1. Examples of Sufficient/Insufficient Public Interest

Examples where courts have found a public interest sufficient to override a privacy interest under Exemption 7(C) include:

• An internal investigation report from the Department of Homeland Security containing the identities of agents and third parties interviewed or mentioned in connection with an agency immigration raid that allegedly involved racial profiling, given the public interest in knowing whether such improprieties had occurred.¹⁰³ To support the allegation of potential wrongdoing, the requester submitted affidavits from arrestees, declarations of ICE agents, and statements in an ICE report — all which suggested racial profiling had occurred.¹⁰⁴

• The name of an FBI special agent who was investigated by the agency for participating in a cover-up of illegal surveillance activities, as “[the public has a great interest in being enlightened about that type of malfeasance by this senior FBI official.”¹⁰⁵

• Information on cases in which defendants were subject to warrantless cell phone tracking and were convicted or pleaded guilty at trial, as disclosure would contribute to the public discussion on the government’s use of such tracking.¹⁰⁶ The court found a demonstrated public interest in the subject based on the “widespread media attention” to it, as well as the fact that the topic was then being addressed by courts and Congress.¹⁰⁷

• The identity of an undercover Department of Agriculture investigator who reported a convenience store manager’s alleged violation of food stamp regulations, where any privacy interest was diminished by the fact that the agent’s name could be discovered in civil litigation brought against the agency.¹⁰⁸ Further, the public interest outweighed any privacy interest because the agent’s actions “could have, and in this case did have, very severe consequences” as the manager was fired.¹⁰⁹ There was also evidence “that the investigator's reports were inconsistent and may have been unreliable,” and “[w]here it appears that the motives or truthfulness of the investigator are in doubt, the public need for supervision and disclosure is necessarily heightened.”¹¹⁰

Examples where courts have not found a public interest sufficient to override a privacy interest under Exemption 7(C) include:

• Records that contained the names of individuals who carried out or cooperated with an FBI investigation into the records requester himself, a member of an organized crime family, where the asserted public interest was that the records might prove his innocence, substantiate his allegations of government misconduct in his criminal prosecution, and serve “the public’s interest in the administration of criminal justice and assuring that the innocent are not wrongfully convicted and confined.”¹¹¹ The court found that the requester’s “position in the hierarchy of a particularly influent and violent” family was “highly material to the protection of individual privacy interests” — as the individuals could face harassment or retaliation — and his allegations of government misconduct were “unfounded.”¹¹²

• Identifying information, including names, contained in records from a Department of Justice Civil Rights Division investigation of two Puerto Rican police officers’ killing of two political activists.¹¹³ The individuals — the subjects of the investigation, potential defendants in prosecutions, witnesses who provided information to the government, the translator at the related grand jury proceedings, and participating FBI agents — had a “substantial” privacy interest in avoiding “embarrassment and potentially more serious reputational harm,” harassment, or stigma from their association with the investigation.¹¹⁴ The court found this privacy interest outweighed the public interest asserted by the Puerto Rican Senate, which requested the records for “its general interest in ‘getting to the bottom of’” the incident.¹¹⁵

• The identities of Guantanamo Bay detainees who were allegedly abused by U.S. military personnel or other detainees, as the court found that releasing their names “could certainly subject them to embarrassment and humiliation.”¹¹⁶ The court held that this privacy interest outweighed the asserted public interest in “provid[ing] context for DOD’s response to the abuse allegations” by revealing the detainees’ nationalities and religions, and allowing the public to both “evaluate DOD's other actions with respect to these detainees” and “seek out the detainees’ side of the story.”¹¹⁷

• The identities of individuals who were involved in a Secret Service and FBI investigation of an alleged plot of a former regime of the Dominican Republic to assassinate or kidnap members of the Kennedy family.¹¹⁸ The requester, a historian, asserted that the public interest was that release could “shed light on a plot by the agents of” that political regime.¹¹⁹ The court noted that he did not — as required under FOIA — assert a public interest in the activities of the U.S. government, and such an interest did not outweigh the individuals’ “strong privacy interest” in avoiding the disclosure of the fact that they were “persons of investigatory interest” or “innocent third parties mentioned in law enforcement reports.”¹²⁰ Further, named law enforcement personnel had “a strong [privacy] interest because of the potential for harassment.”¹²¹