The Intercept Media, Inc. v. National Park Service

Background

The Intercept Media Inc. and reporter Ryan Devereaux requested records from the National Park Service (NPS) concerning its investigation into the January 2022 shooting of Wolf 1233, a collared gray wolf near Yellowstone National Park’s northern boundary. The request sought the NPS files concerning the incident and the conduct of an NPS employee.

The NPS identified a 296-page investigative file. It released approximately 50 pages but redacted 247 pages, most of them almost entirely. The agency relied primarily on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Exemptions 6 and 7(C), which protect certain personal information and law-enforcement records when disclosure would invade personal privacy. The Intercept challenged the extent of the redactions.

The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, meaning each asked the court to decide the FOIA dispute without a trial. The court reviewed an unredacted copy of the file privately.

Law-enforcement purpose

The court held that the file was compiled for a law-enforcement purpose under Exemption 7(C). The NPS affidavits showed that the investigation concerned alleged employee misconduct that could include hunting inside Yellowstone, hunting outside the hours allowed by Montana regulations, and possible violations of federal or state law. The court therefore concluded that the investigation could have led to criminal enforcement and that the NPS satisfied the threshold requirement for using Exemption 7(C).

Privacy interests

The court recognized different privacy interests for different people:

- The employee publicly identified in the opinion as Brian Helms had waived his privacy interest in the fact that he was the investigation’s target and in allegations he had already discussed publicly. He retained a weaker privacy interest in details that had not entered the public record. - Other investigative subjects, the complainant, witnesses, suspected co-conspirators, and other third parties had substantial privacy interests in keeping their involvement confidential. The court found that names, job information, speech patterns, factual perspectives, and other details could identify people within the small workplace and local community involved. - The names of the NPS investigator and supervisor had already been disclosed, so those individuals did not retain a privacy interest in the fact of their involvement.

Public interest and balancing

The court found a strong public interest in learning whether NPS employees misused government information, including wolf-tracking information, and how the NPS investigated and responded to the alleged misconduct. That interest concerned the agency’s performance of its government duties, which is the type of public interest FOIA recognizes.

The court discounted the Intercept’s separate argument that disclosure would inform broader debates about wolf hunting, telemetry, and wolf conservation. It found those policy issues insufficiently connected to the NPS’s own conduct in this investigation.

For information concerning Helms, the court held that the public interest decisively outweighed his limited remaining privacy interest. The NPS therefore could not withhold details of the investigation merely because they concerned Helms, including information about alleged interactions with other employees, so long as tailored redactions protected those other employees’ identities.

For information concerning third parties, the court reached the opposite balance. Their strong privacy interests outweighed the minimal public interest in learning their identities or identifying details.

Required review and disclosure

The court upheld the NPS’s categorical withholding of third-party witness interview transcripts. It accepted the agency’s explanation that the transcripts’ distinctive speech, details, and factual perspectives could reveal the interviewees’ identities in the small community involved.

The court rejected the NPS’s broader categorical redactions of the rest of the file. It held that the agency had redacted more information than Exemption 7(C) allowed and had not adequately separated protected identifying information from factual material that could be disclosed.

The court directed the NPS to review the file again, excluding the third-party interview transcripts from that required review, and to disclose factual material unless it was inseparably connected to identifying information. The court expected substantial disclosure of the investigator’s report, the relevant regulations and code-of-conduct provisions, the allegations against Helms, the evidence gathered, and the investigation’s findings. The NPS could still redact Helms’s unrelated personal information and information identifying or compromising the privacy of other people.

The court specifically held that interview summaries could not be withheld categorically because some factual portions did not reveal the interviewees’ identities. The same applied to photographs, notes, communications, and other materials collected from third parties: factual portions had to be disclosed unless they were inseparably connected to identifying information.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part both cross-motions for summary judgment. It directed the parties to propose a schedule for the NPS to release a substantially less-redacted file and provide a revised index explaining the information withheld and the basis for each withholding. The clerk was asked to terminate the two pending motions.