Elliott v. United States Department of Agriculture

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 6, 2009 Decided February 26, 2010

No. 07-5385

DAMON ELLIOTT,

APPELLANT

v.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 06cv00240)

Anand V. Ramana, appointed by the court, argued the

cause and filed the briefs as amicus curiae in support of

appellant.

Damon Elliott, pro se, filed briefs for appellant.

Andrea McBarnette, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief was R. Craig

Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Before: TATEL, GARLAND, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit

Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: Appellant brought suit under the

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel the United

States Department of Agriculture to disclose blueprints to

buildings located on an agricultural research campus.

Concluding that the requested blueprints fall within FOIA

Exemption 2, which exempts from disclosure matters “related

solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an

agency,” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(2), the district court granted

summary judgment for the government. For the reasons set

forth in this opinion, we affirm.

I.

Appellant Damon Elliott submitted FOIA requests

seeking architectural blueprints for all buildings on the

campus of the United States Department of Agriculture’s

(USDA’s) Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC).

Elliott apparently seeks the blueprints in order to prove that

Building 22, a residential building on the BARC campus, is

nonfederal property. After conducting a search for responsive

documents, the agency informed Elliott that although it

maintains blueprints for 375 BARC buildings, it has none for

Building 22. The agency refused to disclose any blueprints,

however, asserting that FOIA Exemption 2 “protects sensitive

critical infrastructure information related to security and

safety.” Letter from Stasia A.M. Hutchison, FOIA

Coordinator, USDA, to Damon Elliott (Dec. 29, 2005).

After exhausting his administrative remedies, Elliott

brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of

Columbia to compel disclosure of all blueprints responsive to

his FOIA requests. See 5 U.S.C. § 552. Seeking summary

judgment, the government argued that the blueprints fell

within FOIA Exemption 2 because their disclosure would

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compromise the security of BARC’s critical infrastructure and

research programs.

The district court granted the government’s motion in

part, finding that although the agency had performed an

adequate search for responsive documents, it had failed to

sufficiently justify withholding the blueprints under

Exemption 2. Elliott v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., No. 06-240,

2007 WL 1302588, at *4 (D.D.C. May 2, 2007). Following a

renewed motion for summary judgment and additional filings

by both parties, the court then concluded that the blueprints

were exempt from disclosure because they are “used for

predominantly internal purposes and their disclosure may risk

circumvention of federal policies, statutes, or regulations.”

Elliott v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 518 F. Supp. 2d 217, 221

(D.D.C. 2007). In addition, the district court held that no

reasonably segregable portion of the blueprints could be

disclosed without posing a security risk. Id. Elliott appealed,

and we appointed amicus curiae to present arguments on his

behalf.

II.

“[D]isclosure, not secrecy, is [FOIA’s] dominant

objective.” Dep’t of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361

(1976). Consistent with this purpose, agencies may withhold

only those documents or portions thereof that fall under one

of nine delineated statutory exemptions. See 5 U.S.C. §

552(b). These exemptions are “explicitly exclusive,” U.S.

Dep’t of Justice v. Tax Analysts, 492 U.S. 136, 151 (1989)

(internal quotation marks omitted), and the agency bears the

burden of showing that withheld material falls within the

asserted exemption, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).

This case concerns the scope of Exemption 2, which

covers matters “related solely to the internal personnel rules

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and practices of an agency.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(2). The

courts have devoted thousands of pages of the Federal

Reporter to the explication of these twelve words, cutting out

some and pasting in others. As a result, like the Ship of

Theseus, little of Congress’s original language remains. We

think it useful to briefly review how we got to this point.

For fifteen years after FOIA’s enactment, see Pub. L. No.

89-487, 80 Stat. 250 (1966), considerable confusion

surrounded the scope of Exemption 2. This uncertainty

stemmed from the seemingly contradictory interpretations of

the exemption expressed in the House and Senate Reports.

The Senate Report stated that Exemption 2 “relates only to the

internal personnel rules and practices of an agency. Examples

of these may be rules as to personnel’s use of parking

facilities or regulation of lunch hours, statements of policy as

to sick leave, and the like.” S. Rep. No. 89-813, at 8 (1965).

Taking a different view, the House Report described the

exemption as encompassing “[o]perating rules, guidelines,

and manuals of procedure for Government investigators or

examiners.” H.R. Rep. No. 89-1497, at 10 (1966). Even

given these differences, however, the House and Senate

committees both saw Exemption 2 as narrowing the public

disclosure exemption under former section 3 of the

Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which protected from

disclosure “any matter relating solely to the internal

management of an agency.” Rose, 425 U.S. at 362 (citing

Congress’s dissatisfaction with the broad sweep of the APA’s

exemption, 5 U.S.C. § 1002 (1964 ed.)).

Confronting the dueling House and Senate Reports for

the first time in Department of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S.

352 (1976), the Supreme Court declined to pick sides. On the

one hand, the Court accepted the Senate’s interpretation of

Exemption 2 as covering minor employment-related matters

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in which the public lacked a significant interest. Id. at 369–

70. On the other hand, the Court acknowledged, but did not

decide, that the exemption might protect the more important

materials contemplated by the House Report “where

necessary to prevent the circumvention of agency regulations

that might result from disclosure to the subjects of regulation

of . . . procedural manuals and guidelines used by the

agency.” Id. at 364.

With the question thus left open by the Supreme Court,

and facing what we believed to be mutually exclusive views

of Exemption 2, we initially adopted the Senate Report as the

authoritative expression of Congress’s intent. In Jordan v.

United States Department of Justice, 591 F.2d 753, 763 (D.C.

Cir. 1978) (en banc), we stated that “personnel” refers only to

“matters relating to pay, pensions, vacations, hours of work,

lunch hours, parking, etc.” Applying this construction, we

ordered the release of prosecutorial guidelines used by U.S.

Attorneys on the ground that, as envisioned by the Senate

Report, the guidelines fell outside Exemption 2’s scope. Id.

Three years later and sitting en banc, we reversed course

and expressly repudiated Jordan’s “limited” interpretation of

Exemption 2 in Crooker v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco &

Firearms, 670 F.2d 1051, 1073 (D.C. Cir. 1981). There, the

FOIA requester sought a copy of a Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) manual used to train new agents

in surveillance techniques. Picking up where the Supreme

Court left off in Rose, we held that Exemption 2 protects

nontrivial matters “where disclosure might risk circumvention

of the law.” Id. at 1066. Accordingly, “the words ‘personnel

rules and practices’ encompass not merely minor employment

matters,” as we held in Jordan, “but may cover other rules

and practices governing agency personnel, including

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significant matters like job training for law enforcement

personnel.” Id. at 1056.

Despite Exemption 2’s reference to documents related

“solely” to internal rules and practices, we further explained

in Crooker that the exemption covers documents that are

“predominantly” internal. Id. at 1056–57. This modification

stemmed from our recognition that, if interpreted literally, the

term “‘relating’ is potentially all-encompassing while ‘solely’

is potentially all-excluding.” Id. at 1056 (quoting Vaughn v.

Rosen, 523 F.2d 1136, 1150 (D.C. Cir. 1975) (Leventhal, J.,

concurring)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus,

despite the fact that the withheld portions of the ATF manual

had some effect on the public at large, we held that the

manual fell squarely within Exemption 2 because it was used

“for predominantly internal purposes,” it was “designed to

establish rules and practices for agency personnel, i.e., law

enforcement investigatory techniques,” and its “disclosure

would risk circumvention of agency regulations.” Id. at 1073.

Crooker thus resolves the apparent conflict between the

House and Senate Reports by explaining that Exemption 2 is

actually two exemptions wrapped in one. The so-called low

2 exemption, tracking the Senate Report, covers

predominantly internal documents that deal with “trivial

administrative matters of no genuine public interest.” Schiller

v. NLRB, 964 F.2d 1205, 1207 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (internal

quotation marks omitted). The “high 2” exemption, following

the House Report, applies to “[p]redominantly internal

documents the disclosure of which would risk circumvention

of agency statutes and regulations.” Id.

Since Crooker, we have articulated the requirements of

the high 2 exemption—the one at issue in this case—in terms

of a two-step inquiry. Morley v. Cent. Intelligence Agency,

7

508 F.3d 1108, 1124 (D.C. Cir. 2007). First, the information

withheld must fall within the exemption’s language.

Schwaner v. Dep’t of the Air Force, 898 F.2d 793, 794 (D.C.

Cir. 1990) (quoting Founding Church of Scientology of Wash,

D.C., Inc. v. Smith, 721 F.2d 828, 830 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1983)).

That is, the material must be “used for predominantly internal

purposes,” and relate to “rules and practices for agency

personnel.” Crooker, 670 F.2d at 1073. Second, if this

threshold step is satisfied, the agency can defeat disclosure by

demonstrating that release of the material would significantly

risk circumvention of federal regulations or statutes. Schiller,

964 F.2d at 1207; see Crooker at 1074.

“Notably, [t]his exemption does not shield information

on the sole basis that it is designed for internal agency use.”

Morley, 508 F.3d at 1125 (internal quotation marks omitted)

(alteration in original). In Schwaner v. Department of the Air

Force, 898 F.2d 793 (D.C. Cir. 1990), for example, the

plaintiff sought disclosure of a roster containing the names

and duty addresses of military personnel stationed at Bolling

Air Force Base. Recognizing that Exemption 2 was a poor fit

because “data itself is not a practice,” the district court

nonetheless held that the list fell within the exemption

because it was “purely internal.” Schwaner, 898 F.2d at 794

(internal quotation marks omitted). We reversed, holding that

“the list does not bear an adequate relation to any rule or

practice of the Air Force as those terms are used in exemption

2.” Id. Thus, although we have sometimes framed the first

step of the test as one of “predominant internality,” see, e.g.,

Nat’l Treasury Employees Union v. U.S. Customs Serv., 802

F.2d 525, 528 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (“NTEU”), at least where the

dispositive issue concerns whether the requested information

adequately relates to internal matters, Schwaner makes clear

that predominant internality is necessary but insufficient to

get past the threshold inquiry; the government must also show

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that the predominantly internal material bears a sufficient

relationship to agency rules and practices.

With this background in mind, we turn to the

government’s argument that the requested blueprints are

protected by the high 2 exemption. We review the district

court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, remaining

mindful that “Congress intended that Exemption 2 be

interpreted narrowly and specifically,” Rose, 425 U.S. at 365

(internal quotation marks omitted), and that “the ‘burden is on

the agency’ to show that requested material falls within”

Exemption 2, Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. Norton, 309

F.3d 26, 32 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks

omitted).

III.

The government argues that the blueprints satisfy

Exemption 2’s threshold test because the “USDA uses

blueprints,” and “few individuals outside the USDA have

seen the blueprints.” Appellee’s Br. 12, 13. Record evidence

supports the first of these claims, which amicus does not

contest: Agency personnel use the blueprints to perform

building repairs, “add room number, room description and

square footage information” to building databases, coordinate

office and laboratory moves, conduct “security assessment

upgrades,” and identify watering responsibilities for BARC

greenhouse staff. Bynum Decl. ¶ 3, July 27, 2007; Taylor

Decl. ¶ 2.

As to the government’s second point, that “few

individuals outside the USDA have seen the blueprints,”

amicus argues that the blueprints are not predominantly

internal because the USDA has released blueprints for various

BARC buildings to the Maryland Historical Trust. But we

agree with the government that disclosure of some blueprints

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to an outside group does not vitiate the predominantly internal

nature of the blueprints on file at BARC and used in the

course of the abovementioned activities. After all, Elliott is

presumably not seeking those blueprints that are housed at the

Maryland Historical Trust, but rather wants those that remain

exclusively under the agency’s control. We therefore agree

with the district court that the withheld blueprints satisfy

Exemption 2’s predominant internality requirement.

As explained above, however, to fall within Exemption

2’s language documents withheld must also relate to “rules

and practices governing agency personnel.” Crooker, 670

F.2d at 1056. Satisfying this component of the threshold test

presents little difficulty in cases where the withheld material

itself constitutes an agency personnel rule or practice.

Crooker, the canonical high 2 case, fits this mold, as the ATF

training manual at issue there instructed government agents

how to perform their official job duties. Other materials

falling within this category include instructions to agency

employees implementing the Equal Access to Justice Act,

Schiller, 964 F.2d at 1206, Customs Service plans used to

evaluate the qualifications of job applicants, NTEU, 802 F.2d

at 527, and portions of the Manual for U.S. Marshals

pertaining to the use of weapons and other law enforcement

practices, Cox v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 601 F.2d 1, 3–4 (D.C.

Cir. 1979). These cases clearly reflect the House Report’s

conception of Exemption 2 as covering “[o]perating rules,

guidelines, and manuals of procedure for Government

investigators or examiners.” H.R. Rep. No. 89-1497, at 10

(1966).

True, unlike manuals and guidelines, blueprints give

agency employees little explicit guidance about how to do

their jobs. Information need not take the form of a rule or

practice, however, to fall within the high 2 exemption.

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Rather, the exemption expressly protects from disclosure

material “related” to agency rules or practices. In Schwaner

we described two categories of material that could satisfy this

relatedness requirement. One such category is exemplified by

Rose, where the plaintiffs sought summaries of cases decided

by the Air Force Academy’s Honor Committee. Although

case summaries are not themselves rules and practices, we

explained that they “manifest and implement the rules and

practices” of the agency relating to the conduct of cadets, who

must conform their conduct not just to the Academy’s Honor

Code itself, but also to the Committee’s decisions

implementing the Code. Schwaner, 898 F.2d at 795; see also

Milner v. U.S. Dep’t of the Navy, 575 F.3d 959, 968 (9th Cir.

2009) (protecting from disclosure Navy maps depicting

explosives’ blast radii on the ground that the maps, created

pursuant to a Navy manual, “constitute one part of the internal

policies and procedures that [Navy] personnel are bound to

follow when handling and storing explosive ordnance”).

Exemption 2 also encompasses “materials that are so

closely related to rules and practices that disclosure could lead

to disclosure of the rule or practice itself.” Schwaner, 898

F.2d at 796. For example, in Founding Church of Scientology

of Washington, D.C., Inc. v. Smith, 721 F.2d 828, 829 (D.C.

Cir. 1983), we allowed the FBI to withhold from disclosure

routing instructions appearing on documents “to protect

sensitive administrative instructions for the handling of the

documents,” and in Lesar v. United States Department of

Justice, 636 F.2d 472, 485 (D.C. Cir. 1980), we concluded

that Exemption 2 protected “symbols used to refer to FBI

informants in FBI documents and records.” As we explained

in Schwaner, the “materials in these cases fall handily within

the statutory requirement of being ‘related’ to agency rules or

practices in that they bear upon, or cast light upon, those

practices.” Schwaner, 898 F.2d at 796. The notations in

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Founding Church of Scientology revealed the agency’s

internal routing and distribution practices, and the redacted

symbols in Lesar shed light on the FBI’s practice of using

symbols to communicate about secret informants. In contrast,

the Air Force personnel lists requested in Schwaner shed little

light on any agency practice other than the practice of

collecting the data itself. 898 F.2d at 795–96. Although the

agency had argued that the lists reflected Air Force duty

assignment practices, we found any such link too “tenuous

and indirect” to satisfy the “related” requirement. Id. at 798.

In Schwaner, moreover, we distinguished between high 2

and low 2 cases, observing that “[j]udicial willingness to

sanction a weak relation to ‘rules and practices’ may be

greatest when the asserted government interest is relatively

weighty.” Id. at 796. Thus with respect to high 2 materials,

where the asserted government interest is, by definition, to

prevent circumvention of law, the threshold inquiry may be

somewhat less demanding than for low 2 matters, for which

we require a tighter nexus between the withheld information

and personnel rules and practices.

Acknowledging this more forgiving standard applicable

to high 2 materials, amicus nonetheless complains that the

“record is completely devoid of any explanation as to how the

BARC blueprints relate to the rules that govern USDA

employees, or the practices of those employees.” Amicus

Curiae’s Br. 38 (emphasis added). Although this somewhat

overstates the case, it is true that the government’s briefs in

both the district court and on appeal focus primarily on the

predominant internality component of Exemption 2’s

threshold test, rather than on the requirement that withheld

material relate to rules and practices governing agency

personnel. But that is because in the district court Elliott

never challenged the relatedness of the blueprints to the

12

practices of USDA employees. In his opposition to the

government’s summary judgment motion, Elliott cited Jordan

for the proposition that Exemption 2’s reference to

“personnel” rules and practices refers only to matters relating

to “pay, pensions, vacations, hours of work, lunch hours,” and

parking. Mem. in Opp’n to Summ. J. 4 (quoting Jordan, 591

F.2d at 763). Elliott also suggested that the USDA did not use

the blueprints for “internal” purposes. Id. at 2. The district

court rejected Elliott’s first argument, explaining that we have

since abandoned Jordan’s interpretation of “personnel” as

encompassing only minor employment matters. Elliott, 2007

WL 1302588, at *4. The district court nonetheless denied in

part the government’s summary judgment motion on the

grounds that the government had failed to establish the

predominant internality of the blueprints or articulate clearly

the connection between release of the blueprints and the

particular statutes at risk of circumvention. Id. at *5.

Focusing, then, on these two deficiencies, the

government filed a renewed summary judgment motion. In

his opposition to that renewed motion, however, Elliott never

addressed whether the blueprints fall within the scope of

Exemption 2. Rather, he complained only that the

government’s affidavits were “made in bad faith,” citing in

support 7 U.S.C. § 2243, which authorizes the USDA

Secretary to sell “photographic prints (including bromide

enlargements), lantern slides, transparencies, blueprints, and

forest maps.” Mem. in Opp’n to Renewed Mot. for Summ. J.

1. Because Elliott failed to raise the issue in the district court,

amicus may not challenge the blueprints’ relationship to

agency practices for the first time on appeal. See Adams v.

Rice, 531 F.3d 936, 945 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (refusing to consider

argument never made in district court).

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IV.

Determining whether the blueprints qualify as

predominantly internal documents that relate to agency

personnel rules and practices does not end our analysis. As

noted above, to withhold material under Exemption 2 the

government must also demonstrate that “disclosure

significantly risks circumvention of agency regulations or

statutes.” Crooker, 670 F.2d at 1074. Claiming this to be the

case, the government asserted in the district court that

disclosure of the blueprints “would render BARC vulnerable

to potential threats and unnecessary risk in maintaining

physical security over the research programs and critical

infrastructure assets at BARC.” Thessen Decl. ¶ 3, Aug. 13,

2007. According to the government, BARC buildings house

various biological agents and toxins, illicit narcotics, and

radioactive materials, and the campus contains critical

infrastructure such as wastewater treatment plants, water

distribution stations, and power transfer stations—all of which

could be threatened by release of the blueprints. The

government cited a variety of federal laws and policies that

obligate the agency to protect these assets, including the

Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and

Response Act of 2002, 107 Pub. L. No. 107-188, 116 Stat.

594 (2002), which provides for USDA regulation of certain

biological agents and toxins, and presidential directives that

set forth policies regarding the protection of critical

infrastructure and food and agricultural systems against

deliberate attacks, see Homeland Security Presidential

Directive 7 (Dec. 17, 2003); Homeland Security Presidential

Directive 9 (Jan. 30, 2004). Agreeing with the government,

the district court found that disclosure of the blueprints “may

risk circumvention of federal policies, statutes, or

regulations.” Elliott, 518 F. Supp. 2d at 221.

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On appeal, amicus contends that the government failed to

demonstrate that release of the blueprints would pose a

“significant risk” to national security, Amicus Curiae’s Br.

40, and that the “USDA failed to identify any specific USDA

regulation or statute that could be circumvented by the release

of the BARC blueprints,” id. at 42. Amicus further argues

that the district court “erred when it summarily concluded that

none of the information contained in the blueprints can be

segregated and disclosed.” Id. at 43; see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)

(“Any reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be

provided to any person requesting such a record after deletion

of the portions which are exempt.”); Mead Data Cent. v. U.S.

Dep’t of Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 260 (D.C. Cir. 1977);

(noting that “non-exempt portions of a document must be

disclosed unless they are inextricably intertwined with exempt

portions”).

But here again, Elliott failed to press these arguments in

the district court. Even so, the government did address

segregability in both of its summary judgment motions,

arguing that release of redacted—i.e., partially blacked out—

blueprints would necessarily reveal the location of sensitive

areas depicted on those blueprints. Similarly, the government

argued, if the agency released some blueprints but not others,

it would effectively tip off intruders that potential targets such

as biological agents are located in buildings whose blueprints

were withheld.

Although Elliott challenged these assertions in neither of

his motions opposing summary judgment, the district court,

consistent with its “affirmative duty to consider the

segregability issue sua sponte,” passed on the issue, ultimately

concluding that no reasonably segregable portion of the

blueprints could be released without presenting a risk of

circumvention. Morley, 508 F.3d at 1123 (quoting Trans-

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Pac. Policing Agreement v. U.S. Customs Serv., 177 F.3d

1022, 1028 (D.C. Cir. 1999)). This is therefore not a case

where “both the [agency] and the district court appear to have

overlooked the segregability requirement.” Schiller, 964 F.2d

at 1209. And, contrary to amicus’s contention, “because the

district court . . . was satisfied that [the agency’s] affidavits

properly placed the withheld documents within the scope of

Exemption [2], it did not need to reach the question of in

camera review,” Juarez v. Dep’t of Justice, 518 F.3d 54, 60

(D.C. Cir. 2008), particularly given that Elliott never disputed

the content of the requested documents, cf. Allen v. CIA, 636

F.2d 1287, 1299 (D.C. Cir. 1980), overruled on other grounds

by Crooker, 670 F.2d 1051, as recognized in Founding

Church of Scientology, 721 F.2d at 829.

Elliott has benefited from the assistance of skilled

appellate amicus, and we too are grateful for its diligent

efforts, which have helped us understand the issues before us.

Amicus’s arguments, however, stray beyond those Elliott

raised in the district court, and although we recognize that

Elliott was pro se, and therefore held to less stringent pleading

and forfeiture standards, we will not consider for the first time

on appeal arguments that a plaintiff entirely failed to raise in

the trial court. See Greenhill v. Spellings, 482 F.3d 569, 572

(D.C. Cir. 2007). That is particularly true where, as here,

those arguments entail fact-intensive inquiries such as

whether requested documents relate sufficiently to agency

rules and practices or whether such documents—or portions

thereof—could be released without compromising security

and circumventing federal law.

V.

One final issue remains. To prevail on summary

judgment, the “agency must show beyond material doubt . . .

that it has conducted a search reasonably calculated to

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uncover all relevant documents.” Weisberg v. U.S. Dep’t of

Justice, 705 F.2d 1344, 1351 (D.C. Cir. 1983). “[E]ven if the

protected records could be withheld under one of the FOIA

exemptions, that does not absolve the [agency] of its duty to

identify responsive documents, claim the relevant exemptions

. . . , and explain its reasoning for withholding the documents

in its affidavit.” Morley, 508 F.3d at 1120. In response to

Elliott’s FOIA requests, USDA employees searched the

records of the Real Property Section and the Engineering and

Construction Branch, the only locations where BARC

blueprints are stored.

Amicus argues that given the amount of time devoted to

these searches—about two hours apiece—the agency’s search

was inherently inadequate. Although this argument is not

forfeited—Elliott challenged in the district court the adequacy

of the agency’s search—we disagree. The government’s

affidavits describe these searches in detail, and amicus has

presented no evidence calling into question the efficacy of the

search beyond speculating as to the employees’ ability to

thoroughly search a filing cabinet or electronic database

within the indicated time period. See id. at 1116 (noting that

courts can rely on agency affidavits that are reasonably

detailed and nonconclusory).

Amicus next complains that although the employee

tasked with searching the Real Property Section looked for all

BARC blueprints on file, the employee who searched the

Engineering and Construction Branch looked only for

blueprints for Building 22. Thus, amicus argues, the agency

failed to conduct a search reasonably calculated to uncover

the blueprints to all BARC buildings, as Elliott requested.

Again, we disagree. In her declaration, the agency’s FOIA

coordinator stated that the agency had in fact compiled a list

of “architectural drawings on file at the Engineering and

17

Construction Branch.” Hutchison Decl. ¶ 6. Absent

countervailing evidence, we have no basis to question the

agency’s assertion.

VI.

We affirm the grant of summary judgment to the

government.

So ordered.