![]() ![]() (26) Law enforcement manuals, including those that pertain to the "prosecutions" stage of the law enforcement process, accordingly meet the requirements for withholding under Exemption 7(E) to the extent that they consist of, or reflect, law enforcement techniques and procedures that are confidential and must remain so in order to preserve their effectiveness. Exemption 7(E), as amended in 1986, simply covers "techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions." (25) As such, it authorizes the withholding of information consisting of, or reflecting, a law enforcement "technique" or a law enforcement "procedure," wherever it is used "for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions" generally. Prior to the enactment of the Freedom of Information Reform Act of 1986, (23) Exemption 7(E) protected law enforcement techniques and procedures only when they could be regarded as "investigatory" or "investigative" in character, (24) but this limitation was removed by those FOIA amendments. (21) A court's in camera review of the documents at issue may be required to demonstrate the propriety of nondisclosure in such cases. ![]() (20) Often, however, it is not possible to describe secret law enforcement techniques, even in general terms, without disclosing the very information sought to be withheld. More recent case law continues a trend apparent in older cases (19) of allowing agencies to describe the general nature of the technique while withholding the full details. may not be widely known,'" (13) or "their use in concert with other elements of an investigation and in their totality directed toward a specific investigative goal constitute a 'technique' which merits protection." (14) Increasingly, moreover, courts have endorsed the withholding of a wide variety of commonly known procedures - for example, polygraph examinations, (15) undercover operations, (16) and surveillance techniques (17) - on the basis that disclosure of their details could reduce or even nullify their effectiveness. In some cases, however, even commonly known procedures have been protected from disclosure when "'the circumstances of their usefulness. (7) Accordingly, techniques such as "wiretapping," (8) "mail covers" and the "use of post office boxes," (9) "'security flashes' or the tagging of fingerprints," (10) pretext telephone calls, (11) and "planting transponders on aircraft suspected of smuggling" (12) have been denied protection under Exemption 7(E) when courts have found them to be generally known to the public. Notwithstanding the broad scope of Exemption 7(E)'s protection, in order for the exemption to apply, the technique or procedure at issue ordinarily must not be well known to the public. (5) Rather, it is designed to provide "categorical" protection of the information so described. would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions." (4) This clause is phrased in such a way so as to not require a showing of any particular determination of harm - or risk of circumvention of law - that would be caused by disclosure of the records or information within its coverage. The first clause of Exemption 7(E) permits the withholding of "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes. Freedom of Information Act Guide, May 2004Įxemption 7(E) affords protection to all law enforcement information that "would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law." (1) It is worth noting at the outset that homeland security-related information, insofar as it meets the law enforcement threshold requirement for all of Exemption 7, (2) qualifies for protection under Exemption 7(E) as highly sensitive information to be shielded from disclosure if it also satisfies one of the two distinct protective clauses that constitute this exemption. ![]()
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