# United States Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press > Supreme Court of the United States · March 22, 1989 · 489 U.S. 749 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431620 ## Case - **Full name:** UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Et Al. v. REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS Et Al. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** March 22, 1989 - **Citations:** 489 U.S. 749; 57 U.S.L.W. 4373; 16 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1545; 109 S. Ct. 1468; 103 L. Ed. 2d 774; 1989 U.S. LEXIS 1574 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Blackmun - **Judges:** Stevens, Rehnquist, White, Marshall, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Blackmun, Brennan - **Cited by:** 2,009 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Questioned by John Davis v. United States Department of Justice, 968 F.2d 1276 (1992). - Negative treatments: 1 - Distinguished by: 1 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431620 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - recognizing a “distinction, in terms of personal privacy, between scattered disclosure of the bits of information contained in a rap sheet and revelation of the rap sheet as a whole” and noting that “there is a vast difference between the public records that might be found aft… - holding that “rap sheet” ie., criminal records, of .third party was protected from disclosure under Exemption 7(C). “Because events summarized in a rap sheet have been previously disclosed to the public, respondents contend that [the third, personj’s privacy interest in avoidi… - concluding that “the fact that ‘an event, is not wholly private does not mean that an individual has no interest in limiting disclosure or dissemination of the information.’ ” (quoting William H. Rehnquist, Is an Expanded Right of Privacy Consistent with Fair and Effective Law… - explaining that "[o]ur cases provide support for the proposition that categorical decisions may be appropriate and individual circumstances disregarded when a case fits into a genus in which the balance characteristically tips in one direction! ]” and concluding that such a ca… - recognizing that the concept of privacy “encompass[es] the individual’s control of information concerning his or her person” and that “scattered disclosure of ... bits of information” is different than wholesale dissemination of individuals’ profiles that are compiled by the g… ## Opinion text Justice Blackmun, with whom Justice Brennan joins, concurring in the judgment. I concur in the result the Court reaches in this case, but I cannot follow the route the Court takes to reach that result. In other words, the Court’s use of “categorical balancing” under Exemption 7(C), I think, is not basically sound. Such a bright-line rule obviously has its appeal, but I wonder whether it would not run aground on occasion, such as in a situation where a rap sheet discloses a congressional candidate’s conviction of tax fraud five years before. Surely, the FBI’s disclosure of that information could not “reasonably be expected” to constitute an invasion of personal privacy, much less an unwarranted invasion, inasmuch as the candidate relinquished any interest in preventing the dissemination of this information when he chose to run for Congress. *781 In short, I do not believe that Exemption 7(C)’s language and its legislative history, or the case law, support interpreting that provision as exempting all rap-sheet information from the FOIA’s disclosure requirements. See H. R. Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 11 (1966); S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 3, 9 (1965); Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U. S. 352, 372 (1976); Lesar v. United States Dept. of Justice, 204 U. S. App. D. C. 200, 214, n. 80, 636 F. 2d 472, 486, n. 80 (1980). It might be possible to mount a substantial argument in favor of interpreting Exemption 3 and 28 U. S. C. § 534 as exempting all rap-sheet information from the FOIA, especially in the light of the presence of the three post-FOIA enactments the Court mentions, ante, at 753. But the federal parties before this Court have abandoned the Exemption 3 issue they presented to the Court of Appeals and lost, and it perhaps would be inappropriate for us to pursue an inquiry along this line in the present case. For these reasons, I would not adopt the Court’s bright-line approach but would leave the door open for the disclosure of rap-sheet information in some circumstances. Nonetheless, even a more flexible balancing approach would still require reversing the Court of Appeals in this case. I, therefore, concur in the judgment, but do not join the Court’s opinion. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431620. Public record. Not legal advice.