Doe 1 v. McAleenan
- Beth Freeman
- 5:18-cv-02349
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Doe 1 v. McAleenan, Judge Freeman granted in part and denied in part a request to seal parts of plaintiffs’ filing and exhibits.
The plaintiffs’ opposition and exhibits, the defendants who designated some materials as confidential, and the public’s access to those court filings.
What happened
Doe 1 v. McAleenan concerned plaintiffs’ request to keep portions of their opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss and related exhibits from public view. Plaintiffs said the materials had been labeled confidential by defendants or appeared to contain information defendants would want sealed.
The court said the filings were closely connected to the case’s merits, so the stronger standard for sealing court records applied. It nevertheless found sufficient reasons to seal some information, including details about law-enforcement techniques and refugee-application screening methods that could help people avoid detection or exploit the screening process.
The court granted in part and denied in part the sealing request, allowing some specified portions to remain sealed while requiring other portions to be filed publicly. Judge Beth Labson Freeman’s order disposed of the motion identified as ECF 407.
The detailed version
- Doe 1 v. McAleenan · No. 5:18-cv-02349
- Beth Freeman
- Sept. 21, 2020
Background
Plaintiffs filed an administrative motion asking to seal portions of their opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss and related exhibits. Plaintiffs made the request because defendants had designated some material as “Highly Confidential/Attorneys’ Eyes Only” or “Confidential” under a protective order, or because plaintiffs understood defendants might seek to keep the material confidential. Defendants filed declarations supporting the sealing request.
Legal standard
The court explained that court filings are generally open to public inspection. Because the materials were more than tangentially related to the merits of the case, the court applied the “compelling reasons” standard for sealing. It also required the request to be narrowly tailored and noted that a confidentiality designation or protective order alone does not establish that material can be sealed. The designating party bears the burden of showing that designated material is sealable.
Reasons for sealing
The court found sufficient reasons to seal the specified portions. The material included descriptions of an Federal Bureau of Investigation technique designated as law-enforcement sensitive. The court stated that disclosure could provide a roadmap for evaluating and sharing information about terrorists and criminals, allow individuals to alter their behavior to avoid detection, and harm ongoing or future national-security investigations. The court also found that disclosure of refugee-application screening processes, methods, and techniques could help applicants or others circumvent screening and make it harder for government agencies to identify people who pose national-security or law-enforcement risks or are otherwise ineligible.
Document-by-document ruling
The court ruled as follows:
- ECF 407-4: granted as to the specified highlighted portions of plaintiffs’ opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss. - ECF 407-6: denied as to all portions of the exhibit. - ECF 407-8: granted as to the specified portions highlighted at page 136, lines 1–21, and denied as to the portions highlighted at page 133, lines 1–4, because defendants did not seek to seal that material. - ECF 407-10: denied as to the specified portions of Meyer Declaration Exhibit 5 and granted as to the other specified portions of that exhibit. - ECF 407-11: granted in its entirety. - ECF 407-13: granted as to the specified portions, except for the words “15 months,” and denied as to those words because defendants did not seek to seal them. - ECF 407-15: granted as to the specified portions, except for the words “after 15 months,” and denied as to those words for the same reason. - ECF 407-17: granted as to the specified portions.
Disposition
The court granted in part and denied in part plaintiffs’ administrative motion to file portions of their opposition and exhibits under seal. The order disposed of ECF 407.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.