United States Department of State v. Washington Post Company

• Decision Date: 17 May 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-535,81-535
• Citation: 456 U.S. 595,102 S.Ct. 1957,72 L.Ed.2d 358
• Parties: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, et al., Petitioners v. The WASHINGTON POST COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

456 U.S. 595

102 S.Ct. 1957

72 L.Ed.2d 358

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, et al., Petitioners

v The WASHINGTON POST COMPANY.

No. 81-535.

Argued March 31, 1982.

Decided May 17, 1982.

Syllabus

Respondent filed a request with petitioner United States Department of State under the Freedom of Information Act for documents indicating whether certain Iranian nationals held valid United States passports. The State Department denied the request on the ground that the requested information was exempt from disclosure under Exemption 6 of the Act, which provides that the Act's disclosure requirements do not apply to "personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." Pending an ultimately unsuccessful administrative appeal, respondent brought an action in Federal District Court to enjoin petitioners from withholding the requested documents, and the court granted summary judgment for respondent. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that because the citizenship status of the individuals in question was less intimate than information normally contained in personnel and medical files, it was not contained in "similar files" within the meaning of Exemption 6, and that therefore there was no need to consider whether disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

Held: The citizenship information sought by respondent satisfies the "similar files" requirement of Exemption 6, and hence the State Department's denial of the request should have been sustained upon a showing that release of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Although Exemption 6's language sheds little light on what Congress meant by "similar files," the legislative history indicates that Congress did not mean to limit Exemption 6 to a narrow class of files containing only a discrete kind of personal information, but that "similar files" was to have a broad, rather than a narrow, meaning. Exemption 6's protection is not determined merely by the nature of the file containing the requested information, and its protection is not lost merely because an agency stores information about an individual in records other than "personnel" or "medical" files. Pp. 599-603.

207 U.S.App.D.C. 372, 647 F.2d 197, reversed and remanded.

Kenneth S. Geller, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

David E. Kendall, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

In September 1979, respondent Washington Post Co. filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, requesting certain documents from petitioner United States Department of State. The subject of the request was defined as "documents indicating whether Dr. Ali Behzadnia and Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi . . . hold valid U. S. passports." App. 8. The request indicated that respondent would "accept any record held by the Passport Office indicating whether either of these persons is an American citizen." Ibid. At the time of the request, both Behzadnia and Yazdi were Iranian nationals living in Iran.

The State Department denied respondent's request the following month, stating that release of the requested information "would be 'a clearly unwarranted invasion of [the] personal privacy' of these persons," id., at 14 (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6)), and therefore was exempt from disclosure under Exemption 6 of the FOIA.¹ Denial of respondent's request was affirmed on appeal by the Department's Council on Classification Policy, which concluded that "the privacy interests to be protected are not incidental ones, but rather are such that they clearly outweigh any public interests which might be served by release of the requested information." Id., at 22-23.

While pursuing the administrative appeal, respondent brought an action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to enjoin petitioners from withholding the requested documents. Both sides filed affidavits and motions for summary judgment. Petitioners' affidavit, from the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, explained that both Behzadnia and Yazdi were prominent figures in Iran's Revolutionary Government and that compliance with respondent's request would "cause a real threat of physical harm" to both men.² The District Court nonetheless granted respondent's motion for summary judgment.

Petitioners appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. 207 U.S.App.D.C. 372, 647 F.2d 197 (1981). As construed by the Court of Appeals, Exemption 6 permits the withholding of information only when two requirements have been met: first, the information must be contained in personnel, medical, or "similar" files, and second, the information must be of such a nature that its disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Id., at 373, 647 F.2d, at 198. Petitioners argued that the first requirement was satisfied because the information sought by respondent was contained in "similar files." The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that the phrase "similar files" applies only to those records which contain information " ' "of the same magnitude as highly personal or as intimate in nature—as that at stake in personnel and medical records." ' " Id., at 373-374, 647 F.2d, at 198-199 (quoting Simpson v. Vance, 208 U.S.App.D.C. 270, 273, 648 F.2d 10, 13 (1980), in turn quoting Board of Trade v. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n, 200 U.S.App.D.C. 339, 345, 627 F.2d 392, 398 (1980)). Because it found the citizenship status of Behzadnia and Yazdi to be less intimate than information normally contained in personnel and medical files, the Court of Appeals held that it was not contained in "similar files." Therefore, the Court of Appeals reasoned, there was no need to consider whether disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; having failed to meet the first requirement of Exemption 6, the information had to be disclosed under the mandate of the FOIA. We granted certiorari, 454 U.S. 1030, 102 S.Ct. 565, 70 L.Ed.2d 473 (1981), to review the Court of Appeals' construction of the "similar files" language, and we now reverse.

The language of Exemption 6 sheds little light on what Congress meant by "similar files." Fortunately, the legislative history is somewhat more illuminating. The House and Senate Reports, although not defining the phrase "similar files," suggest that Congress' primary purpose in enacting Exemption 6 was to protect individuals from the injury and embarrassment that can result from the unnecessary disclosure of personal information. After referring to the "great quantities of [Federal Government] files containing intimate details about millions of citizens," the House Report explains that the exemption is "general" in nature and seeks to protect individuals:

"A general exemption for [this] category of information is much more practical than separate statutes protecting each type of personal record. The 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 preservation of the public's right to Government information by excluding those kinds of files the disclosure of which might harm the individual." H.R.Rep.No.1497, 89th Cong., 2nd Sess., 11 (1966), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1966, pp. 2418, 2428 (emphasis added).

Similarly, the Senate Judiciary Committee reached a "consensus that these [personal] files should not be opened to the public, and . . . decided upon a general exemption rather than a number of specific statutory authorizations for various agencies." S.Rep.No.813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1965) (emphasis added). The Committee concluded that the balancing of private against public interests, not the nature of the files in which the information was contained, should limit the scope of the exemption: "It is believed that the scope of the exemption is held within bounds by the use of the limitation of 'a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.' " Ibid. Thus, "the primary concern of Congress in drafting Exemption 6 was to provide for the confidentiality of personal matters." Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 375, n. 14, 96 S.Ct. 1592, 1605, n. 14, 48 L.Ed.2d 11 (1976).

Respondent relies upon passing references in the legislative history to argue that the phrase "similar files" does not include all files which contain information about particular individuals, but instead is limited to files containing "intimate details" and "highly personal" information. See H.R.Rep.No.1497, supra, at 11; S.Rep.No.813, supra, at 9. We disagree. Passing references and isolated phrases are not controlling when analyzing a legislative history. Congress' statements that it was creating a "general exemption" for information contained in "great quantities of files," H.R.Rep.No.1497, supra, at 11, suggest that the phrase "similar files" was to have a broad, rather than a narrow, meaning. This impression is confirmed by the frequent characterization of the "clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" language as a "limitation" which holds Exemption 6 "within bounds." S.Rep.No.813, supra, at 9. See also, H.R.Rep.No.1497, supra, at 11; S.Rep.No.1219, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 14 (1964). Had the words "similar files" been intended to be only a narrow addition to "personnel and medical files," there would seem to be no reason for concern about the exemption's being "held within bounds," and there surely would be clear suggestions in the legislative history that such a narrow meaning was intended. We have found none.

A proper analysis of the exemption must also take into account the fact that "personnel and medical files," the two benchmarks for measuring the...