A refusal to disclose an individual's personal FBI crime record to a third party is

justifiable under the "personal privacy" invasion exemption of the Freedom of

Information Act.

JUSTICE DEPT. V REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

489 U.S. 749
March 22, 1989

Mr. Justice Paul STEVENS:

FACTS
Congress gave the FBI authority to maintain rap sheets on criminals.

A CBS News correspondent and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the
Press (RCFP) requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) information
about four members of the Medico family. The Pennsylvania Crime Commission had
identified the family’s company as having connections to organized crime and the
company was alleged to have won several defense contracts as a result of an
improper relationship with a corrupt Congressperson. The FBI originally denied the
FOIA requests, then provided information on three of the four persons.

When the FBI refused the request to obtain the rap sheet on the fourth person,
Charles Medico, a CBS news correspondent and the RCFP challenged the denial as a
violation of the FOIA.

RCFP claimed that since Medico was an identified organized crime figure with
corrupt ties to a United States Congressman, Medico's criminal record was a matter of
"public record" and "interest." On appeal from an unfavorable appellate decision, the
Supreme Court granted the U.S. Department of Justice certiorari.

ISSUE
1. Whether or not the disclosure of the contents of an FBI rap sheet to a third party be
reasonably expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" within
the meaning of Exemption 7(C) and therefore is prohibited by that Exemption.

RULING
1. YES.

The court held that the fact that an event was not wholly "private" did not mean that an
individual had no interest in limiting its disclosure. The privacy interest in a rap sheet
was substantial.

Whether an invasion of privacy was warranted had to turn on the nature of the
requested document and its relationship to the basic purpose of the FOIA, which
focused on the citizen's right to be informed about the government's actions. The news
groups in this case did not intend to discover anything about the conduct of the
agency, and response to the request would not shed any light on the agency's
conduct. Thus, the public interest in release of a rap sheet was not the type of interest
protected by the FOIA.

As such he court held, that when the request seeks no "official information" about a
Government agency, but merely records that the Government happens to be storing,
the invasion of privacy is "unwarranted."
CONCLUSION/S
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

NOTES
1. “Rap sheets” contain descriptive information about a person, such as date of
birth, physical characteristics, as well as information about the person’s history of
arrests, convictions and incarcerations. This information is a matter of public
record, but not available in collected form except from the FBI.

2. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that an individual's interest in

nondisclosure of any criminal records that the FBI might have on him or her is
precisely the sort of "personal privacy" that Congress intended to protect when it
enacted FOIA exemptions.

Balancing public knowledge interests against privacy considerations, the Court

explained that RCFP's request was overly broad. The request sought access to all
FBI records on Medico, rather than specific information concerning his file.
Moreover, the Court stated that public interest in criminal record information is not
increased simply because the requesting party is a news agency.