Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Project v. United States Department of Homeland Security

603 F. Supp. 2d 354, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27254
CourtDistrict Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedMarch 20, 2009
DocketCiv. 3:06CV1889 (MRK)
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 603 F. Supp. 2d 354 (Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Project v. United States Department of Homeland Security) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Project v. United States Department of Homeland Security, 603 F. Supp. 2d 354, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27254 (D. Conn. 2009).

Opinion

RULING AND ORDER

MARK R. KRAVITZ, District Judge.

This case involves a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 *360 U.S.C. § 552 for certain records relating to an immigration enforcement program called “Operation Frontline.” That program was implemented in the months leading up to the 2004 Presidential election and 2005 inauguration for the avowed purpose of disrupting potential terrorist activities. While it has taken much longer than anyone would have liked, the parties have now been able to resolve most of the issues raised in this case, facilitating the release to Plaintiffs of thousands of pages of documents. Based on the documents released, Plaintiffs contend that Operation Front-line, which was touted as an effort aimed at disrupting terrorists, was “little more than routine immigration enforcement.” Pis.’ Mem. in Opp’n to Second Mot. for Summ. J. [doc. # 118] at 2. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as a result of Operation Frontline, it arrested approximately 270 immigration status violators. See Mem. of DHS in Support of Renewed Mot. for Summ. J. [doc. # 109] at 5.

What remains at issue are a few classified documents that DHS withheld under Exemptions (b)(1), (b)(2)High, and (b)(7)(E), and a certain number of unclassified, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Headquarters’ policy documents that DHS withheld under Exemptions (b)(2)High and (b)(7)(E). 1 See generally 5 U.S.C. §§ 552(b)(1), (b)(2), (b)(7)(E). The parties agreed to submit the documents to the Court for its in camera inspection.

I.

Before addressing those documents, however, the Court pauses to support Plaintiffs’ concerns about the lack of specificity in the affidavits and Vaughn indices that DHS presented in this case. Since the Court has reviewed the documents in camera, the Court need not resolve that issue. But it is apparent that many of the descriptions of the documents are so vague and general that they are of little, or no, use to Plaintiffs or this Court. During oral argument, the Court attempted to give Plaintiffs a more fulsome description of each of the documents withheld. DHS must understand that affidavits and indices must be “relatively detailed” and nonconclusory to serve their intended purpose of providing the requester and the Court with a basis for determining whether the agency properly withheld certain information under FOIA’s exemptions. See Carney v. United States Dep’t of Justice, 19 F.3d 807, 812 (2d Cir.1994).

The Court is not willing to accept the agency’s word that documents are predominantly internal or that if disclosed, the document would reveal ongoing law enforcement techniques and risk circumvention of the law. Instead, on a motion for summary judgment, it is DHS’s responsibility to demonstrate that it has properly withheld documents by providing the Court and Plaintiffs with reasonably detailed descriptions of the documents and with specific, particularized explanations regarding the reasons for withholding each portion of the documents. It does not suffice to give a few examples, as DHS has done. And this is so, even if, as here, some of the information being withheld is classified information. See Halpem v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 181 F.3d 279, 293 (2d Cir.1999) (“[B]lind deference is precisely what Congress rejected when it amended FOIA in 1974.”).

While Ms. McGinnis’s Second Declaration is an improvement upon prior submissions, it is still not sufficiently detailed to *361 permit Plaintiffs to make responsible arguments regarding disclosure or the Court to make a reasoned decision concerning whether each document was properly withheld. Compare Mem. of Def. DHS in Supp. of its Mot. for Summ. J. [doc. # 70] Ex. 1 (“Declaration of Reba A. McGinnis”) with Mem. of Def. DHS in Supp. of its Renewed Mot. For Summ. J. [doc. # 109] Ex. 1 (“Second Declaration of Reba McGinnis”). It is the Court’s hope and expectation that in the future, DHS will provide more detail than it has to date in this case. As stated at the outset, however, the documents were submitted in their entirety to the Court for its in camera inspection, and so the Court had all of the information necessary to determine whether DHS properly invoked the exceptions to disclosure at issue. See Halpern, 181 F.3d at 292 (“With respect to in camera review, we adopted a restrained approach permitting such review where the record showed the reasons for withholding were vague ... or where it might be possible that the agency had exempted whole documents simply because there was some exempt material in them.”). In addition, for each of the withholdings at issue, the Court has determined that there is no further reasonably segregable portion of any document at issue beyond that which the Court has ordered disclosed. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b); see also Sussman v. U.S. Marshals Serv., 494 F.3d 1106, 1116 (D.C.Cir.2007).

II.

Classified Documents. Exemption (b)(1) provides that FOIA’s broad provisions favoring disclosure do not apply to documents 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.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1). 2 DHS relies upon Executive Order 12958, as amended by Executive Order 13292, 68 Fed. Reg. 15315 (Mar. 25, 2003), which permits information to be classified as “top secret,” “secret,” or “confidential.” The “secret” classification applies to information the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security; the “confidential” designation is used for information the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security.

Having conducted an in camera review of the classified documents, which include the Clark and Forman memoranda and their attachments, the Court is satisfied that these documents were properly withheld under Exemption (b)(1). 3 See, e.g., Morley v. Central Intelligence Agen *362 cy, 508 F.3d 1108, 1123-24 (D.C.Cir.2007); Wolf v. Central Intelligence Agency,

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603 F. Supp. 2d 354, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27254, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/allard-k-lowenstein-international-human-rights-project-v-united-states-ctd-2009.