The Washington Post Company v. United States Department of State, the Washington Post Company v. United States Department of State

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge

(concurring):

Were the issue one of first impression in this Circuit, I would note to hold that citizenship or naturalization information is protected from disclosure by Exemption 6 of the Freedom of Information Act. 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(6). Although this Circuit held to the contrary in Simpson v. Vance, 648 F.2d 10 (D.C. Cir. 1980), the panel there was concerned with naturalization information relating to State Department employees, one item of information (and an item listed only for those employees who in fact had been naturalized) out of twelve sought by the plaintiffs in that case. The opinion does not include any specific discussion of the personal privacy interests at stake in disclosure of citizenship and naturalization information. I think it quite possible that the Simpson panel failed to envision situations such as the one before us now, in which revelation of American citizenship information relating to officials of foreign governments would be extremely embarrassing to the individuals involved. The facts of the case before us dramatically demonstrate that citizenship and naturalization information is often of a highly personal and potentially embarrassing nature. I also note that while such information is a matter of public record on file in various federal district courts across the country, *200 the information is difficult to locate, and the same appears to be true of the marital and family information which was held excludable in Simpson .

I recognize, however, that Simpson states the law of this Circuit on the issue. Because of this, and only because of this, I now concur. Cf. United States v. Lucehese, 247 F.2d 123, 129 (2d Cir. 1957) (Potter Stewart, J., concurring), rev’d sub nom. Ma-tles v. United States, 356 U.S. 256 , 78 S.Ct. 713 , 2 L.Ed.2d 741 (1958).