MEMORANDUM OPINION
KETANJI BROWN JACKSON UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
During
her lifetime, Eleanor Roosevelt served the United States in a
variety of roles, including as First Lady of the United
States, as a United Nations delegate, and as a representative
to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
(See Compl., ECF No. 1, ¶ 5.) She also caught
the attention-and provoked the ire-of J. Edgar Hoover, the
former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(“FBI”). (See id.)[1]At Hoover's
direction, the FBI collected extensive information regarding
Mrs. Roosevelt during the later years of her life (see
Id. ¶¶ 5-6); in 2015, more than five decades
after her death, plaintiff Christopher Brick submitted a
request to the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act
(“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, seeking disclosure
of certain records from the FBI's Eleanor Roosevelt file
(see Id. ¶ 7). The FBI released hundreds of
pages of documents in response to Brick's FOIA request,
but the agency redacted some of the responsive documents on
the grounds that the information was exempted from disclosure
under the FOIA. (See Id. ¶ 8.) At issue in the
instant lawsuit is a subset of 12 pages of records that the
FBI produced to Brick, with respect to which the agency
invoked FOIA Exemptions 3 and 7(E), among other provisions,
to withhold certain information. In his complaint, Brick
maintains that the FBI has “no legal basis for refusing
to disclose these twelve pages in full.” (Id.
¶ 11.)
Before
this Court at present are the parties' cross-motions for
summary judgment. (See Def.'s Renewed Mot. for
Summ. J. (“Def.'s Renewed Mot.”), ECF No. 26;
Pl.'s Renewed Cross-Mot. for Summ. J. (“Pl.'s
Renewed Mot.”), ECF No. 28.) The parties' arguments
specifically pertain to the redactions in 12 pages of records
“that appear to provide information on Mrs.
Roosevelt's travel to the Soviet Union and participation
in events and activities where she was likely to encounter
Soviet United Nations personnel[.]” (Pl.'s Renewed
Mot. at 3.)[2] DOJ argues that Exemptions 3 and 7(E)
authorize the FBI to withhold the information at issue, and
also that the agency has adequately justified those
withholdings in the ex parte, classified declaration
the agency submitted with its motion. (See
Def.'s Renewed Mot. at 8-11.) Brick insists that
DOJ's public filings provide no justification for the
FBI's assertion of Exemption 3 or 7(E), and asserts that
the FOIA requires DOJ to articulate publicly an explanation
“that is adequate to support the claimed exemptions
without revealing the information that the exemptions are
designed to protect.” (See Pl.'s Renewed
Mot. at 4.)
As
discussed fully below, the Court has reviewed the relevant
documents in camera, and it finds that DOJ has
established in its ex parte filing that the FBI
properly invoked Exemptions 3 and 7(E) to redact the
information at issue in this case. This Court further finds
that, under the circumstances of this case, it was
appropriate for the government to explain the bases for its
withholdings in a classified, ex parte declaration.
As such, DOJ's renewed motion for summary judgment must
be GRANTED and Brick's renewed
cross-motion must be DENIED. A separate
Order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion will follow.
I.
BACKGROUND[3]
A.
Factual Background
Christopher
Brick is the Project Director and Editor for the Eleanor
Roosevelt Papers Project (“Project”), which
describes itself as “a research center that aims to
make the vast record of Eleanor Roosevelt's written,
spoken, and audio-visual legacy accessible to scholars,
students, teachers, and the general public.” (Decl. of
Christopher Brick, ECF No. 14-1, ¶ 2.) The Project
accomplishes this mission by publishing Eleanor
Roosevelt's papers, among other things, and it has
published two volumes of her records to date. (See
id.; see also Compl. ¶ 3.)
As
noted above, at the behest of its former director J. Edgar
Hoover, the FBI maintained an extensive individual file on
former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. (See Compl.
¶ 5.) In 1982, the FBI released to the public many, but
not all, of the records from this file. (See Compl.
¶ 6; see also Ans., ECF No. 9, ¶ 6.) Brick
submitted a FOIA request to DOJ on June 25, 2015, seeking
certain records from the FBI's file that had not been
included in the 1982 release. (See Pl.'s Stmt.
of Material Facts as to Which There Is No. Genuine Dispute,
ECF No. 28 at 12-13, ¶ 1.) In response to Brick's
request, the FBI released 338 pages of redacted records, and
invoked FOIA Exemptions 6, 7(C), 7(D), and 7(E) to justify
the withholdings. (See Id. ¶ 2.) Brick appealed
the redactions on 12 of these pages (see Id. ¶
3), and on February 9, 2015, DOJ's Office of Information
Policy affirmed the FBI's withholdings on the grounds
that the agency had properly redacted information pursuant to
Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(E) (see Id. ¶ 4).
B.
Procedural History
On
August 3, 2015, Brick filed a four-page complaint in this
Court, “to challenge the decision of the Department of
Justice (‘DOJ') to redact certain records in
Eleanor Roosevelt's Federal Bureau of Investigation
(‘FBI') file[.]” (Compl. ¶ 1.) At issue
in Brick's complaint are “the withheld portions of
. . . twelve pages” that, according to Brick,
“defendants have no legal basis for refusing to
disclose[.]” (Id. ¶ 11.)
On
November 17, 2015, DOJ filed a motion for summary judgment
that argued that the redactions in those 12 pages were proper
under Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(E). (See Def.'s
Mot. For Summ. J, ECF No. 12.) DOJ also filed a supporting
declaration from FBI declarant David M. Hardy. (See
Decl. of David M. Hardy, ECF No. 12-1.) Brick filed a
cross-motion for summary judgment (see Pl.'s
Cross-Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 14), and in response, DOJ
filed an additional declaration from Hardy further explaining
its withholdings (see Second Decl. of David M.
Hardy, ECF No. 18-2).[4]
On
November 9, 2017, this Court found that Hardy's
declarations were not “sufficiently detailed to permit
the Court to conduct a meaningful review” of the
FBI's assertion of the FOIA exemptions, and thus, denied
both cross-motions without prejudice. Brick v. Dep't
of Justice, 293 F.Supp.3d 9, 10, 13 (D.D.C. 2017). DOJ
filed a renewed motion for summary judgment, along with an
unclassified declaration from Hardy, on February 1, 2018.
(See Def.'s Renewed Mot.; Fourth Decl. of David.
0M. Hardy, ECF No. 26-1.) DOJ also lodged with the Classified
Information Security Officer a classified declaration from
Hardy, as well as unredacted copies of the 12 pages at issue
in the instant case. (See Notice of Lodging
Classified Decl. & Unredacted Documents with the
Classified Info. Sec. Officer, ECF No. 27; Classified Hardy
Decl.)
In its
papers, DOJ explains that the FBI has reprocessed the 12
pages of records, and it subsequently released additional
information to Brick after dropping its reliance on
Exemptions 6 and 7(C). (See Def.'s Stmt. of
Undisputed Material Facts, ECF No. 26 at 2-3, ¶ 7.) DOJ
asserts that the FBI is entitled to summary judgment with
respect to the remaining redactions, because the agency
properly invoked FOIA Exemption 3- which permits an agency to
withhold records that are “specifically exempted from
disclosure by [a] statute [that] . . . establishes particular
criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of
matters to be withheld[, ]” 5 U.S.C. §
552(b)(3)-and FOIA Exemption 7(E)-which permits an agency to
withhold certain records “compiled for law enforcement
purposes[, ]” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E).
(See Def.'s Renewed Mot. at 9- 11.) In
particular, DOJ maintains that the FBI properly redacted
information regarding United States intelligence sources and
methods that is exempt from disclosure under Section
102A(i)(1) of the National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C.
§ 3024(i)(1) (see Id. at 8), as well as
information that was “compiled for law enforcement
purposes” (id. at 9) and that, if disclosed,
would reveal “FBI investigative techniques and
procedures” and “risk circumvention of the
law” (id. at 10-11). Finally, DOJ argues that
it has released all non-exempt, reasonably segregable
portions of records that are responsive to Brick's FOIA
request. (See Id. at 11-12.)
For his
part, Brick has filed a renewed cross-motion for summary
judgment, in which he maintains that DOJ's “public
filings offer no support for its claimed exemptions [and
therefore] they cannot carry [Defendant's] burden of
establishing that the records fall within the
exemptions[.]” (Pl.'s Renewed Mot. at 6.) Brick
further contends that it is improper for the FBI to justify
its invocation of Exemptions 3 and 7(E) only in sealed,
ex parte filings; instead, according to Brick, the
agency should have provided in its public papers a general
description of the law enforcement and intelligence
techniques at issue. (See Id. at 7-11; see also
Id. at 7 (asserting that “the government's
bald assertion that it cannot provide any meaningful ...