White v. U.S. Dept. of Justice

Dist. Ct. did nor err in granting defendants-federal agencies’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-prisoner’s action under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), alleging that defendants released certain documents too slowly and had failed to reveal existence of other records altogether. Gist of plaintiff’s hundreds of FOIA requests lied in conspiracy theory that white-supremacist movement plaintiff had joined was really elaborate sting operation by government. Defendant-FBI, which had located almost 100,000 pages of potentially responsive records, could properly release only 500 pages per month due to finite resources that must be reasonably apportioned among different requesters. Moreover, FBI could properly furnish “Glomar” responses with respect to requests concerning specific individuals, which essentially state that agency would neither confirm nor deny existence of said records, if disclosure would threaten individuals’ privacy by connecting individuals to FBI, where plaintiff failed to provide either written waiver from said individuals, proof of their death, or showing that public interest in disclosing instant alleged conspiracy outweighed privacy interest of said individuals. Also, while defendant-Marshall’s Office delayed by 2 years in sending 1,500 pages of documents pertaining to plaintiff, Dist. Ct. could properly not sanction Marshall’s Office for said delay, where Marshall’s Office explained that delay was caused by staff turnover and staff errors.