Partial Victory for ACLU in No-Fly Suit

Today U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer handed a partial victory to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in its suit over Freedom of Information Act requests regarding "no-fly" lists. He issued a judgment which reads, in part, that

The Court?s preliminary review of the voluminous material demonstrates that in many instances the government has not come close to meeting its burden [of explaining why it is refusing to hand over documents], and, in some instances, has made frivolous claims of exemption. The appropriate remedy is to have defendants review all of the withheld material to determine whether they believe in good faith that the material is in fact exempt and, if defendants contend it is exempt, to provide a detailed affidavit that explains why the particular material is exempt. General statements that, for example, the information is sensitive security information, are inadequate to satisfy the government?s burden. That material which is not exempt shall be promptly disclosed to plaintiffs in response to their FOIA request.

Thus, the government still has a chance to prove to the judge it doesn't have to hand over what the ACLU wants, but their first try didn't convince him. His full decision explains in great detail many of the specific reasons why. The ACLU has been e-mailing around a copy of Judge Breyer's decision, but it has not, as near as I can tell, yet been posted on the Web. I'll update later when/if I find a link for the entire ruling.

UPDATE: And here is Judge Breyer's full decision, thanks to Eugene Volokh at Volokh.com (and commenter "B," who alerted me to it).

Comments

[B]

Professor Volokh has a link to it at http://www1.law.ucla.edu/~volokh/blog_data/gordon.pdf

[crimethink]

I once bought a suit that had no fly. I wouldn't exactly call it even a partial victory -- you could imagine how much of a pain it was to get on.

[Jack]

Why was the ACLU so stupid as to bring this action in the Northern District of California? You should *never* bring a constitutional case in that district for the precise reason that is illustrated here: you might get Judge Breyer, which immediately wrongfoots you if the case goes to the Supreme Court since Justice Breyer will recuse himself to avoid reviewing his brother's decision.

[Rick Barton]

Jack,

Hmmm, sounds like it might be a good tactic for economic freedom issues though.