## Facts

- The Church of Scientology of California submitted a FOIA request to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seeking all records regarding Scientology-related entities and individuals.
- The DEA initially identified only a few responsive documents but, after expanded searches across its field offices, located 126 responsive documents and released most of them.
- The DEA withheld 15 documents in full and released 9 documents with redactions, leaving 24 documents in dispute.
- The disputed materials included information obtained from non-federal domestic law-enforcement agencies, foreign law-enforcement sources, and individuals cooperating with the DEA.
- The DEA invoked FOIA Exemptions 7(C) and 7(D), asserting that disclosure would reveal confidential sources or confidentially furnished information within law-enforcement investigative files.
- Government evidence indicated that inter-agency law-enforcement information sharing is commonly conditioned on an understanding—express or implied—that the receiving agency will not disclose the information publicly without the source agency’s approval.
- The district court upheld the DEA’s nondisclosure, and the Church appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether FOIA Exemption 7(D)’s term “confidential source” includes institutional law-enforcement agencies (state, local, and foreign), not only individual informants, permitting withholding of information those agencies provided to the DEA.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment for the government.
- The court held that state, local, and foreign law-enforcement agencies may qualify as “confidential sources” under FOIA Exemption 7(D).
- The court concluded the DEA properly withheld, under Exemption 7(D), information supplied by other law-enforcement agencies and cooperating individuals in investigatory records compiled for law-enforcement purposes.
- Because Exemption 7(D) justified the withholdings, the court did not require detailed, document-by-document resolution under Exemption 7(C).

## Legal Principles

- FOIA Exemption 7(D) protects not only the identity of a confidential source but also information furnished by a confidential source in law-enforcement investigatory records.
- “Confidential source” is not limited to natural persons; it can include institutional sources such as state, local, and foreign law-enforcement agencies when confidentiality is shown by express assurance or implied from the circumstances.
- An implied assurance of confidentiality may be established by evidence of customary inter-agency practice that information is provided with an expectation it will not be publicly disclosed without the source’s approval.
- Courts may credit agency affidavits and testimony explaining investigatory context and confidentiality expectations when determining whether Exemption 7(D) applies.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that FOIA Exemption 7(D) covers institutional law-enforcement agencies as confidential sources and affirmed the DEA’s withholding of information received from those agencies and cooperating individuals in investigatory files compiled for law-enforcement purposes.


Church of Scientology of Cal. v. U.S. Dep’t of Just., 612 F.2d 417 (9th Cir. 1979)