Coastal Delivery Corp. v. United States Customs Service

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT UNITED STATES CUSTOMS SERVICE’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

I. Introduction

To help determine damages in a different, unrelated lawsuit, plaintiff Coastal Delivery Corp. (“Coastal”) filed a complaint under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) seeking information regarding the number of examinations performed on merchandise arriving into the Los Ange-les/Long Beach seaport. Defendant, the United States Customs Service (“Customs”), maintains that the information is protected under exemptions to FOIA because terrorists and others could use the information to discover the rate of inspection and then direct their containers to vulnerable ports.

A. Facts

The following facts are undisputed unless stated otherwise. Plaintiff, a trucking company, entered into an contract with a company called NISCO Pacific Warehouse (“NISCO”), a Centralized Examination Station (“CES”) for the U.S. Customs Service. When containers arrive at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port, Customs designates certain containers, for inspection off-site at a Centralized Examination Station. Under the contract, plaintiff was to be the exclusive transporter of designated containers from the port…