Doyle v. US Dept. of Homeland Security

959 F.3d 72
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMay 18, 2020
Docket18-2814
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 959 F.3d 72 (Doyle v. US Dept. of Homeland Security) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Doyle v. US Dept. of Homeland Security, 959 F.3d 72 (2d Cir. 2020).

Opinion

18-2814 Doyle v. US Dept. of Homeland Security

1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 2 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 3 4 August Term, 2019 5 6 (Argued: September 23, 2019 Decided: May 18, 2020) 7 8 Docket No. 18-2814-cv 9 10 _____________________________________ 11 12 KATE DOYLE, NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, CITIZENS 13 FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON, KNIGHT 14 FIRST AMENDMENT INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, 15 16 Plaintiffs-Appellants, 17 18 v. 19 20 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, 21 22 Defendant-Appellee. 23 _____________________________________ 24 25 Before: 26 27 CALABRESI, LOHIER, and PARK, Circuit Judges. 28 29 This appeal involves a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to 30 the Secret Service seeking visitor logs for the White House Complex and 31 President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida from January 20, 2017 to 32 March 8, 2017. The Secret Service denied the request, claiming that the visitor 33 logs were not “agency records” subject to FOIA. The District Court (Failla, J.) 34 agreed with the Secret Service and refused to compel production of the 35 withheld records. The District Court also dismissed for want of subject- 36 matter jurisdiction the plaintiffs’ claims that an agreement between the Secret 37 Service and the Executive Office of the President that allegedly governed the 38 maintenance of the visitor logs violated the Presidential Records Act and the 1 Federal Records Act. We AFFIRM the District Court’s judgment and DENY 2 the plaintiffs’ request on appeal to amend their complaint. 3 4 ANNE L. WEISMANN, Citizens for Responsibility and 5 Ethics in Washington, Washington, D.C. (Conor M. 6 Shaw, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in 7 Washington, Washington, D.C., Alexander Abdo, 8 Jameel Jaffer, Knight First Amendment Institute at 9 Columbia University, New York, NY, on the brief), for 10 Plaintiffs-Appellants Kate Doyle, National Security 11 Archive, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in 12 Washington, Knight First Amendment Institute at 13 Columbia University. 14 15 SARAH S. NORMAND, Assistant United States 16 Attorney (Benjamin H. Torrance, Assistant United 17 States Attorney, on the brief), for Geoffrey S. Berman, 18 United States Attorney for the Southern District of 19 New York, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellee 20 United States Department of Homeland Security. 21 22 LOHIER, Circuit Judge:

23 In this appeal we principally consider whether certain visitor logs for

24 the White House Complex and the President’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida

25 are “agency records” subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The

26 plaintiffs, all but one of whom are government watchdog groups of one form

27 or another, filed a request with the Secret Service, a component of the

28 Department of Homeland Security (DHS), seeking visitor logs from January

29 20, 2017 to March 8, 2017. The Secret Service denied the request and withheld

30 the logs, claiming that they were not agency records under FOIA. The

2 1 plaintiffs sued in federal court and moved to compel production of the

2 withheld records, but the United States District Court for the Southern

3 District of New York (Failla, J.) agreed with the Secret Service that the logs

4 were not agency records and accordingly denied the plaintiffs’ motion. The

5 District Court also dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction the

6 plaintiffs’ separate claims under the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and the

7 Federal Records Act (FRA) challenging an agreement between the Secret

8 Service and the Executive Office of the President (EOP) that allegedly

9 governed how the visitor logs were to be maintained.

10 For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the District Court’s judgment

11 and DENY the plaintiffs’ request on appeal to amend their complaint.

12 BACKGROUND

13 1. Facts

14 a. Records of Visitors to the White House Complex

15 In order to protect the President, the Secret Service monitors and

16 controls access to the White House Complex, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 3056A(a)(1)-(2),

17 3056(a)(1), using two electronic systems. It uses the first system, known as the

18 Worker and Visitor Entrance System (WAVES), to vet potential visitors and to

3 1 determine which portions of the White House Complex they can access. It

2 uses the second system, known as the Executive Facilities Access Control

3 System (EFACS), to control how visitors access the White House Complex

4 once they arrive.

5 To operate these systems, the Secret Service needs to know who is

6 visiting the White House Complex and when. So White House Complex

7 employees notify the Secret Service of anticipated visitors and provide the

8 Secret Service with personal information about each prospective visitor so

9 that it can determine whether and under what conditions that visitor should

10 be admitted. This information is stored in WAVES and includes the visitor’s

11 name, date of birth, and Social Security number; the date, time, and location

12 of the planned visit; the name of the White House Complex employee who

13 notified the Secret Service of the impending visit; and the name of the person

14 to be visited.

15 When a visitor arrives, the Secret Service issues a badge that the visitor

16 is required to swipe to enter and exit the White House Complex’s various

17 components. Each swipe generates an Access Control Record (ACR) within

18 EFACS that captures the visitor’s name, badge number, the date and time of

4 1 the swipe, and the location at which the badge was swiped. A visitor’s ACRs

2 thus show (or should show) the visitor’s principal interactions with

3 components of the White House Complex.

4 The Secret Service claims only a temporary interest in the ACR and

5 WAVES records. Instead of retaining them, it routinely transfers the records

6 of completed visits to the White House Office of Records Management. In

7 2015 the Secret Service and the White House sought to clarify their respective

8 roles with respect to these records and to establish a framework for

9 implementing policies and procedures governing both the WAVES and

10 EFACS systems as well as the records within those systems. That year, the

11 Secret Service and a component of the White House therefore executed a

12 Memorandum of Understanding (2015 MOU), which stated in relevant part

13 that:

14 All records created, stored, used, or transmitted by, on, or 15 through the unclassified information systems and 16 information resources provided to the President, Vice 17 President, and EOP shall remain under the exclusive 18 ownership, control, and custody of the President, Vice 19 President, or originating EOP component. Such records 20 are hereinafter referred to as “EOP records.” 21

5 1 Joint App’x 96. Although the parties contest how to interpret the 2015 MOU,

2 all agree that it purports to vest control of ACR and WAVES records in the

3 President and away from the Secret Service, leaving the Secret Service merely

4 to manage and operate the WAVES and EFACS systems.

5 b. Documents Related to Mar-a-Lago

6 The Secret Service had no comparable systems in place to screen or

7 monitor presidential visitors to the President’s Mar-a-Lago or Trump Tower

8 homes. Nevertheless, in searching for records responsive to the plaintiffs’

9 FOIA requests, the Secret Service managed to locate three categories of

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Bluebook (online)
959 F.3d 72, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/doyle-v-us-dept-of-homeland-security-ca2-2020.