final opinion. See Samahon v. DOJ, No. 13-6462, 2015
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23813, at *39 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 27, 2015) (“[T]he deliberative process, attorney-client, and presidential
communications privileges can be waived ‘if the agency has chosen “expressly to adopt or incorporate by reference [a]
. . . memorandum previously covered by Exemption 5 in what would otherwise be a final opinion.”’” (quoting Nat’l
Council of La Raza v. DOJ, 411 F.3d 350, 356 (2d Cir. 2005) (ellipses and second alteration in original)); but see
Advocates for the West. . . [B]ecause the . . . the presidential communications privilege applies, there . . . is no need to
go any further.”).
253 NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 154 (1975) (writing that “[t]he Senate Report [underlying FOIA]
states that Exemption 5 ‘would include . . . documents which would come within the attorney-client privilege if applied
to private parties’” (quoting S. REP. NO. 813, at 2 (1965))).
254 RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF THE LAW GOVERNING LAWYERS § 68 (numerical formatting omitted). The Restatement
(Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers defines “privileged persons” as the client or prospective client; the client’s
attorney; “agents of [the client or attorney] who facilitate communications between them”; and “agents of the lawyer
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Exemption 5 incorporates the privilege as it exists for government attorneys, where, as explained
by the D.C. Circuit, “the ‘client’ may be the agency and the attorney may be an agency
lawyer.”255 The privilege does not cover information “adopted as, or incorporated by reference
into, an agency’s policy.”256
Attorney Work-Product Privilege. In the context of Exemption 5, the attorney work-product
privilege embraces “materials prepared in anticipation of litigation” by an agency.257 The
privilege serves to protect and maintain an effective adversarial litigation system.258 While
records must have been prepared in anticipation of litigation to be protected by the exemption, in
Federal Trade Commission v. Grolier, the Supreme Court held that materials may be withheld
under Exemption 5 even if the litigation for which the materials were prepared has since ended.259
The Court’s decision was based on its interpretation of Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, which is the source of the work-product doctrine for pretrial discovery in federal civil
litigation.260 It was also based on the fact that, generally, federal judicial decisions regarding
“Rule 26[] had determined that work-product materials retained their immunity from discovery
after termination of the litigation for which the documents were prepared, without regard to
whether other related litigation is pending or is contemplated.”261 The court explained that,
because “Exemption 5 incorporates the privileges which the Government enjoys under the
relevant statutory and case law in the pretrial discovery context,” materials protected by the
work-product privilege were not “‘routinely’ available in subsequent litigation.”262
Other Privileges. The Supreme Court and lower courts have determined that other privileges are
embraced by Exemption 5. For example, in United States v. Weber Aircraft Corp., the Supreme
Court held that the privilege protecting “[c]onfidential statements made to air crash safety
inspectors,” known as the Machin privilege,263 was incorporated by the exemption.264 The Court
has also held that Exemption 5 applies to “confidential commercial information, at least to the

who facilitate the representation.” Id. § 70.
255 Tax Analysts v. IRS, 117 F.3d 607, 618 (D.C. Cir. 1997); see also Confidentiality of the Attorney General’s
Communications in Counseling the President, 6 Op. O.L.C. 481, 495 (1982) (“Although the attorney-client privilege
traditionally has been recognized in the context of private attorney-client relationships, the privilege also functions to
protect communications between government attorneys and client agencies or departments, as evidenced by its
inclusion in the FOIA, much as it operates to protect attorney-client communications in the private sector.”).
256 La Raza, 411 F.3d at 360.
257 Tax Analysts, 117 F.3d at 620 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting FED. R. CIV. P. 26(b)(3)); PIERCE, JR., ET
AL., supra note 154, at 389. Courts have held that records produced in anticipation of administrative litigation are
embraced by the privilege. See Schoenman v. FBI, 573 F. Supp. 2d 119, 143 (D.D.C. 2008) (“[C]ourts have found that
the attorney work-product privilege extends to documents prepared in anticipation of administrative litigation, partially
because ‘administrative litigation certainly can beget court litigation and may in many circumstances be expected to do
so.’” (quoting Exxon Corp. v. Dep’t of Energy, 585 F. Supp. 690, 700 (D.D.C. 1983))).
258 See Coastal States Gas Corp. v. Dep’t of Energy, 617 F.2d 854, 864 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (“The purpose of the privilege
. . . is . . . to protect the adversary trial process itself. It is believed that the integrity of our system would suffer if
adversaries were entitled to probe each other’s thoughts and plans concerning the case.”); Jeff A. Anderson et al., The
Work Product Doctrine, 68 CORNELL L. REV. 760, 787 (1983) (stating that “the doctrine’s central purpose” is the
preservation of an “effective adversary behavior for the good of the system”).
259 462 U.S. 19, 26-28 (1983).
260 See FED. R. CIV. P. 26(b)(3).
261 Grolier, 462 U.S. at 25-26.
262 Id. at 26-27 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Renegotiation Bd. v. Grunman Aircraft Eng’g Corp., 421
U.S. 168, 184 (1975)).
263 The privilege is named after the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Machin v. Zuckert, 316 F.2d 336 (D.C. Cir. 1963).
264 United States v. Weber Aircraft Corp., 465 U.S. 792, 796, 799 (1984).
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extent that this information is generated by the Government itself in the process leading up to
awarding a contract.”265
Exemption 6: Personnel, Medical, and Similar Files
Exemption 6 exempts from disclosure “personnel and medical files and similar files the
disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”266
Federal agencies maintain a large amount of information about individuals, such as health and
medical records,267 criminal records,268 home addresses,269 social security numbers,270 and a
variety of other types of personal information.271 Exemption 6 helps shield “individuals from the
injury and embarrassment” that may stem from the disclosure of personal information maintained
by the government.272 The exemption applies to citizens and noncitizens alike,273 but courts have
not extended its protections to corporations.274
As an initial manner, an agency may only withhold information for impermissibly invading an
individual’s privacy if it is a personnel, medical, or “similar” file.275 FOIA does not contain a

265 Fed. Open Mkt. Comm. of Fed. Reserve Sys. v. Merrill, 443 U.S. 340, 360 (1979). Confidential commercial
information submitted to the federal government by individuals or entities from outside the federal government,
however, is the subject of Exemption 4. See supra “Exemption 4: Trade Secrets and Commercial or Financial
Information.”
266 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). Exemption 7(C) also exempts certain information in order to protect individuals from
unwarranted intrusions into their privacy. See id. § 552(b)(7)(C). As explained infra, “Exemption 7: Law Enforcement
Records or Information,” Exemption 7’s privacy protections are broader than Exemption 6’s, although it is limited to
“records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes,” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7).
Some records covered by Exemptions 6 or 7(C) may also fall under the ambit of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a. The
interplay between FOIA and the Privacy Act is discussed below. See infra “Related Open Government and Information
Laws: FACA, the Sunshine Act, and the Privacy Act.”
267 See, e.g., Joseph W. Diemert, Jr. & Assoc. Co. v. FAA, 218 F. App’x 479 (6th Cir. 2007) (workers compensation
records possessed by the Federal Aviation Administration).
268 See, e.g., DOJ v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749 (1989) (FBI “rap sheet” on private
individual).
269 See, e.g., DOD v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. 487 (1994) (home addresses of certain federal employees).
270 See, e.g., Coleman v. Lappin, 680 F. Supp. 2d 192 (D.D.C. 2010) (social security numbers of Bureau of Prisons
employees).
271 See S. REP. NO. 813, at 9 (1965) (stating that “[s]uch agencies as the Veterans’ Administration, Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare, Selective Service, etc., have great quantifies of files” and that “[t]here is a consensus
that these files should not be opened to the public”); accord H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 11 (1966).
272 U.S. Dep’t of State v. Wash. Post. Co., 456 U.S. 595, 599 (1982).
273 See, e.g., U.S. Dep’t of State v. Ray, 502 U.S. 164, 179 (1991) (holding that disclosure of unredacted documents
containing identifying information of Haitian citizens would violate Exemption 6).
274 Nat’l Parks & Conservation Ass’n v. Kleppe, 547 F.2d 673, 685 n.44 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (noting that “[t]he sixth
exemption has not been extended to protect the privacy interests of businesses or corporations”). In FCC v. AT&T, 562
U.S. 397 (2011), the Supreme Court held that Exemption 7(C)’s protection of “personal privacy” did not apply to
corporations. Id. at 409-10. In support of this conclusion, the Court discussed the inclusion of that term in Exemption 6
and explained that while “the question whether Exemption 6 is limited to individuals has not come to us directly, we
have regularly referred to that exemption as involving an ‘individual’s right of privacy.’” Id. at 407-08 (quoting Ray,
502 U.S. at 175). That said, the D.C. Circuit has held that “Exemption 6 applies to financial information in business
records when the business is individually owned or closely held, and ‘the records would necessarily reveal at least a
portion of the owner’s personal finances.’” Multi AG Media LLC v. USDA, 515 F.3d 1224, 1228-29 (D.C. Cir. 2008)
(quoting Kleppe, 547 F.2d at 685).
275 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6); see DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXEMPTION 6,
at 4 (Oct. 4, 2019) [hereinafter DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 6], https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1207336/download.
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definition of these terms, but, as some courts have explained, personnel and medical files
“generally contain a variety of information about a person, such as place of birth, date of birth,
date of marriage, employment history, and comparable data.”276 And the Supreme Court has held
that the term “similar files” broadly embraces any “information which applies to a particular
individual.”277 Courts have identified a variety of information types that qualify as “files” under
Exemption 6, including, for example, the names and addresses of federal annuitants;278
individuals’ citizenship information;279 information associated with asylum requests;280 and
“information regarding marital status, legitimacy of children, identity of fathers of children,
medical condition, welfare payments, alcoholic consumption, family fights, [and] reputation.”281
Information is not exempt from disclosure under FOIA, however, merely because it qualifies as a
personnel, medical, or similar file. Such files must still be disclosed upon request unless release
“would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”282 To determine whether
disclosure would rise to such a level, agencies and courts balance the privacy interest283
associated with the requested information against “the public interest in disclosure.”284 Courts

276 Wood v. FBI, 432 F.3d 78, 86 (2d Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Wash. Post. Co., 456 U.S.
at 600); see also Dep’t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 377 (1976) (explaining that the requested case summaries of
Air Force Academy honor and ethics code hearings did “not contain the vast amounts of personal data which constitute
the kind of profile of an individual ordinarily to be found in his personnel file: showing, for example, where he was
born, the names of his parents, where he has lived from time to time, his high school or other school records, results of
examinations, evaluations of his work performance,” and that “access to these files is not drastically limited, as is
customarily true of personnel files, only to supervisory personnel directly involved with the individual (apart from the
personnel department itself), frequently thus excluding even the individual himself”) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted).
277 Wash. Post. Co., 456 U.S. at 600, 602; see also id. (stating that Congress “‘intended [Exemption 6] to cover detailed
Government records on an individual which can be identified as applying to that individual’” (quoting H.R. REP. NO.
1497, at 11 (1966))).
278 Nat’l Ass’n of Retired Fed. Employees v. Horner, 879 F.2d 873, 874 (D.C. Cir. 1989).
279 Wash. Post. Co., 456 U.S. at 602.
280 See, e.g., Phillips v. ICE, 385 F. Supp. 2d 296, 304 (S.D.N.Y. 2005); see also Cook v. Nat’l Archives & Records
Admin., 758 F.3d 168, 174-75 (2d Cir. 2014) (noting that “Passport Office records revealing citizenship status; an
investigation report revealing alleged misconduct; letters to Guantanamo Bay detainees revealing the names and
addresses of family members; and records of interview of deported aliens revealing their identities” are all “types of
records [that] have been deemed ‘similar files’ for purposes of Exemption 6”) (footnotes omitted).
281 Rural Hous. All. v. USDA, 498 F.2d 73, 77 (D.C. Cir. 1974).
282 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). The Supreme Court has explained that “the purposes for which [a] request for information is
made” do not govern “whether an invasion of privacy is warranted.” DOD v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. 487,
496 (1994) (emphasis and internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 771).
283 According to the Supreme Court, “[t]he privacy interest[s] protected by Exemption 6 encompass the individual’s
control of information concerning his or her person.” Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. at 500 (internal quotation
marks, citation, and alteration omitted). In National Archives and Records Administration v. Favish, 541 U.S. 157
(2004), in which the Court considered whether death-scene photographs of a former deputy counsel to the President—
Vincent Foster, Jr.—were exempt under Exemption 7(C), 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7), the Court held that FOIA’s privacy
protections extended to the privacy interests of the close relatives of a record’s subject, 541 U.S. at 161, 168, 171.
Exemption 7(C) contains similar invasion-of-privacy language as Exemption 6. See infra “Exemption 7: Law
Enforcement Records or Information.” See also Clark, supra note 94, at 305 (explaining that Exemption 6 was
designed to exempt “all personnel and medical files, and all private or personal information contained in other files,”
where disclosure “would amount to a clearly unwarranted invasion of the privacy of any person, including members of
the family of the person to whom the information pertains”).
284 Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. at 495 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting DOJ v. Reporters Comm.
for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 776 (1989)); see Dep’t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 372 (1976). FOIA’s
legislative history indicates that Congress understood Exemption 6 to require a balancing of private and public
interests. See H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 11 (1966) (writing that “[t]he limitation of a ‘clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy’ provides a proper balance between the protection of an individual’s right of privacy and the
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typically require that an agency assert a privacy interest that is “substantial” (or more than “de
minimis”) to justify withholding the information.285 And the Supreme Court has held that “the
only relevant public interest in disclosure . . . is the extent to which disclosure would serve the
core purpose of FOIA, which is contributing significantly to public understanding of the
operations or activities of the government.”286 If the asserted privacy interest outweighs the public
interest in disclosure, the information is exempt.287
Exemption 7: Law Enforcement Records or Information
FOIA’s seventh exemption applies to “records or information compiled for law enforcement
purposes,” but only where disclosure of such agency records “would” or “could reasonably be
expected to” result in certain harms specified by the exemption (and discussed below).288 As the

preservation of the public’s right to Government information by excluding those kinds of files the disclosure of which
might harm the individual”); S. REP. NO. 813, at 9 (1965) (explaining that “[t]he phrase ‘clearly unwarranted invasion
of personal privacy’ enunciates a policy that will involve a balancing of interests between the protection of an
individual’s private affairs from unnecessary public scrutiny, and the preservation of the public’s right to governmental
information”).
285 See, e.g., Am. Farm Bureau Fed’n v. EPA, 836 F.3d 963, 970 (8th Cir. 2016); Cook v. Nat’l Archives & Records
Admin., 758 F.3d 168, 175-76 (2d Cir. 2014); Multi AG Media LLC v. USDA, 515 F.3d 1224, 1229-30 (D.C. Cir.
2008); see DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 6, supra note 275, at 9-10. The necessary privacy interest for the Exemption 6
balancing analysis has also been described as one that is “significant,” see Multi AG Media, 515 F.3d at 1229 (citation
and quotation marks omitted), or “nontrivial,” see Cameranesi v. DOD, 856 F.3d 626, 637 (9th Cir. 2017).
286 Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. at 495 (emphasis and internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Reporters
Comm, 489 U.S. at 777); see also id. at 497 (declaring that “the only relevant public interest in the FOIA balancing
analysis” is “the extent to which disclosure of the information sought would ‘shed light on an agency’s performance of
its statutory duties’ or otherwise let citizens known ‘what their government is up to’” (quoting Reporters Comm, 489
U.S. at 773)); Bibles v. Or. Natural Desert Ass’n, 519 U.S. 355, 355-56 (1997) (per curiam) (same); Dep’t of Air Force
v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 372 (1976) (explaining that “Congress sought to construct an exemption [in Exemption 6] that
would require a balancing of the individual’s right of privacy against the preservation of the basic purpose of [FOIA]
‘to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny’” (quoting Rose v. Dep’t of Air Force, 495 F.2d 261, 263 (2d Cir.
1974), aff’d, 425 U.S. 352)).
In National Archives and Records Administration v. Favish, the Supreme Court construed Exemption 7(C) so that a
requester must “establish a sufficient reason for . . . disclosure.” 541 U.S. at 172. To meet this burden, he or she must
establish (1) “that the public interest sought to be advanced is a significant one, an interest more specific than having
the information for its own sake,” and (2) that “the information is likely to advance that interest. Otherwise, the
invasion of privacy is unwarranted.” Id. When the public interest asserted by the requester concerns government
misconduct or negligence, the Court held that “the requester must produce evidence that would warrant a belief by a
reasonable person that the alleged Government impropriety might have occurred,” a showing requiring “more than a
bare suspicion.” Id. at 174.
287 See, e.g., Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. at 502 (“Because the privacy interest of bargaining unit employees in
nondisclosure of their home addresses substantially out-weighs the negligible FOIA-related public interest in
disclosure, we conclude that disclosure would constitute a ‘clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy’” and that
“FOIA, thus, does not require the agencies to divulge the addresses . . . .” (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6))). If, on the
other hand, the public interest in disclosure outweighs the asserted privacy interest, the information is not covered by
Exemption 6. See, e.g., Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. Norton, 309 F.3d 26, 37 (D.C. 2002) (“Given the strong public
interest in knowing ‘what the government is up to,’ we hold that the Secretary has failed to rebut the presumption
favoring disclosure . . . .” (citation omitted)).
An agency’s redaction of sensitive information may, depending on the circumstances, be adequate to remove the
remaining contents of a record from Exemption 6’s protection. See Rose, 425 U.S. at 380-81 (writing that respondents’
“request for access to [the requested documents] with personal references or other identifying information deleted[]
respected the confidentiality interests embodied in Exemption 6,” but that if “deletion of personal references and other
identifying information is not sufficient to safeguard privacy, then the [documents] should not be disclosed” (internal
quotation marks and citations omitted)).
288 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A)-(F); John Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 493 U.S. 146, 156 (1989) (“Exemption 7
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Supreme Court has explained, Exemption 7 stemmed from Congress’s belief “that law
enforcement agencies had legitimate needs to keep certain records confidential, lest the agencies
be hindered in their investigations or placed at a disadvantage when it came time to present their
cases.”289
To qualify as exempt under Exemption 7, a record must have been “compiled” for law
enforcement purposes.290 This criterion may be satisfied even if the record was not originally
compiled for law enforcement purposes, as the Supreme Court has held that this exemption also
applies if material was subsequently gathered for law enforcement purposes, prior to the agency’s
response to the FOIA request.291 Further, the Court has held that material that was originally
compiled “for law enforcement purposes continues to meet the threshold requirements of
Exemption 7 where [it] is reproduced or summarized in a new document prepared for a non-law-
enforcement purpose.”292 As explained by the D.C. Circuit, “the term ‘compiled’ in Exemption 7
requires that a document be created, gathered, or used by an agency for law enforcement purposes
at some time before the agency invokes the exemption.”293
Courts have applied Exemption 7 to records compiled for criminal, civil, and administrative
enforcement, as well as to materials associated with agencies’ national and homeland security
functions.294 Further, the exemption not only applies to agencies that primarily engage in law
enforcement, but also to agencies that possess both administrative and law enforcement
responsibilities (“mixed-function agencies”).295 Although, on judicial review, an agency must

requires the Government to demonstrate that a record is ‘compiled for law enforcement purposes’ and that disclosure
would effectuate one or more of . . . six specified harms.” (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7))). Exemption 7 is not limited
to investigative records. See Tax Analysts v. IRS, 294 F.3d 71, 79 (D.C. Cir. 2002); S. REP. NO. 221, at 23 (1983).
Although at one time the act did confine the exemption’s scope to such records, see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7) (1982), in
1986, Congress amended Exemption 7 “by deleting the word ‘investigatory’ and inserting the words ‘or information,’
so that protection is now available to all ‘records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes.’” Abdelfattah
v. DHS, 488 F.3d 178, 184 (3d Cir. 2007) (per curiam) (alteration omitted) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)); see Pub. L.
No. 99-570, § 1802, 100 Stat. 3207, 3207-48 (1986).
289 NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 224 (1978).
290 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7).
291 John Doe Agency, 493 U.S. at 155.
292 FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. 615, 631-32 (1982).
293 Public Emp.’s for Envtl. Responsibility v. U.S. Section, Int’l Boundary & Water Comm’n, 740 F.3d 195, 203 (D.C.
Cir. 2014) (Kavanaugh, J.).
294 DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXEMPTION 7, at 7-9 (May 24, 2019)
[hereinafter DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 7], https://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-guide/exemption_7/download. See, e.g., Stein
v. United States SEC, 266 F. Supp. 3d 326, 343 (D.D.C. 2017) (“Exemption 7(A) applies to law enforcement records
compiled for civil, administrative, and criminal matters.”) (citing Tax Analysts, 294 F.3d at 77)); Ctr. for Nat’l Sec.
Studies v. DOJ, 331 F.3d 918, 926 (2003) (determining that 9/11 detainees’ names satisfied Exemption 7’s threshold
requirement because “[t]he terrorism investigation is one of DOJ’s chief law enforcement duties, and the investigation
concerns a heinous violation of federal law as well as a breach of this nation’s security”) (quotation marks and citation
omitted); see also Milner v. Dep’t of Navy, 562 U.S. 562, 582-83 (2011) (Alito, J., concurring) (writing that “[t]he
ordinary understanding of law enforcement includes not just the investigation and prosecution of offenses that have
already been committed, but also proactive steps designed to prevent criminal activity and to maintain security” and
that “in recent years, terrorism prevention and national security measures have been recognized as vital to effective law
enforcement efforts in our Nation”).
295 See, e.g., Tax Analysts, 294 F.3d at 77 (stating that “FOIA makes no distinction between agencies whose principal
function is criminal law enforcement and agencies with both law enforcement and administrative functions” and that
“agencies like IRS [the Internal Revenue Service], that combine administrative and law enforcement functions, as well
as agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (‘FBI’), whose principal function is criminal law enforcement, may
seek to avoid disclosure of records or information pursuant to Exemption 7”); id. (writing that “the District Court
[below] correctly identified IRS as a mixed-function agency”). See Margaret Kwoka, Deferring to Secrecy, 54 B.C. L.
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establish that materials withheld under Exemption 7 are compiled for purposes of law
enforcement to properly invoke the exemption, agencies whose primary function is criminal law
enforcement are often subject to comparatively relaxed standards of proof on this question than
are mixed-function agencies.296
Exemption 7 only applies to certain statutorily specified types of law enforcement records.297
Therefore, establishing that material has been compiled for law enforcement purposes is
insufficient to exempt it from disclosure under FOIA; even if a withheld record was compiled for
such purposes, it may only be exempted from disclosure if disclosure may or will lead to one of
the harms identified in subexemptions (A) through (F).298
Exemption 7(A) authorizes the withholding of law enforcement records where disclosure “could
reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”299 Courts have held that
Exemption 7(A) applies in the context of a “pending or prospective” enforcement proceeding and
where disclosure “could reasonably be expected to cause some articulable harm” to those
proceedings,300 such as by obstructing an agency’s investigation or placing an agency “at a

REV. 185, 217 (2013) (“Both agencies whose principal function is law enforcement, such as the [FBI], and agencies
that engage in law enforcement activities and other administrative functions, such as the [IRS], can claim this
exemption.”) (citing Tax Analysts, 294 F.3d at 77).
296 See Pratt v. Webster, 673 F.2d 408, 418 (D.C. Cir. 1982). Courts have generally applied one of two tests when
evaluating whether records withheld by an agency whose principal purpose is criminal law enforcement were compiled
for law enforcement purposes. See Jordan v. DOJ, 668 F.3d 1188, 1193-94 (10th Cir. 2011) (summarizing the two
tests). Many apply what is known as the “rational nexus test,” which demands that, in the words of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit, “an agency . . . demonstrate that the relationship between its authority to enforce a statute
or regulation and the activity giving rise to the requested documents is based upon information sufficient to support at
least a colorable claim of the relationship’s rationality.” Abdelfattah, 488 F.3d at 186. The rational nexus test was first
articulated by the D.C. Circuit in Pratt v. Webster. See 673 F.2d at 420-21 (holding, prior to the 1986 amendments that
broadened Exemption 7 to embrace noninvestigatory records, see supra note 288, that an agency must establish that the
“investigatory activities that give rise to the documents sought . . . relate[] to the enforcement of federal laws or to the
maintenance of national security” and that “the nexus between the investigation and one of the agency’s law
enforcement duties . . . [is] based on information sufficient to support at least a ‘colorable claim’ of its rationality”). In
contrast, pursuant to the “per se rule,” materials withheld by agencies that primarily engage in criminal law
enforcement are deemed to be “inherently records compiled for law enforcement purposes within the meaning of
Exemption 7.” Curran v. DOJ, 813 F.2d 473, 475 (1st Cir. 1987) (quotation marks and citation omitted). However,
courts often require a more rigorous showing from mixed-function agencies that the information being withheld was
compiled for law enforcement purposes. See, e.g., Tax Analysts, 294 F.3d at 77 (explaining that the IRS was “subject to
an exacting standard when it comes to the threshold requirement of Exemption 7”); Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP
v. IRS, No. 04-2187, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58410, at *23 (D.D.C. Aug. 21, 2006) (“Because the IRS is an agency that
combines administrative and law enforcement functions, it is entitled to less deference when evaluating its claim that
information was compiled for law enforcement purposes.”). See DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 7, supra note 294, at 17-21.
297 See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A)-(F).
298 See John Doe Agency, 493 U.S. at 156.
299 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A).
300 Manna v. DOJ, 51 F.3d 1158, 1164 (3d Cir. 1995); see also Sussman v. U.S. Marshals Serv., 494 F.3d 1106, 1114
(D.C. Cir. 2007) (explaining that Exemption 7(A) applies where enforcement proceedings are “reasonably anticipated”)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., the Supreme Court explained
that mandating the disclosure of witness statements prior to an NLRB unfair practices hearing raises the risk that
employers or unions “will coerce or intimidate employees and other[]” witnesses and may “have a chilling effect on the
Board’s sources.” 437 U.S. at 239-41. The Court held that disclosure in such an instance “would constitute an
‘interference’ with NLRB enforcement proceedings” in that it would “giv[e] a party litigant earlier and greater access
to the Board’s case than he would otherwise have.” Id. at 241. Crucially, the Court also held that, under Exemption
7(A), courts are authorized to determine “that, with respect to particular kinds of enforcement proceedings, disclosure
of particular kinds of investigatory records while a case is pending would generally ‘interfere with enforcement
proceedings.’” Id. at 236 (emphasis added) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A)). This “generic” method allows agencies
to eschew the “document-by-document” approach to justifying withholding decisions. DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO. POL’Y,
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disadvantage when it came time to present [its] case[].”301 However, courts have established
limits to Exemption 7(A)’s application. For example, many courts have held that agencies must
satisfy a high burden in proving that harm will occur from “the release of information that the
targets of the investigation already possess.”302
Exemption 7(B) applies where disclosure “would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an
impartial adjudication.”303 The D.C. Circuit has explained “that a trial or adjudication [must be]
pending or truly imminent” in order to trigger Exemption 7(B), and “that it [must be] more
probable than not that disclosure . . . would seriously interfere with the fairness of those
proceedings.”304And the D.C. Circuit has held that, as to disclosure’s effect on the fairness of
proceedings, courts must examine “the significance of any alleged unfairness in light of its effect
. . . on the proceedings as a whole,” and not simply whether disclosure would bestow “a slight
advantage . . . on a party in a single phase of a case.”305
Exemption 7(C) authorizes the withholding of records where disclosure “could reasonably be
expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”306 Like Exemption 6,307
Exemption 7(C) was designed to protect personal privacy interests. However, as the Supreme
Court has explained, the latter exemption provides more protection for materials under its
coverage than does the former.308 Exemption 6 only applies to disclosures that “would constitute a
clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”309 Exemption 7(C), however, is more
encompassing: it does not include the word “clearly,” and it protects against disclosures that
merely “could reasonably be expected to” effect an unwarranted intrusion into personal

GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXEMPTION 7(A), at 20 (Aug. 21, 2019),
https://www.justice.gov/oip/page/file/1197816/download.
301 NLRB v. Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 225 (1978) (“In originally enacting Exemption 7, Congress recognized
that law enforcement agencies had legitimate needs to keep certain records confidential, lest the agencies be hindered in
their investigations or placed at a disadvantage when it came time to present their cases.”).
302 Chesapeake Bay Found., Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 677 F. Supp. 2d 101, 108 (D.D.C. 2009) (emphasis
omitted) (citing Campbell v. HHS, 682 F.2d 256, 265 (D.C. Cir. 1982)); cf. Wright v. Occupational Safety & Health
Admin., 822 F.2d 642, 646 (7th Cir. 1987) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (“We also find that [the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)] has not provided an adequate factual basis to allow a court to
determine whether the category of evidence and supporting information compiled by the [compliance safety health
officer] is exempt from disclosure. Although there may be reason to believe that such information should be exempt
under [Exemption] 7(A) to prevent giving away OSHA’s case, this category may contain documents that Union Oil
itself provided to OSHA during the course of the agency’s investigation. In that case, it is not clear to us why public
disclosure of this information would provide Union Oil with any information that it does not already have.”).
303 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(B).
304 Chiquita Brands Int’l v. SEC, 805 F.3d 289, 294 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quotation marks omitted) (quoting Wash. Post
Co. v. DOJ, 863 F.2d 96, 102 (D.C. Cir. 1988)). The D.C. Circuit has held that a “trial” as used in Exemption 7(B)
refers to “the ultimate determination of factual and legal claims by judge or jury in a judicial proceeding” and “that
Exemption 7(B) comes into play only when it is probable that the release of law enforcement records will seriously
interfere with the fairness of that final step [of a judicial proceeding] which is called the trial.” Id. at 295 (quotation
marks and citation omitted). The court also held that Exemption 7(B)’s reference to “adjudication” “refers to
determinations made by administrative agencies, not,” as the appellant in the case argued, “to pretrial decisions issued
by a judge.” Id. at 296.
305 Id. at 297-98.
306 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C).
307 Id. § 552(b)(6). See supra “Exemption 6: Personnel, Medical, and Similar Files.”
308 DOD v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. 487, 496 n.6 (1994); see also 3 HICKMAN & PIERCE, JR., supra note
151, § 21.13, at 2234.
309 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6) (emphasis added).
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privacy.310 Despite these differences, however, both exemptions are guided by many of the same
privacy principles discussed above in relation to Exemption 6.311 For example, courts determining
the availability of Exemption 7(C) often engage in the same type of case-by-case balancing of the
private interests at stake and the public interest in disclosure as they do in the Exemption 6
context.312
Exemption 7(D) applies to disclosures which “could reasonably be expected to disclose the
identity of a confidential source,” as well as to “information furnished by a confidential source”
where “records or information [were] compiled by criminal law enforcement authority in the
course of a criminal investigation or by an agency conducting a lawful national security
intelligence investigation.”313 A source is “confidential” if the government expressly pledges to
keep information supplied by the source in confidence or if “such an assurance could be
reasonably inferred” from the circumstances.314 According to the Supreme Court’s decision in
DOJ v. Landano, “[a] source should be deemed confidential if the source furnished information
with the understanding that the [agency] would not divulge the communication except to the
extent [it] thought necessary for law enforcement purposes.”315 While the Court in Landano
rejected the government’s argument that confidentiality is generally presumed simply because a
source has worked with the FBI during a criminal investigation, it did hold that such a
presumption may exist where “circumstances such as the nature of the crime investigated and the
witness’ relation to it support an inference of confidentiality.”316
Exemption 7(E) provides that records may be withheld where disclosure “would disclose
techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose

310 Id. § 552(b)(7)(C); Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 756; see also PIERCE, JR., supra note 154, at 396.
311 See supra “Exemption 6: Personnel, Medical, and Similar Files”; DOJ GUIDE, EXEMPTION 6, supra note 275, passim.
312 See, e.g., CREW v. DOJ, 746 F.3d 1082, 1091-96 (D.C. Cir. 2014). Under Exemption 7(C), however, case-by-case
balancing may be eschewed in favor of a categorical approach in some circumstances. See Reporters Comm., 489 U.S.
at 776 (holding “that categorical decisions may be appropriate and individual circumstances disregarded when a case
fits into a genus in which the balance characteristically tips in one direction”). In Reporters Committee, the Supreme
Court determined that there was a “substantial” privacy interest in “rap sheets”—records of individuals’ criminal
histories—which the Court described as publicly available but practically obscure. 489 U.S. at 751,764, 780. In
asserting the principle of “categorical balancing” in the Exemption 7(C) context, the Court explained that “[w]hen the
subject of such a rap sheet is a private citizen and when the information is in the Government’s control as a
compilation, rather than as a record of ‘what the Government is up to,’ the privacy interest protected by Exemption
7(C) is in fact at its apex while the FOIA-based public interest in disclosure is at its nadir.” Id. at 780. “Such a disparity
on the scales of justice,” the Court continued, “holds for a class of cases without regard to individual circumstances; the
standard virtues of bright-line rules are thus present, and the difficulties attendant to ad hoc adjudication may be
avoided.” Id.; see PIERCE, JR., ET AL., supra note 154, at 396 (writing that the Reporters Committee “Court adopted a
‘categorical’ approach by holding that rap sheets could not be obtained through the FOIA pursuant to this or any other
request”).
313 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(D). Exemption 7(D) states, in full, that “records or information compiled for law enforcement
purposes” are exempt where disclosure:
could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source, including a State,
local, or foreign agency or authority or any private institution which furnished information on a
confidential basis, and, in the case of a record or information compiled by criminal law
enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation or by an agency conducting a lawful
national security intelligence investigation, information furnished by a confidential source.
Id.
314 DOJ v. Landano, 508 U.S. 165, 172 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting S. REP. NO. 1200, at 13
(1974) (Conf. Rep.)).
315 Id. at 174.
316 Id. at 180-81.
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guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably
be expected to risk circumvention of the law.”317 As can be seen from the text, this subexemption
applies to two different types of investigation and prosecution materials: “techniques and
procedures” and “guidelines.” Courts are split as to whether the circumvention requirement
applies to the disclosure of both types of materials or only to the “guidelines” described in the
subexemption’s second clause.318
Exemption 7(F) authorizes withholding where disclosure “could reasonably be expected to
endanger the life or physical safety of any individual.”319 Prior to 1986, this subexemption only
protected against disclosures that could endanger law enforcement personnel.320 However, the
1986 amendments to FOIA expanded Exemption 7(F)’s coverage by substituting “any individual”
for “law enforcement personnel.”321
Exemption 8: Financial Institution Reports
Exemption 8 protects matters “contained in or related to examination, operating, or condition
reports prepared by, on behalf of, or for the use of an agency responsible for the regulation or
supervision of financial institutions.”322 The Senate report underlying the original law explains
that, by limiting the availability of the covered financial reports to the agencies tasked with
overseeing financial institutions, the exemption was intended to protect such institutions’
security.323 Courts have also opined that Exemption 8 was intended “to safeguard the relationship
between the banks and their supervising agencies.”324

317 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E).
318 Compare, e.g., Hamdan v. DOJ, 797 F.3d 759, 778 (9th Cir. 2015), and Allard K. Lowenstein Int’l Human Rights
Project v. DHS, 626 F.3d 678, 681 (2d Cir. 2010) (declaring that “basic rules of grammar and punctuation dictate that
the [circumvention language] modifies only the immediately antecedent ‘guidelines’ clause and not the more remote
‘techniques and procedures’ clause ), with Sack v. DOD, 823 F.3d 687, 694 (D.C. Cir. 2016) and Catledge v. Mueller,
323 F. App’x 464, 466-67 (7th Cir. 2009) (explaining that “[u]nder [Exemption 7(E)] government agencies may refuse
to release ‘records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of
such law enforcement records or information . . . would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement
investigations or prosecutions . . . if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.’”
(quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E))).
319 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(F).
320 Meese Memorandum, supra note 21 (citing 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(F) (1982)).
321 Id. (citing Pub. L. No. 99-570, § 1802, 100 Stat. 3207, 3207-49 (1986)).
322 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(8). Courts have interpreted Exemption 8 broadly. See, e.g., Williams & Connolly LLP v. Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency, 39 F. Supp. 3d 82, 90 (D.D.C. 2014) (explaining that “this Circuit has repeatedly
recognized the broad scope Congress accorded Exemption 8”); Pub. Investors Arbitration Bar Ass’n v. SEC, 930 F.
Supp. 2d 55, 62 (D.D.C. 2013) (“[T]he ‘related to’ language [in Exemption 8] casts a wide net of non-disclosure over
any documents that are logically connected to an ‘examination, operating, or condition report[].’”) (alteration in
original) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(8)).
323 S. REP. NO. 813, at 10 (1965); accord H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 11 (1966) (explaining that Exemption 8 “is designed to
insure the security and integrity of financial institutions, for the sensitive details collected by Government agencies
which regulate these institutions could, if indiscriminately disclosed, cause great harm”). The D.C. Circuit has written
that “there was concern that disclosure of examination, operation, and condition reports containing frank evaluations of
the investigated banks might undermine public confidence and cause unwarranted runs on banks.” Consumers Union of
U.S., Inc. v. Heimann, 589 F.2d 531, 534 (D.C. Cir. 1978).
324 Heimann, 589 F.2d at 534. The Heimann court explained that, “[i]f details of the bank examinations were made
freely available to the public and to banking competitors, there was concern that banks would cooperate less than fully
with federal authorities.” Id.
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Exemption 9: Geological and Geophysical Information and Data
Concerning Wells
Exemption 9 exempts from disclosure “geological and geophysical information and data,
including maps, concerning wells.”325 Courts have not had many opportunities to interpret this
exemption, as agencies do not often invoke it.326
Exclusions
In addition to its nine exemptions, FOIA also contains three records exclusions. FOIA’s
exclusions allow an agency, in response to a request for certain law enforcement records, to “treat
the records as not subject to the requirements of” FOIA.327 As the Attorney General’s
Memorandum on the 1986 Amendments to the Freedom of Information Act explains, when an
agency receives a request for records that fall within the coverage of an exclusion, the agency is
authorized to withhold the records and “respond to the request as if the excluded records d[o] not
exist.”328 FOIA’s exclusions, in other words, allow agencies to “withhold documents without
comment.”329 Conversely, when an agency invokes a FOIA exemption in response to a request for
records, it is required to “reveal the fact of and grounds for any withholdings” to the requester.330
FOIA’s exclusions, therefore, are designed to allow agencies to better avoid disclosure of the
narrow categories of records to which they apply.331 Each of FOIA’s three exclusions is codified
at 5 U.S.C. § 552(c).

325 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(9).
326 PIERCE, JR., ET AL., supra note 154, at 397 (noting that Exemption 9 “is rarely invoked or interpreted”). See also 3
O’REILLY, supra note 25, § 18:1, at 391 (stating that Exemptions 8 and 9 “are [FOIA’s] most obscure and least
utilized” exemptions).
327 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(1)-(3).
328 Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 18.
329 Labow v. DOJ, 831 F.3d 523, 532 (D.C. Cir. 2016).
330 Memphis Publ’g Co. v. FBI, 879 F. Supp. 2d 1, 6-7 (D.D.C. 2012); see CREW v. FEC, 711 F.3d 180, 182-83 (D.C.
Cir. 2013) (Kavanaugh, J.) (holding that, when making an initial “determination” of a FOIA request under 5 U.S.C. §
552(a)(6)(A)(i), an “agency must at least indicate within the relevant time period the scope of the documents it will
produce and the exemptions it will claim with respect to any withheld documents”).
The exclusions are also intended to cover those situations where an agency’s issuance of a Glomar response to a FOIA
request implicating records covered by an exclusion could still result in the dangers sought to be prevented by § 552(c).
See Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 26. As discussed above, when an agency issues a Glomar response, it
refuses to either confirm or deny whether records exist. See supra note 152. But, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit explained, the “standard” Glomar response requires “a public explanation of the exemption that would
apply if the records existed.” ACLU v. FBI, 734 F.3d 460, 469, 470 (6th Cir. 2013). A Glomar response, therefore, will
not adequately protect against the types of dangers the exclusions were intended to prevent. DOJ, OFFICE OF INFO.
POL’Y, GUIDE TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, EXCLUSIONS, at 2 (April 4, 2019) [hereinafter DOJ GUIDE,
EXCLUSIONS], https://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-guide/exclusions/download; see, e.g., Pickard v. DOJ, 653 F.3d 782,
784 (9th Cir. 2011) (noting, while explaining the procedural background of the case, that in response to the plaintiff’s
FOIA request, the agency had cited Exemptions 6 and 7(C) and neither confirmed nor denied whether any responsive
records existed).
331 Cf. Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 26 (writing that, in contrast to the Glomar principle, FOIA’s exclusions
“afford[] a higher level of protection” to covered records).
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Exclusion (c)(1). The first exclusion covers records protected by Exemption 7(A) (i.e., records
whose disclosure “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings”),332
but only if
 the relevant law enforcement proceeding or investigation concerns a “possible”
criminal violation;333 and
 the agency has “reason to believe” both that
 the pendency of the proceeding or investigation is unknown to the
subject of the proceeding or investigation, and
 revealing the records’ existence “could reasonably be expected to
interfere with enforcement proceedings.”334
The exclusion was intended to prevent an agency from “tipping off” an individual about the
existence of an investigation of which he or she is a subject by stating, in response to a FOIA
request, that requested records are exempt from disclosure under Exemption 7(A).335 While
agencies can rely on this exclusion to prevent such an outcome, by its terms, Exclusion (c)(1) is
only available to an agency while the conditions described in its text continue.336 Accordingly,
once the investigation becomes public, this exclusion no longer applies.337
Exclusion (c)(2). The second exclusion applies to records that are “maintained by a criminal law
enforcement agency under an informant’s name or personal identifier.”338 When a third party
requests such records “according to the informant’s name or personal identifier,” Exclusion
(c)(2) authorizes the agency to “treat the records as not subject to the requirements of” FOIA.339
The Attorney General’s memorandum on the 1986 amendments to FOIA describes FOIA’s
second exclusion as contemplating “the situation in which a sophisticated requester could try to
ferret out an informant in his organization by forcing a law enforcement agency” to invoke
FOIA’s exemption for records relating to a confidential source (Exemption 7(D)), an action that
would likely corroborate the requester’s suspicion that the individual subject to the request is a
confidential informant.340 The memorandum cites as an example the situation in which a criminal

332 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A); see supra “Exemption 7: Law Enforcement Records or Information.”
333 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(1)(A).
334 Id. § 552(c)(1)(B).
335 See Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 19 (“To avail itself of Exemption 7(A) . . . an agency must routinely
specify that it is relying on that exemption—first administratively and then, if sued, in court—even where it is invoking
the exemption to withhold all responsive records in their entireties. The difficulty is that in those unusual situations in
which the investigation’s subject is as yet unaware of the investigation’s existence, the agency’s specific reliance on
Exemption 7(A) can ‘tip off’ the subject and thereby cause harm.”); id. at 20 (“The (c)(1) exclusion permits agencies to
avoid having to disclose to investigative subjects a sensitive fact (i.e., whether there is an investigation ongoing or not)
that would be disclosed by the mere invocation of Exemption 7(A).”). The Attorney General’s memorandum on the
1986 FOIA amendments also states in the case of an individual who submits a request for records in an attempt to
determine whether he or she is the subject of an investigation, “[a]n agency response invoking Exemption 7(A) would
confirm the existence of an ongoing investigation,” and that “any response that did not invoke Exemption 7(A) in
withholding law enforcement files would tell such a requester that his activities (or perhaps those of some other entity
named in the request) have thus far escaped detection.” Id. at 20 (emphasis added).
336 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(1).
337 See Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 22 (“Once a law enforcement matter reaches a stage at which all
subjects are aware of its pendency, or at which the agency otherwise determines that the public disclosure of that
pendency no longer could lead to harm, the exclusion should be regarded as no longer applicable.”).
338 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(2).
339 Id.
340 Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 23; see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(D). This report discusses Exemption 7(D)
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organization that suspects one of its members is a criminal informant either requires that the
suspected informant request law enforcement records about himself or herself, or else compels
the individual to submit a privacy waiver to allow a member of the organization to make such a
request.341 Exclusion (c)(2) authorizes law enforcement agencies to protect against the disclosure
of the identities of their confidential informants in such situations. However, like Exclusion
(c)(1), an agency’s ability to use the second exclusion is subject to an important limitation: an
agency may not use the second exclusion if “the informant’s status as an informant has been
officially confirmed.”342
Exclusion (c)(3). FOIA’s third exclusion protects a subset of FBI records concerning “foreign
intelligence,” “counterintelligence,” or “international terrorism.”343 The FBI may treat such
records as excluded from FOIA if “the existence of the records is classified information as
provided in” Exemption 1.344 Exclusion (c)(3) seeks to prevent the harm that may occur from an
agency’s publicly claiming the protection of Exemption 1 in response to a request and, therefore,
admitting that such sensitive records do indeed exist.345 Like the other exclusions, however, the
third exclusion’s protective ambit is limited—an agency may only use Exclusion (c)(3) for such
time “as the existence of [such] records remains classified information.”346
FOIA-Related Litigation: Selected Issues
FOIA not only established a statutory right of access to agency records, but also provided a means
for requesters to enforce that right through judicial review of agency decisions to withhold
records.347 Conversely, parties may initiate legal actions to prevent agencies from disclosing
information requested under FOIA in certain situations. These aspects of FOIA and FOIA-related
litigation—judicial review of agencies’ withholding decisions and so-called reverse-FOIA
litigation—are discussed below.
Judicial Review of Agency Withholding Decisions
Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), federal district courts have “jurisdiction to enjoin [an] agency
from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly

above. See supra “Exemption 7: Law Enforcement Records or Information.”
341 Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 23-24.
342 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(2); see Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 24 n.43. For information on judicial treatment of
the “officially confirmed” limitation of Exclusion (c)(2), see DOJ GUIDE, EXCLUSIONS, supra note 330, at 9-11.
343 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(3).
344 Id.; see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1). See supra “Exemption 1: National Defense or Foreign Policy.”
345 DOJ GUIDE, EXCLUSIONS, supra note 330, at 12.
346 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(3). The Attorney General’s memorandum on the 1986 FOIA amendments states that, while
Exclusion (c)(3) explicitly concerns FBI records, “it is conceivable that records derived from such FBI records might
be maintained elsewhere, potentially in contexts in which the harm sought to be prevented by this exclusion is no less
threatened.” Meese Memorandum, supra note 21, at 25 n.45. For “any such extreme situation,” the memorandum states
that “it would be appropriate for another agency and the FBI jointly to consider the possible applicability of this
exclusion, on a derivative basis, where necessary to avoid an anomalous result.” Id.
347 FOIA’s judicial review provision was a notable distinction from the APA’s prior public information section. See S.
REP. NO. 813, at 5 (1965) (listing as one of the problems associated with the APA’s prior information-access section the
fact that “[t]here is no remedy in case of wrongful withholding of information from citizens by Government officials”).
While the discussion in this section pertains to the general requirements governing legal challenges to agency
withholding decisions, FOIA requesters may also challenge other agency FOIA-related actions in federal court. See,
e.g., 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(vii) (authorizing “action[s] . . . regarding the waiver of [request processing] fees”).
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withheld from the complainant.”348 The Supreme Court, accordingly, has explained that a court
has jurisdiction under § 552(a)(4)(B) if it can be shown “that an agency has (1) improperly;
(2) withheld; (3) agency records.”349 In DOJ v. Tax Analysts, the Court held that, because FOIA’s
exemptions are “exclusive,” agency records are “improperly” withheld when an agency refuses to
disclose requested records that are not protected by an applicable exemption.350 Yet the Court has
also held that an agency’s decision to withhold a record is not “improper” if a court order
prohibits the agency from disclosing the record.351 Further, in Kissinger v. Reporters Committee
for Freedom of the Press, the Court held that records are not “withheld” under § 552(a)(4)(B) if,
before a request was filed, the records were “removed from the possession of the agency.”352 The
Court did not answer whether an agency “withholds” a record when it “purposefully route[s] a
document out of agency possession in order to circumvent a FOIA request.”353 However, as one
court has explained, “an agency’s FOIA obligations might extend to documents that are not in the
agency’s immediate custody or control . . . when there is evidence to suggest that the requested
records are outside of the agency's control precisely because the agency has attempted to shield
its records from search or disclosure under the FOIA.”354
An improper withholding is not limited to those situations in which an agency explicitly rejects a
FOIA request or fails to respond to a request. For example, an inadequate search for responsive

348 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B). Venue is available “in the district in which the complainant resides, or has his principal
place of business, or in which the agency records are situated, or in the District of Columbia.” Id. The U.S. District
Court for the District of Columbia reviews a considerably large number of FOIA lawsuits. See Margaret B. Kwoka, The
Freedom of Information Act Trial, 61 AM. U. L. REV. 217, 261 (2011) (“The District Court for the District of Columbia
is the forum for a disproportionate share of FOIA cases, disposing of 38% of all FOIA cases in the country, even
though it disposes of only 1.3% of all district court litigation.”) (citing FED. JUDICIAL CTR., FEDERAL COURT CASES:
INTEGRATED DATABASES (1979-2008)); cf. LITIGATION UNDER THE FEDERAL OPEN GOVERNMENT LAWS 325 (Harry A.
Hammitt et al. eds., 25th ed. 2010) (“Because the vast majority of FOIA lawsuits are filed in the District of Columbia,
the district court and court of appeals there have developed a substantial body of expertise in FOIA matters that may be
lacking in other jurisdictions.”).
349 See Kissinger v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 150 (1980) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted). All three elements must be established in order to obtain judicial review of an agency’s withholding
decision. Id. at 150; accord DOJ v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 142 (1989).
350 492 U.S. at 151 (“It follows from the exclusive nature of the § 552(b) exemption scheme that agency records which
do not fall within one of the exemptions are ‘improperly’ withheld.”).
351 GTE Sylvania v. Consumers Union of U.S., Inc., 445 U.S. 375, 384, 386-87 (1980) (holding that the Consumer
Product Safety Commission had not withheld records “improperly” where the agency was enjoined by a federal court
from disclosing them in unrelated litigation); see Alley v. HHS, 590 F.3d 1195, 1198 (11th Cir. 2009) (“Under the rule
of GTE Sylvania[], an agency that complies with a court order forbidding disclosure does not violate the FOIA.”). In
Tax Analysts, the Court acknowledged that the records at issue in GTE Sylvania had not been covered by any
exemptions. 492 U.S. at 154. But while observing that “GTE Sylvania represents a departure from the FOIA’s self-
contained exemption scheme,” the Court explained that “this departure was a slight one at best, and was necessary in
order to serve a critical goal independent of FOIA—the enforcement of a court order.” Id. at 155.
352 445 U.S. at 150. “In such a case,” the Court wrote, “the agency has neither the custody nor control necessary to
enable it to withhold.” Id. at 150-51. The Court further explained that an agency’s “refusal to resort to legal remedies to
obtain possession” of documents that were formally within the agency’s control does not constitute a withholding under
FOIA. Id. at 151; see also Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. at 150 (holding that DOJ “withheld” requested copies of district court
tax decisions that it had received when it “refused to comply with [the complainant’s] requests,” even though the
decisions were made publicly available by the issuing court).
353 Kissinger, 445 U.S. at 155 n.9. The Court also did not decide whether or not an agency “withholding” occurs when
an individual “wrongfully remove[s]” a record from an agency after the filing of a request. Id.
354 Gawker Media, LLC v. U.S. Dep’t of State, 266 F. Supp. 3d 152, 159 (D.D.C. 2017); cf. Judicial Watch v. U.S.
Dep’t of State, No. 13-1363, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62283, at *10-12 (D.D.C. May 4, 2016).
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records is also an improper withholding.355 (The requirement that an agency conduct an adequate
search is discussed above.)356
FOIA instructs courts to review appeals from agency withholding decisions “de novo.”357 Under
this standard of review, a court accords no deference to the agency’s decision below.358 That said,
courts will sometimes defer to an agency’s judgment in some aspects of FOIA litigation. For
example, courts in FOIA disputes generally accord “some measure of deference to the executive
in cases implicating national security.”359 The scope and standard of review in FOIA cases may
differ in other instances, as well.360 For instance, while judicial review of an agency’s decision
regarding fee waivers is de novo, FOIA states that review “shall be limited to the record before
the agency.”361
The agency has the burden of proving that it properly withheld information under a FOIA
exemption.362 Agencies defending withholding decisions in federal court often supply what is
known as a “Vaughn Index” to aid in justifying their decisions.363 In FOIA lawsuits, the plaintiff
generally does not know with any specificity the contents of the requested records, which the
D.C. Circuit has declared can “seriously distort[] the traditional adversary nature of our legal
system’s form of dispute resolution.”364 A Vaughn Index, which is akin to a privilege log, is a
response to this informational asymmetry.365 The D.C. Circuit has held that a proper Vaughn
Index “provide[s] a relatively detailed justification [for withholdings], specifically identifying the
reasons why a particular exemption is relevant and correlating those claims with the particular
part of a withheld document to which they apply.”366 Agencies can also justify nondisclosure

355 See Lockett v. Wray, 271 F. Supp. 3d 205, 208 (D.D.C. 2017) (“An inadequate search for records constitutes an
improper withholding under the FOIA.”).
356 See supra “Request-Driven Disclosure.”
357 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).
358 See Louis v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 419 F.3d 970, 977 (9th Cir. 2005).
359 Ctr. for Nat’l Sec. Studies v. DOJ, 331 F.3d 918, 926-27 (D.C. Cir. 2013); id. at 927 (“[B]oth the Supreme Court
and this Court have expressly recognized the propriety of deference to the executive in the context of FOIA claims
which implicate national security.”); see CIA v. Sims, 471 U.S. 159, 179 (1985) (“Here the Director concluded that
disclosure of the institutional affiliations of the MKULTRA researchers could lead to identifying the researchers
themselves and thus the disclosure posed an unacceptable risk of revealing protected ‘intelligence sources.’ The
decisions of the Director, who must of course be familiar with ‘the whole picture,’ as judges are not, are worthy of
great deference given the magnitude of the national security interests and potential risks at stake.”) (footnote omitted).
360 See DOJ GUIDE, LITIGATION CONSIDERATIONS, supra note 147, at 28.
361 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(vii); see DOJ GUIDE, LITIGATION CONSIDERATIONS, supra note 147, at 28.
362 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).
363 This process stems from the decision in Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820, 826-28 (D.C. Cir. 1973), from which it
takes its name. See DOJ GUIDE, LITIGATION CONSIDERATIONS, supra note 147, at 82 (“A distinguishing feature of FOIA
litigation is that the defendant agency bears the burden of sustaining its action of withholding records. The most
commonly used device for meeting this burden of proof is the Vaughn Index, fashioned by the Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit in a case entitled Vaughn v. Rosen.”) (footnotes omitted); accord Am. Immigration
Lawyers Ass’n v. Exec. Office for Immigration Rev., 830 F.3d 667, 673 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (“An agency can carry its
burden by submitting a Vaughn index . . . .”).
364 King v. DOJ, 830 F.2d 210, 218 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Vaughn, 484 F.2d at
825).
365 Id. Specifically, the D.C. Circuit has explained that the Vaughn Index was intended to “to permit adequate adversary
testing of the agency’s claimed right to an exemption, and enable the District Court to make a rational decision whether
the withheld material must be produced without actually viewing the documents themselves, as well as to produce a
record that will render [its] decision capable of meaningful review on appeal.” Id. at 218-19 (internal quotation marks
and footnotes omitted).
366 Mead Data Cent., Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 251 (D.C. Cir. 1977).
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decisions through the submission of affidavits of agency officials that, per the D.C. Circuit,
“describe the justifications for nondisclosure with reasonably specific detail, demonstrate that the
information withheld logically falls within the claimed exemption, and are not controverted by
either contrary evidence in the record nor by evidence of agency bad faith.”367
FOIA also authorizes courts to review records in camera (i.e., privately and outside of the
plaintiffs’ view) to determine whether the records have been appropriately withheld.368 Courts
often conduct in camera inspection of withheld information when an agency has not “provide[d]
a sufficiently detailed explanation to enable the . . . court to make a de novo determination of the
agency’s claims of exemption.”369 Courts retain discretion whether to conduct in camera review,
but generally only do so in “exceptional” cases.370 In certain situations, courts may authorize
agencies to submit in camera agency affidavits; however, as opposed to in camera inspection of
withheld records, “use of in camera affidavits has generally been disfavored.”371
Reverse-FOIA Litigation
While requesters may seek judicial review of an agency’s decision to withhold information under
FOIA, in some circumstances parties may pursue judicial action to prevent an agency’s disclosure
of information in response to a FOIA request.372 These actions are often called reverse-FOIA
lawsuits.373 An entity ordinarily institutes a reverse-FOIA action to prevent an agency from
disclosing sensitive information, often concerning commercial or financial matters, that the entity

367 Am. Immigration Lawyers Ass’n, 830 F.3d at 673 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see Dutton v.
DOJ, 302 F. Supp. 3d 109, 121 (D.D.C. 2018) (“[W]hen an agency seeks to withhold information, it must provide a
relatively detailed justification for the withholding . . . through a Vaughn index, an affidavit, or by other means.”
(internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (alteration in original)); see also CREW v. DOJ, 746 F.3d 1082, 1088
(D.C. Cir. 2014) (“Agency affidavits sometimes take the form of a ‘Vaughn index’ . . . .”).
368 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) (providing that district courts “may examine the contents of [withheld] agency records in
camera to determine whether such records or any part thereof shall be withheld under any of the exemptions set forth in
subsection (b) of [§ 552]”).
369 Spirko v. USPS, 147 F.3d 992, 997 (D.C. Cir. 1998). In camera review may occur in other situations. See id. at 996
(“[I]n camera inspection may be particularly appropriate when either the agency affidavits are insufficiently detailed to
permit meaningful review of exemption claims or there is evidence of bad faith on the part of the agency, when the
number of withheld documents is relatively small, and when the dispute turns on the contents of the withheld
documents, and not the parties’ interpretations of those documents.”) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
370 See NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber, 437 U.S. 214, 224 (1978) (“The in camera review provision is discretionary
by its terms, and is designed to be invoked when the issue before the District Court could not be resolved.”); Elec.
Privacy Info. Ctr. v. DHS, 384 F. Supp. 2d 100, 119 (D.D.C. 2005) (“[C]ourts disfavor in camera inspection and it is
more appropriate in only the exceptional case.”).
371 Armstrong v. EOP, 97 F.3d 575, 580 (D.C. Cir. 1996).
372 Paul R. Verkuil, An Outcomes Analysis of Scope of Review Standards, 44 WM. & MARY L. REV. 679, 717 (2002).
Reverse-FOIA suits ordinarily arise after an agency informs a party that the agency has received a request for the
records at issue or that it has decided to release such records in response to a request. See, e.g., Chrysler Corp. v.
Brown, 441 U.S. 281, 287 (1979) (explaining that the lawsuit “began . . . when the [agency] informed Chrysler that
third parties had made an FOIA request for disclosure of the [records at issue]”); Nat’l Bus. Aviation Ass’n v. FAA,
686 F. Supp. 2d 80, 83-84 (D.D.C. 2010) (“The [Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)] contacted the [plaintiff] by
telephone and advised that the FAA had made an initial determination that the [material at issue] was releasable in
response to [a FOIA] request. The FAA asked for input from the [plaintiff] before making a final decision. The
[plaintiff] objected to the proposed release on the basis of FOIA Exemption 4. Subsequently, the FAA determined that
the [material] was not protected from disclosure under Exemption 4 because it was not a trade secret or commercial or
financial information. . . . . After receiving [FAA’s explanation], the [plaintiff] filed this suit seeking to enjoin the
FAA’s release of the [material] . . . .”) (citations omitted).
373 Chrysler, 441 U.S. at 285.
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had previously submitted to the agency.374 In Chrysler Corporation v. Brown, the Supreme Court
held that neither the FOIA statute nor the TSA authorizes a private right of action to enjoin an
agency from disclosing information in violation of the TSA.375 However, the Court held that
judicial review of such actions is available under the APA.376 In reverse-FOIA suits, courts
generally review an agency’s decision to disclose information under § 706(2)(A) of the APA,
which provides that courts are to “hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and
conclusions” that are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance
with law.”377 The burden of proof in a reverse-FOIA action is on the plaintiff.378
Under Executive Order 12600, an agency is required, in certain circumstances, to provide notice
to those who submitted “records containing confidential commercial information” if the agency
has concluded that the records may need to be disclosed in response to a FOIA request.379 Agency
procedures generally must allow applicable submitters to object to disclosure and provide that the
agency, in the event it disagrees with the submitter’s objection, supply the submitter with the
reasons for its disagreement.380 The executive order defines “confidential commercial
information” as information submitted to an agency “that arguably contain[s] material exempt
from release under Exemption 4 . . . because disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause
substantial competitive harm.”381 Notably,382 the Supreme Court abrogated the “substantial
competitive harm” test for Exemption 4 in FMI v. Argus Leader Media.383 In response, DOJ has
advised agencies to use the broader definition of “confidential” declared in FMI in their
predisclosure notification procedures.384

374 CNA Fin. Corp. v. Donovan, 830 F.2d 1132, 1133 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (explaining that, in a reverse-FOIA suit,
“[t]ypically, a submitter of information—usually a corporation or other business entity required to report various and
sundry data on its policies, operations, or products—seeks to prevent the agency that collected the information from
revealing it to a third party in response to the latter’s FOIA request”).
375 Chrysler, 441 U.S. at 294, 316-17. The TSA is a criminal statute that prohibits the unlawful disclosure of a variety
of commercial and financial information. See 18 U.S.C. § 1905. But the statute allows disclosure of covered
information when disclosure is “authorized by law.” Id.
376 Chrysler, 441 U.S. at 317-18.
377 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A); see CNA, 830 F.2d at 1162; Chrysler, 441 U.S. at 318. Review under this standard is more
deferential to the agency than is the de novo review of agency withholding decisions required by FOIA. See supra
“Judicial Review of Agency Withholding Decisions.” In Chrysler, the Court explained that “any disclosure that
violates [the TSA] is ‘not in accordance with law’ within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).” 441 U.S. at 318.
378 See AAR Airlift Grp., Inc. v. U.S. Transp. Command, 161 F. Supp. 3d 37, 43 (D.D.C. 2015).
379 Exec. Order No. 12,600 §§ 1, 3 (Jan. 1, 1987).
380 Id. §§ 5, 6.
381 Id. § 2(a).
382 See supra “Exemption 4: Trade Secrets and Commercial or Financial Information.”
383 139 S. Ct. 2356, 2363-66 (2019).
384 See DOJ, Office of Info. Pol’y, Exemption 4 After the Supreme Court’s Ruling in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus
Leader Media (last updated Oct. 4, 2019), https://www.justice.gov/oip/exemption-4-after-supreme-courts-ruling-food-
marketing-institute-v-argus-leader-media (“Many agency predisclosure notification regulations have followed the
model provided by [DOJ], which defines the term ‘confidential commercial information’ more broadly, without
reference to competitive harm, and instead refers more generically to material that may be protected under Exemption
4. In the wake of Argus Leader, agencies should now use those predisclosure notification procedures when necessary to
seek the submitter’s views on whether the two conditions [stemming from the Court’s decision, see supra text
accompanying notes 225] that agencies should consider in determining whether information is ‘confidential’ for
purposes of Exemption 4 of the FOIA . . . are met.”).
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Selected Issues of Potential Interest for Congress
While Congress is not subject to FOIA, the act raises questions of particular relevance to the
legislative branch. For example, per the act, an agency may not “withhold information from
Congress” on the basis that such information is exempt under FOIA.385 There are different views,
however, about what “Congress” means in this instance—in particular, whether this withholding
prohibition applies to requests from individual Members of Congress, or whether the provision is
limited to access requests from each house of Congress or congressional committees. In addition,
although Congress is under no obligation to disclose its own materials under FOIA, whether a
congressional document possessed by an agency is subject to FOIA depends on whether or not
Congress clearly expressed its determination to retain control over the document.386
Although this section only discusses the two topics just mentioned, FOIA implicates
congressional interests in many other ways. For example, Congress has often expressed its
interest in the frequency with which agencies use exemptions to withhold information from
requesters, as well as the general backlog of FOIA requests.387 Further, FOIA evidences
Congress’s general interest in executive branch transparency, and Congress has amended FOIA
several times since its 1965 enactment, often due or in response to judicial interpretations of the
act or agencies’ administration thereof.388
Congressional Access to Agency Information: FOIA’s “Special
Access” Provision
FOIA’s “special access”389 provision—codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552(d)—states that FOIA “is not
authority to withhold information from Congress.”390 The Senate report underlying the original
act explained that this provision is intended to clarify “that, because [FOIA] only refers to the
public’s right to know, it cannot . . . be backhandedly construed as authorizing the withholding of
information from the Congress, the collective representative of the public.”391 While this
provision undoubtedly prohibits agencies from withholding information from Congress based on
a FOIA exemption, there is some dispute over whether subsection (d) affords individual Members

385 5 U.S.C. § 552(d).
386 ACLU v. CIA, 823 F.3d 655, 662-63 (D.C. Cir. 2016).
387 See S. REP. NO. 4, at 2-3 (2015).
388 See, e.g., id. at 2, 7-8 (explaining that “there are concerns that some agencies are overusing FOIA exemptions that
allow, but do not require, information to be withheld from disclosure” and that the 2016 amendments to FOIA codified
“[t]he standard . . . that an agency may withhold information only if it reasonably foresees a specific identifiable harm
to an interest protected by an exemption, or if disclosure is prohibited by law”); H.R. REP. NO. 1441, at 14 (1976)
(Conf. Rep.) (writing that “[t]he conferees intend [the 1976 amendments to Exemption 3] to overrule the decision of the
Supreme Court in Administrator, FAA v. Robertson, 422 U.S. 255 (1975)”); S. REP. NO. 1200, at 9 (1974) (Conf. Rep.)
(explaining that, “[i]n Environmental Protection Agency v. Mink, et al., 410 U.S. 73 (1973), the Supreme Court ruled
that in camera inspection of documents withheld under section 552(b) (1) of the law, authorizing the withholding of
classified information, would ordinarily be precluded in [FOIA] cases, unless Congress directed otherwise,” and that
the 1974 amendments to FOIA “amend[] the present law to permit such in camera examination at the discretion of the
court”).
389 See DOJ, Office of Info. Pol’y, Congressional Access Under FOIA, 5 FOIA UPDATE 1 (Jan. 1, 1984) [hereinafter
Congressional Access Under FOIA], https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-oip-guidance-congressional-access-
under-foia.
390 5 U.S.C. § 552(d).
391 S. REP. NO. 813, at 10 (1965).
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of Congress access to otherwise exempt records under FOIA, or, on the other hand, whether the
provision is limited to access requests from the broader arms of Congress (i.e., either house of
Congress and congressional committees).392
The Department of Justice has long maintained that the special access provision does not
generally apply to records requests from individual Members of Congress, meaning that agencies
generally can invoke relevant exemptions to withhold materials in response to individual Member
requests.393 DOJ distinguishes between requests for information from (1) “a House of Congress as
a whole (including through its committee structure)” and (2) individual Members.394 In DOJ’s
view, requests from the former benefit from subsection (d)’s withholding prohibition; however,
requests from the latter generally do not, no matter—as DOJ has explained—if the individual
Member is “clearly acting in a completely official capacity” in making the request.395 Under
DOJ’s interpretation, a request by an individual Member in his or her official capacity is only
covered by the special access provision if the request is from the chair of a committee or
subcommittee or authorized by a committee or subcommittee.396 That said, individual Members
of Congress can submit FOIA requests to the same extent as other persons.397
But DOJ’s interpretation of the special access provision has been criticized by some as too
narrow. This criticism finds support in language from the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Murphy v.
Department of the Army,398 which interpreted the special access provision as applying to
individual Members acting in their official capacities.399 The court held that the Army had not
waived Exemption 5 protection for an internal agency memorandum by sharing it with an
individual Member of Congress.400 The court based its holding on an interpretation of the special
access provision, concluding that agencies will not waive the exemption in such circumstances
“to the extent that Congress has reserved to itself in section 552([d]) the right to receive
information not available to the general public.”401 In responding to the requester’s argument that
the special access provision was limited to Congress as a whole (and not its component parts—
including individual Members), the court wrote

392 While the special access provision may prohibit application of a FOIA exemption to prevent disclosure to Congress,
it does not govern whether another source of law, such as executive privilege, may protect information from disclosure.
Congressional Access Under FOIA, supra note 389.
393 See id.
394 Id.
395 Id.
396 Id. See also Authority of Individual Members of Congress to Conduct Oversight of the Executive Branch, 41 Op.
O.L.C. 1, 1 (2017) (opining that “the constitutional authority to conduct oversight . . . may be exercised only be each
house of Congress or, under existing delegations, by committees and subcommittees (or their chairmen)” and that
“[i]ndividual members of Congress . . . do not have the authority to conduct oversight in the absence of a specific
delegation by a full house, committee, or subcommittee”); id. at 3 (asserting that “[i]ndividual members who have not
been authorized to conduct oversight are entitled to no more than the voluntary cooperation of agency officials or
private persons”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
397 See H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 11-12 (1966).
398 613 F.2d 1151 (D.C. Cir. 1979).
399 See All Party Parliamentary Grp. on Extraordinary Rendition v. DOD, 754 F.3d 1047, 1052 (D.C. Cir. 2014)
(explaining that Murphy, 613 F.2d at 1157, interpreted the special access provision “as requiring agencies to distinguish
between requests made by members of Congress in their official capacities and those made in their individual
capacities”).
400 See Murphy, 613 F.2d at 1154, 1159.
401 Id. at 1156.
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All Members have a constitutionally recognized status entitling them to share in general
congressional powers and responsibilities, many of them requiring access to executive
information. It would be an inappropriate intrusion into the legislative sphere for the courts
to decide without congressional direction that, for example, only the chairman of a
committee shall be regarded as the official voice of the Congress for purposes of receiving
such information, as distinguished from its ranking minority member, other committee
members, or other members of the Congress. Each of them participates in the law-making
process; each has a voice and a vote in that process; and each is entitled to request such
information from the executive agencies as will enable him to carry out the responsibilities
of a legislator.402
Instead, the court opined that the special access rule applies when a Member’s request is made in
his or her official—as opposed to “purely private or personal”—capacity.403 Members of
Congress from both major political parties have cited Murphy in support of individual Members’
right to access information from the executive branch.404
DOJ’s more narrow interpretation, discussed above, was a reaction to Murphy’s reading of
FOIA’s application to Members, which it views as being inconsistent with the act’s text and
legislative history.405 DOJ has argued, for example, that interpreting “Congress” to include
individual Members conflicts with Article I, § 1 of the Constitution, which provides that Congress
“consist[s] of a Senate and a House of Representatives,” but does not mention the individuals
who serve in those chambers.406 DOJ also asserts its position finds support in the 1966 House
report for FOIA. In discussing the special access provision, the report states that “Members of
Congress have all of the rights of access guaranteed to ‘any person’ by [FOIA], and the Congress
has additional rights of access to all Government information which it deems necessary to carry
out its functions.”407 DOJ has also maintained that the D.C. Circuit’s discussion of FOIA’s
application to individual Members “was not indispensable to the [Murphy] decision” and
therefore does not constitute a binding rule.408 But while the D.C. Circuit has not had opportunity
to revisit Murphy on the question of FOIA’s application to agency communications with
individual Members, later appellate panel and lower court decisions within the circuit have
appeared to treat Murphy’s interpretation as controlling.409

402 Id. at 1157.
403 Id.
404 See, e.g., Letter to Gary M. Stern, Gen’l Counsel, Nat’l Archives & Rec. Admin., from Senators Richard
Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, Richard J. Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, Christopher A.
Coons, Mazie K. Hirono, Cory A. Booker, and Kamala D. Harris (Aug. 8, 2018); 163 CONG. REC. S4077, S4078 (daily
ed. July 19, 2017) (Senator Charles E. Grassley).
405 See Congressional Access Under FOIA, supra note 389; DOJ, Office of Info. Pol’y, Release of Exempt Information
to Members of Congress: The Impact of the Murphy Decision, 1 FOIA UPDATE 4 (Jan. 1, 1980) [hereinafter Release of
Exempt Information to Members of Congress], https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-policy-guidance-release-
exempt-information-members-congress-impact-murphy.
406 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 1; Release of Exempt Information to Members of Congress, supra note 405.
407 H.R. REP. NO. 1497, at 11-12 (1966) (emphasis added); Congressional Access Under FOIA, supra note 389.
408 Release of Exempt Information to Members of Congress, supra note 405.
409 See, e.g., All Party Parliamentary Grp. on Extraordinary Rendition v. DOD, 754 F.3d 1047, 1052 (D.C. Cir. 2014)
(“[T]his Court has interpreted FOIA section 552(d), which provides that FOIA exemptions do not apply to requests
from Congress, as requiring agencies to distinguish between requests made by members of Congress in their official
capacities and those made in their individual capacities.”) (citing Murphy v. Dep’t of Army, 613 F.2d 1151, 1157
(D.C.Cir.1979)); Elec. Privacy Info. Ctr. v. Transp. Sec. Admin., 928 F. Supp. 2d 156, 165 (D.D.C. 2013) (“And
earlier, in Murphy v. Department of the Army, the Circuit held that a document disclosed by the Army to a congressman
was protected under exemption 5 even where the army did not actively condition disclosure on confidentiality.” (citing
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Congressional Records
As discussed above, FOIA requires federal agencies to disclose “agency records” after receiving a
valid request.410 But Congress is not an “agency” under FOIA.411 Congress, accordingly, is not
obligated to respond to FOIA requests for documents in its possession.412 But Congress’s
exemption from FOIA extends beyond requests directed specifically at it. Crucially, the D.C.
Circuit has held that a document that an agency obtains from Congress or creates in response to a
congressional request qualifies as a congressional record exempt from FOIA if “Congress
manifested a clear intent to control the document.”413
Congress is not required to provide “contemporaneous instructions when forwarding” documents
to agencies to manifest its intent to control a document.414 In American Civil Liberties Union v.

Murphy, 613 F.2d at 1156)).
410 See supra “Agency Records”; 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A), (4)(B).
411 See 5 U.S.C. §§ 551(1), 552(f)(1); see also ACLU v. CIA, 823 F.3d 655, 662 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (“[B]ecause it is
undisputed that Congress is not an agency, it is also undisputed that ‘congressional documents are not subject to
FOIA’s disclosure requirements.’” (quoting United We Stand Am., Inc. v. IRS, 359 F.3d 595, 597 (D.C. Cir. 2004)));
see Dow Jones & Co. v. DOJ, 917 F.2d 571, 574 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (“[M]embers of Congress are not within the
definition of agency under FOIA.”).
412 See ACLU, 823 F.3d at 662.
413 Id. at 662-63 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Secret Serv., 726 F.3d 208,
221 (D.C. Cir. 2013)).
As discussed above, material does not qualify as an “agency record” if an agency does not have “control” of it at the
time a FOIA request for the material is issued. See supra “Agency Records”; DOJ v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 145
(1989). The report previously explained that the D.C. Circuit developed the “Burka test” for determining whether an
agency has “control” over material that it has created or obtained. See supra “Agency Records” The test considers
(1) the intent of the document’s creator to retain or relinquish control over the records; (2) the
ability of the agency to use and dispose of the record as it sees fit; (3) the extent to which agency
personnel have read or relied upon the document; and (4) the degree to which the document was
integrated into the agency’s record system or files.
Burka v. United States HHS, 87 F.3d 508, 515 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The
court has explained that the congressional-intent-to-control test “renders the first two factors of the [Burka] test
effectively dispositive.” Judicial Watch, 726 F.3d at 221.
The D.C. Circuit uses the congressional-intent-to-control test when determining whether material created or obtained
by an agency is a congressional record because focusing “on Congress’ intent to control (and not on the agency’s)
reflects those special policy considerations which counsel in favor of according due deference to Congress’
affirmatively expressed intent to control its own documents.” Paisley v. CIA, 712 F.2d 686, 693 n.30 (D.C. Cir. 1983);
see also Goland v. CIA, 607 F.2d 339, 346 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (explaining that a test that would provide that “an agency’s
possession of a document per se dictates that document’s status as an ‘agency record’” would mean that “Congress
would be forced either to surrender its constitutional prerogative of maintaining secrecy, or to suffer an impairment of
its oversight role”). As the court has explained, under the congressional-intent-to-control test, if “Congress has
manifested its own intent to retain control, then the agency—by definition—cannot lawfully ‘control’ the documents . .
., and hence they are not ‘agency records.’” Paisley, 712 F.2d at 693 (footnotes omitted).
The court has also used the intent-to-control test in regard to records “created in response to requests by the Office of
the President.” Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Secret Service, 726 F.3d 208, 222-23 (D.C. Cir. 2013); id. at 224 (“[T]he United
We Stand test is appropriate in this case.”); cf. Doyle v. DHS, 959 F.3d 72, 78 (2d Cir. 2020) (following “the lead of
Judicial Watch [v. Secret Service] in declining to compel the disclosure of [visitor logs for the presidential residence at
the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and the White House Complex] under FOIA given the difficult but avoidable
constitutional question that compelling disclosure would raise if [the court] were to interpret ‘agency records’ in a
different way”).
414 Holy Spirit Ass’n for Unification of World Christianity v. CIA, 636 F.2d 838, 842 (D.C. Cir. 1980); see ACLU, 823
F.3d at 665 (explaining that D.C. Circuit precedent “make[s] it clear that Congress may manifest an intent to retain
control over documents either when the documents are created or when the documents are transmitted to an agency”).
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Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the D.C. Circuit determined that a confidential report authored
by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a congressional record and, therefore, not
subject to FOIA.415 The case concerned the committee’s evaluation of a CIA program on
detention and interrogation.416 In 2014, the committee completed a final report based on its
review.417 Although the committee did not publicly release the final report, it distributed copies to
the President and other executive branch officials.418 In 2009, before beginning its review, the
committee’s chair and vice chair sent a letter to the CIA memorializing an agreement concerning
the committee’s examination of CIA documents at a secure electronic CIA reading room.419 The
letter provided the following conditions:
Any documents generated on the network drive referenced in paragraph 5, as well as any
other notes, documents, draft and final recommendations, reports or other materials
generated by Committee staff or Members, are the property of the Committee and will be
kept at the Reading Room solely for secure safekeeping and ease of reference. These
documents remain congressional records in their entirety and disposition and control over
these records, even after the completion of the Committee’s review, lies exclusively with
the Committee. As such, these records are not CIA records under [FOIA] or any other law
. . . . If the CIA receives any request or demand for access to these records from outside
the CIA under [FOIA] or any other authority, the CIA will immediately notify the
Committee and will respond to the request or demand based upon the understanding that
these are congressional, not CIA, records.420
The D.C. Circuit reasoned that these conditions made “it plain that the Senate Committee
intended to control any and all of its work product, including the [resulting 2014 final report],
emanating from its oversight investigation of the CIA.”421 The committee’s subsequent
transmission of the report to executive branch officials, with the instruction to the CIA and other
agencies to use the report “as broadly as appropriate” both to ensure that the practices the report
criticized were never repeated and to help in the development of CIA programs and executive
branch guidelines, did not erase “the Senate Committee’s clear intent to maintain control of the”
final report.422

415 ACLU, 823 F.3d at 667-68.
416 Id. at 658.
417 Id. at 658.
418 Id. at 660.
419 Id. at 659.
420 Id. at 665 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (ellipses in original) (emphasis omitted). Id.
421 It further explained that its “command is unequivocal, and it contains no temporal limitations.” ACLU, 823 F.3d at
665 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
422 Id. at 667. The court’s decision was supported by the fact that the committee had publicly released the report’s
executive summary, only provided copies of the final report to a limited number of executive branch officials, and,
when the committee submitted a draft of the report to executive branch officials in 2012, the committee “made it clear
that [it] would determine if and when to publicly disseminate the” final report.” Id. at 666-67.
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Whether Congress’s manifestation of intent to control extends to a particular record depends on
the language used in Congress’s directive to the agency. In United We Stand America v. Internal
Revenue Service (IRS), the D.C. Circuit held that a letter sent from the chief of staff of the Joint
Committee on Taxation to the IRS requesting information in connection with a committee
investigation did not fully protect the IRS’s response.423 The request stated
This document is a Congressional record and is entrusted to the [IRS] for your use only.
This document may not be disclosed without the prior approval of the Joint Committee.424
The IRS transmitted documents in response to the committee’s request (of which the agency
retained a copy).425 In litigation arising from a FOIA request for the committee’s request and the
agency’s response thereto, the court held that, although the language from the committee’s
request quoted above—which referred to “[t]his document”—conveyed a sufficient manifestation
of intent to control the committee’s request, that manifestation of intent did not extend to the
IRS’s response, save for “those portions of the IRS response that would effectively disclose th[e]
[committee’s] request.”426 As the court explained, “[if] the Joint Committee intended to keep
confidential not just ‘this document’ but also the IRS response, it could have done so by referring
to ‘this document and all IRS documents created in response to it.’”427 Accordingly, the court of
appeals remanded the case to the district court to conclude whether information in the response
that would reveal the committee’s request could be redacted and to direct the agency to “release
any segregable portions that are not otherwise protected by one of FOIA’s nine exemptions.”428
The D.C. Circuit has articulated other principles helpful for determining whether Congress has
manifested sufficient intent to control a particular record. For example, the court has found that
“post-hoc objections” to disclosure raised by Congress “long after the . . . record[s’] creation” and
“in response to the FOIA litigation” do not convey sufficient manifestations of intent to control.429
Nor are proper manifestations of intent contained in expressions that are “too general and
sweeping.”430 In Paisley v. CIA, for example, the court acknowledged that letters sent by the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to the CIA “indicate[d] the Committee’s desire to
prevent release without its approval of any documents generated by the Committee or by an
intelligence agency in response to a Committee inquiry.”431 However, the court held that the
letters did not alone manifest sufficient congressional intent to control the documents at issue

423 United We Stand, 359 F.3d at 602.
424 Id. at 597 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
425 Id.
426 Id. at 602.
427 Id. at 601.
428 Id. at 605.
429 Id. at 602; see ACLU, 823 F.3d at 664 (explaining that a letter sent by the new chairman of the committee to the
President demanding the return of the final report “was sent after Appellants had submitted their FOIA request and
after they had filed suit in the District Court” and concluding, accordingly, that the letter “is a ‘post-hoc objection[] to
disclosure,’ and, as such, it ‘cannot manifest the clear assertion of congressional control that our case law requires.’”)
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original); cf. Am. Oversight, Inc. v. HHS, No. 17-827,
2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220885, at *19 (D.D.C. Aug. 10, 2018) (”[T]o satisfy the requirement regarding the timing of
congressional manifestation of intent, Congress must establish its intent to retain control over the records prior to the
FOIA request to which the records are responsive.”).
430 Paisley, 712 F.2d at 694; see United We Stand, 359 F.3d at 602 (agency’s argument that the congressional
committee had an expectation of confidentiality regarding its communications with the agency based “on its consistent
course of dealing with the” agency, as “such an understanding is far too general to remove the [document] from FOIA’s
disclosure requirement”).
431 Paisley, 712 F.2d at 695.
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because “there [was] no discussion of any particular documents or of any particular criteria by
which to evaluate and limit the breadth of [the Committee’s] interdiction.”432
Whether Congress has sufficiently manifested intent to control a document ultimately depends on
the circumstances underlying each case.433 For example, in United We Stand (discussed above),
the D.C. Circuit specifically underscored that the manifestation of intent to control at issue in that
case was contained “in a letter written by the Joint Committee’s chief of staff as part of an
investigation authorized by the chairman, vice-chairman, and ranking members of the Joint
Committee,” as well as that an IRS document that the committee relied on “expressly
recognize[d] the confidentiality of Joint Committee requests.”434 On the other hand, in American
Oversight, Inc. v. Department of Health & Human Services, the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia did not explicitly emphasize the level of formality of the congressional
manifestation of assent in reaching its decision that the materials at issue were not agency records
subject to disclosure under FOIA.435 Instead, the court relied on its reading of language contained
in email messages between staff of the House Committee on Ways and Means and executive
branch personnel addressing “health care reform” to find that Congress had manifested its intent
to retain control over the messages.436
Related Open Government and Information Laws:
FACA, the Sunshine Act, and the Privacy Act
FOIA is the primary statutory mechanism by which the public may gain access to federal
government records and information. But other laws—specifically FACA, the Sunshine Act, and
the Privacy Act—also set forth rights and limitations on the public’s access to government
information or activities. FACA governs the establishment and operation of certain advisory
committees created to supply advice and recommendations to federal agencies or the President.437

432 Id.
433 See Goland, 607 F.2d at 347 (“Whether a congressionally generated document has become an agency record . . .
depends on whether under all the facts of the case, the document has passed from the control of Congress and become
property subject to the free disposition of the agency with which the document resides.”).
434 United We Stand, 359 F.3d at 605. But the court “express[ed] no view about the sufficiency of congressional
manifestations of intent to control documents that are created under other circumstances.” Id.
435 See 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220885, at *14-21.
436 Id.*5, *14-21. The language consisted of boilerplate that the committee included in each email chain at issue and
stated:
This document and any related documents, notes, draft and final legislation, recommendations, reports, or other
materials generated by the Members or staff of the Committee on Ways and Means are records of the Committee,
remain subject to the Committee’s control, and are entrusted to your agency only for use in handling this matter.
Any such documents created or compiled by an agency in connection with any response to this Committee
document or any related Committee communications, including but not limited to any replies to the Committee,
are also records of the Committee and remain subject to the Committee's control. Accordingly, the aforementioned
documents are not “agency records” for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act or other law.
Id. at *8 (quotation marks added) (citation omitted).
437 An “advisory committee,” as defined by FACA, is “any committee, board, commission, council, conference, panel,
task force, or other similar group” that has been “established by statute or reorganization plan” or “established or
utilized” by either the President or an agency “in the interest of obtaining advice or recommendations for the President
or one or more agencies or officers of the Federal Government.” 5 U.S.C. app. 2 § 3. However, groups that are entirely
composed of federal employees are excluded from the definition of “advisory committee,” as are committees of the
National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Public Administration. Id.; see also id. § 4 (providing that
FACA does not apply to committees established or utilized by the CIA, Federal Reserve System, or Office of the
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Among other things, the statute generally mandates the public availability of an advisory
committee’s “records, reports, transcripts, minutes, appendixes, working papers, drafts, studies,
agenda, or other documents,”438 and members of the public are authorized under FACA to attend
and participate in advisory committee meetings.439 The availability of an advisory committee’s
papers is subject to FOIA’s exemptions.440
Another general open government statute, the Sunshine Act, imposes transparency obligations on
the meetings of certain multimember boards and commissions.441 The statute requires that
covered agencies allow the public to attend their meetings442 and have access to relevant
information.443 Meetings and information required to be disclosed under the act are subject to ten
exemptions, many of which resemble FOIA’s.444
Lastly, the Privacy Act governs the “collection, maintenance, use and dissemination” of agency
records that contain individually identifiable information about United States citizens and lawful
permanent residents.445 The act forbids the disclosure of covered records without the written
consent or request of the individual identified by the record, subject to twelve exceptions.446 One
Privacy Act exception covers records for which disclosure “would be . . . required” by FOIA.447
Under this exception, an agency record subject to the Privacy Act that is not protected by any of
FOIA’s exemptions—and which therefore must be disclosed under FOIA upon request—is not
prohibited from being disclosed by the Privacy Act.448 The Privacy Act also permits individuals to

Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) (but only, in regard to the ODNI, to the extent that the Director “determines
that for reasons of national security such advisory committee cannot comply with” FACA).
438 Id. § 10(b).
439 Id. § 10(a)(1), (3). But see id. § 10(d) (providing that these requirements “shall not apply to any portion of an
advisory committee meeting where the President, or the head of the agency to which the advisory committee reports,
determines that such portion of such meeting may be closed to the public in accordance with [the Sunshine Act]”).
440 See id. § 10(b); Nat. Res. Def. Council v. Johnson, 488 F.3d 1002, 1003 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (explaining that FACA, at
§ 10(b), “incorporates the FOIA exemptions”).
441 See 5 U.S.C. § 552b. The Sunshine Act specifically applies to each “agency” (as that term is described in FOIA at
§ 552(f)) that is “headed by a collegial body composed of two or more individual members, a majority of whom are
appointed to such position by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, and any subdivision thereof
authorized to act on behalf of the agency.” Id. § 552b(a)(1).
442 The Sunshine Act defines “meeting” to generally mean “the deliberations of at least the number of individual
agency members required to take action on behalf of the agency where such deliberations determine or result in the
joint conduct or disposition of official agency business.” 5 U.S.C. § 552b(a)(2).
443 See id. § 552b(b); see also, e.g., id. § 552b(f)(2) (directing agencies to “make promptly available to the public . . .
the transcript, electronic recording, or minutes . . . of the discussion of any item on the agenda, or of any item of the
testimony of any witness received at [a] meeting” or portion of a meeting that was closed by the agency pursuant to the
exemptions contained in § 552b(c).
444 See id. § 552b(c)(1)-(10).
445 Bartel v. FAA, 725 F.2d 1403, 1407 (D.C. Cir. 1984); see 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(2) (defining “individual” for purposes
of the Privacy Act as “a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence”).
446 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1)-(12). The Privacy Act applies to “any record which is contained in a system of records.” Id.
The act defines “record” as “any item, collection, or grouping of information about an individual that is maintained by
an agency . . . and that contains his name, or the identifying number, symbol, or other identifying particular assigned to
the individual, such as a finger or voice print or a photograph.” Id. § 552a(a)(4). A “system of records” is “a group of
any records under the control of any agency from which information is retrieved by the name of the individual or by
some identifying number, symbol, or other identifying particular assigned to the individual.” Id. § 552a(a)(5).
447 Id. § 552a(b)(2).
448 See, e.g., DOD v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. 487, 502 (1994) (holding that “FOIA . . . does not require
the agencies to divulge the [records at issue], and the Privacy Act, therefore, prohibits their release”).
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request “access to [their] record[s] or to any information pertaining to [them] which is contained
in” a system of records, and to seek the amendment of such records, subject to exemptions.449

Author Information

Daniel J. Sheffner

Legislative Attorney

Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan
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under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other
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449 See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(d), (j), (k). FOIA’s exemptions may not be used “to withhold from an individual any record
which is otherwise accessible to such individual under the provisions of” the Privacy Act. Id. § 552a(t)(1).
The Privacy Act also authorizes individuals to request accountings of certain disclosures of records in which they are
identified, and requires agencies to “inform any person or other agency about any correction or notation of dispute
made by the agency . . . of any record that has been disclosed to the person or agency if an accounting of the disclosure
was made.” Id. § 552a(c)(3), (4). An agency may, under certain circumstances, exempt a system of records from those
provisions. See id. § 552a(j), (k).
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