American Civil Liberties Union v. Federal Bureau of Investigation

This case requires us to once again construe Exemption 7 of the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(7), which governs disclosure of “records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes.”

In analyzing FOIA requests to law enforcement agencies for disclosure of investigatory materials, we have long held that the government need only show a “rational nexus” between enforcement of federal law and a withheld document to invoke Exemption 7. See, e.g., Rosenfeld v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 57 F.3d 803, 808 (9th Cir. 1995). But, we have not yet decided whether the same standard governs requests for more generalized records, such as training manuals and guidelines.

We today hold that for such records, the government’s burden under Exemption 7 of demonstrating that withheld materials were “compiled for law enforcement purposes” can be satisfied without linking the documents to the enforcement of a particular statute.

I.

Concerned about alleged surveillance of Muslim-Americans, the ACLU of Northern California, the Asian Law Caucus, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian (collectively, “the ACLU”) submitted two FOIA requests to the FBI in 2010. The first…