Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.
Chester Kowalczyk brought this action in the district court for the District of Columbia seeking an order compelling the Federal Bureau of Investigation to comply with his request for records under thе Freedom of Information Act. The court entered summary judgment in the Bureau’s favor. Kowalczyk appeals from that judgment, claiming that his FOIA request obligated the Bureau to search for rеsponsive documents not only in the files at its headquarters, to which he sent the request, but also in the files at its New York field office, to which he made no reference in the request. For the reasons set forth below, we hold that Kowalczyk’s request did not obligate the Bureau to search its New York field office, and we affirm the judgment of the district court.
I. Background
Chester Kowalczyk was сonvicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York of tampering with motor vehicle identification numbers, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 511, and attempting to
When the FBI then notified Kowalczyk that its FOIA backlog would delay рrocessing of his request for “many months,” Kow-alczyk brought this suit in the district court for the District of Columbia to compel the Bureau to produce the documents promptly. It was at a status conference in May 1994— after the Bureau had moved for summary judgment — that Kowalczyk says he first realized that the agency had searched for documents responsive to his FOIA request at its Washington headquarters only. Kowalczyk argued that the Bureau was obligated to search also at its New York field office. The district court disagreed and entered summary judgment for the FBI.
II. Analysis
We can affirm the summary judgment for the FBI only if the agency has shown that the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to Kowalczyk, raises no genuine issue of material fact.
Steinberg v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice,
In considering an agency’s motion for summary judgment in a FOIA case, the court may rely upon аffidavits of agency officials “describing [the agency’s] search procedures and explaining why a more thorough investigation would have been unduly burdensome.”
McGehee,
Under the FOIA, an agency is obliged to make “promptly available” records that аre “reasonably describe[d]” in a written request therefor and are not exempt from disclosure. 5 U.S.C. §§ 552(a)(3)(A), 552(b). A request reasonably describes records if “the agency is able to determinе precisely what records are being requested.”
Yeager v. Drug Enforcement Administration,
In resolving this dispute, we begin by setting aside Kowalczyk’s letter of appeal. The FBI searched for records resрonsive to Kowalczyk’s initial request on August 22, 1991 — within three weeks of receiving it and about four months before Kowalczyk sent his second letter. A reasonable effort to satisfy that request doеs not entail an obligation to search anew based upon a subsequent clarification. The FBI generally handles requests in the order in which it receives them. Requiring an additional search each time the agency receives a letter that clarifies a prior request could extend indefinitely the delay in processing new requests.
Cf. Biberman v. F.B.I.,
Focusing upon Kowalczyk’s original FOIA requеst, we see that he made no reference to the New York field office or, indeed, to New York. According to the amicus curiae, however, “the documents maintained by headquarters ... made it abundantly clear that the investigation which led to Mr. Kowalc-zyk’s prosecution had originated in the FBI’s New York field office.” This assertion is unsupported by any citation to a specific document. Moreover, the amicus concedes that “virtually none of the documents identified or processed by the FBI related to the issues underlying Kowalczyk’s indictment and conviction. All but one ... related only to the FBI’s forfeiture proceedings against automobiles purchased from Mr. Kowalezyk by third parties.”
Despite Kowalczyk’s failure to give the court any guidance, we have reviewed all the documents that the FBI submitted to the district court along with the affidavits describing the search it made. The Bureau located these doсuments by running Chester Kowalczyk’s name through a file-subject index of individuals and organizations. The documents do indicate that Kowalezyk was indicted in the Eastern District of New York and that the Bureau’s Nеw York field office had records of his activities involving vehicle identification numbers and stolen cars. We have found no document bearing the ease number “88 CR 701,” however, and Kowalc-zyk’s FOIA request states nothing about the nature of the charges in that case. Indeed, it does not even state that Kowalezyk was a defendant in that case.
The information in Kowalczyk’s request, therefore, did not enable the FBI to determine that the New York field office had responsive records. The Bureau might, at best, have speculated about the connection between “Federal case number 88 CR 701,” to which Kowalezyk referred, and Kowalczyk’s indictment in the Eastern District of New York, to which the records coming to Bureau headquarters from thе New York field office referred.
The Bureau’s duty, however, is only to “conduct a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.”
Truitt,
This is not to say that the agency may ignore what it cannot help but know, but we suspect that it will be the rare case indeed in which an agency record contains a lead so apparent that the Bureau cannot in good faith fail to pursue it. If the agency may reasonably interpret the request to be for records in a specific officе or offices only — the office to which the request was sent or any office(s) named in the request— then upon discovering that it has other responsive records elsewhere, it may reasonably infer that the requester already has those records, is seeking them through a separate request, or, for whatever reason, does not want them. If, on the other hand, the requester clearly states that he wants all agency records on a subject, i.e., regardless of their location, but fails to direct the agency’s attention to any particular office other than the one receiving the request, then the agency need pursue only a lead it cannot in good faith ignore, i.e., a lead that is both clear and certаin.
In any event, Kowalczyk’s is not one of those rare cases. His FOIA request contains so little information that, in order to incur any obligation to search the New York field office, the Bureau would have had to find a document at headquarters specifically indicating that documents related to a ease bearing the number 88 CR 701 were located in its New York office. Kowalezyk brings no such document to our attention, nor have we found one among the documents that the FBI located in Washington.
III. Conclusion
Kowalezyk does not challenge the FBI’s responsе to his FOIA request in any respect
AFFIRMED.