Long v. Office of Personnel Management
692 F.3d 185
2d Cir.2012Background
- FOIA request to OPM for CPDF records covering 800,000+ federal employees; OPM redacted names and all or part of duty-station data under Exemption 6; district court split: names fully withheld; duty-station partially withheld; DoD data treated specially; policy change post-9/11 and after DoD alignment influenced withholding; district court granted partial summary judgment for both sides; court here reviews de novo; records are dataset-like with multiple fields beyond names.
- Duty-station elements include organizational component code, duty post, bargaining unit, core-based/combined statistical areas, and locality pay; some attributes can reveal location and thus raise privacy concerns; data security concerns cited by OPM.
- OPM argued privacy interests in names and duty-station information outweigh public interest; plaintiffs argued some public interest in understanding government deployment and operations.
- Court must apply Exemption 6 by first classifying data as “personal” or similar files, then balancing privacy against public interest; burden on agency to show search and withholding are proper; affidavits treated as adequate evidence.
- Holding: names of employees in sensitive agencies and occupations may be withheld; duty-station information for twenty sensitive occupations must be withheld (reversing district court), i.e., OPM may withhold all duty-station info for those groups; overall, Exemption 6 permitted withholding of names and some duty-station information; duty-station data for remaining categories may be withheld as de-linked from names.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether Exemption 6 allows withholding names | Long asserts minimal privacy in names outweighs public interest | OPM demonstrates privacy risk to individuals in sensitive roles | Yes, names may be withheld |
| Whether Exemption 6 allows withholding duty-station data | Duty-station data should be disclosed when names are redacted | Duty-station data reveals addresses and increases risk of harassment; privacy outweighs public interest | Duty-station information for twenty sensitive occupations must be withheld (de-linked from names) |
Key Cases Cited
- Grand Cent. P’ship, Inc. v. Cuomo, 166 F.3d 473 (2d Cir. 1999) (FOIA favors disclosure but exemptions are narrow; self-government interest weighed)
- National Council of La Raza v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 411 F.3d 350 (2d Cir. 2005) (Exemption 6 privacy/public interest balancing)
- Wood v. FBI, 432 F.3d 78 (2d Cir. 2005) (Privacy interests in names and identifying info depend on case-specific risk)
- Ray v. U.S. Dept. of State, 502 U.S. 164 (1991) (Significance of privacy interests in identifying information; context-specific)
- Baez v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 647 F.2d 1328 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (Privacy interest in names; not a blanket exemption)
- Armstrong v. Exec. Office of the President, 97 F.3d 575 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (Exemption 6 requires balancing privacy vs public interest)
- Associated Press v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 549 F.3d 62 (2d Cir. 2008) (Privacy interests broadly construed in Exemption 6)