Moorefield v. United States Secret Service Et Al.

1980-10-14

Headline: Court refuses to review Secret Service refusal to release a man’s investigative file under the Freedom of Information Act, leaving lower courts’ broad withholding of open investigation files intact and affecting public access.

Holding:

Real World Impact:

Keeps Secret Service investigatory files withheld from requesters, including people with criminal records.
Limits FOIA access where courts accept broad interpretations of enforcement exemptions.
Signals appellate courts may allow agency-wide blanket exemptions for active investigations.

Topics: freedom of information, Secret Service records, investigations and privacy, government secrecy

Summary

Background

A man twice convicted of threatening to kill the President asked the Secret Service in January 1976 to inspect his open investigative file, which he later learned was 225 pages. The Service denied the request. The District Court inspected the file in private, sided with the agency, and said disclosure would threaten enforcement activities and some individuals. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, relying on a narrowed exemption in the Freedom of Information Act that allows withholding investigatory records when disclosure would interfere with enforcement.

Reasoning

The key question was whether an open Secret Service investigation can be treated as automatically exempt from disclosure. Justice White, joined by Justice Brennan, argued the Court of Appeals went too far. He said the appeals court treated whole Secret Service files as categorically exempt and read “enforcement proceedings” broadly to include preventive investigations rather than only adjudicatory cases. He relied on earlier precedent interpreting the 1974 change to the law, which aimed to avoid blanket exemptions and to require examiners to consider particular documents, not entire files. White noted the file was never itemized to link specific pages to specific exemptions.

Real world impact

By denying review, the Supreme Court left the lower-court outcome in place, so the Secret Service’s withholding stands for this case. That outcome can make it harder for people to get records from Secret Service investigations and may encourage broad withholding by other agencies. The denial is not a final nationwide ruling on the merits; the legal question could be revisited in a future case.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice White dissented from the refusal to review and would have granted review, believing the case raises important questions about FOIA and improper blanket exemptions.