JOHN DOE AGENCY AND JOHN DOE GOVERNMENT AGENCY, PETITIONERS V. JOHN DOE CORPORATION No. 88-1083 In The Supreme Court Of The United States October Term, 1988 On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Second Circuit Brief For The Petitioners PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING Petitioners, defendants below, are John Doe Agency and John Doe Agency and John Doe Government Agency, pseudonyms for federal agencies whose real identities are stated in materials that have been filed under seal. Respondent, plaintiff below, is John Doe Corporation, a pseudonym for a private corporation whose real identity is stated in materials that have been filed under seal. (The government does not object to public disclosure of the names of petitioners, but we have refrained from such disclosure ourselves in light of the decision of the court of appeals to seal the record and use pseudonyms for all parties.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Question Presented Parties to the Proceeding Opinions below Jurisdiction Statutory provisions involved Statement Summary of argument Argument: Documents that are originally compiled for non-law-enforcement purposes, but later compiled for law enforcement purposes, are "compiled for law enforcement purposes" within the meaning of Exemption 7 A. Under the plain meaning of Exemption 7, documents are "compiled for law enforcement purposes" if they are gathered together for law enforcement purposes, regardless of whether they were originally obtained by the government for such purposes B. The legislative history of Exemption 7, as enacted and as amended in 1974, confirms the plain meaning of Exemption 7 C. A rule limiting Exemption 7 to documents originally obtained or generated for law enforcement purposes would be inconsistent with the purposes of Exemption 7 Conclusion OPINIONS BELOW The opinion of the court of appeals (Pet. App. 1a-11a) is reported at 850 F.2d 105. The opinion of the district court (Pet. App. 12a-14a) is unreported. JURISDICTION The judgment of the court of appeals (Pet. App. 15a-16a) was entered on June 23, 1988. A petition for rehearing was denied on November 8, 1988 (Pet. App. 17a). The petition for a writ of certiorari was filed on December 29, 1988, and was granted on February 21, 1989. The jurisdiction of this Court rests on 28 U.S.C. 1254(1). STATUTORY PROVISIONS INVOLVED The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552 (1982 & Supp. V 1987), provides in pertinent part: (a) Each agency shall make available to the public information as follows: * * * * * (3) * * * each agency, upon any request for records which (A) reasonably describes such records and (B) is made in accordance with published rules stating the time, place, fees (if any), and procedures to be followed, shall make the records promptly available to any person. * * * * * (b) This section does not apply to matters that are -- * * * * * (7) records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information (A) could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings, (B) would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, (D) could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source, including a State, local, or foreign agency or authority or any private institution which furnished information on a confidential basis, and, in the case of a record or information compiled by criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation or by an agency conducting a lawful national security intelligence investigation, information furnished by a confidential source, (E) 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, or (F) could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual * * *. QUESTION PRESENTED Whether materials gathered for law enforcement purposes, but not originally obtained or created for law enforcement purposes, are "compiled for law enforcement purposes" within the meaning of Exemption 7 of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (1982 & Supp. V 1987). STATEMENT This case concerns the application of Exemption 7 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (1982 & Supp. V 1987), to documents that the government originally obtained or generated in the course of routine audits but later compiled for presentation to a grand jury investigating possible violations of the criminal law. The district court upheld the government's exemption claims in their entirety, finding that "there is a substantial risk that disclosure of any of this material, the documents, the Vaughn index /1/ and the answers to (John Doe Corporation's) interrogatories, would jeopardize the grand jury proceeding." Pet. App. 14a. The court of appeals did not dispute either the factual accuracy of the district court's determination or its sufficiency to make out a claim under subsection (A) or subsection (E) of Exemption 7. /2/ The court of appeals nevertheless reversed and remanded on the ground that Exemption 7 is completely unavailable as a threshold matter, because the documents' genesis in routine audits precludes their having been "compiled for law enforcement purposes" within the meaning of Exemption 7. The Circuit Justice stayed and recalled the mandate of the court of appeals, and this Court granted certiorari, in order to review that construction of the threshold criterion of Exemption 7. 1. In 1978, John Doe Agency exchanged letters with John Doe Corporation (Corporation or respondent) concerning the allocation of certain costs incurred by Corporation under its contracts. In a letter dated May 2, 1978, John Doe Agency asserted that those costs were wrongly charged to a technical overhead account when they should have been charged directly to certain government contracts. Corporation responded on July 11, 1978, defending its allocation. There was no further correspondence on the subject until 1986. See Pet. App. 2a; J.A. 22-28. In 1985, the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York began an investigation of possible fraudulent practices by Corporation. See J.A. 92; see also Letter from Charles E. Knapp, Assistant United States Attorney, to Hon. J. Edward Lumbard, Hon. Thomas J. Meskill, and Hon. Ralph K. Winter (May 19, 1988). The first grand jury subpoena arising out of that investigation was issued on February 21, 1986, by a regularly sitting grand jury in the Eastern District of New York. The subpoena requested documents related to the accounting issue that was the subject of the 1978 correspondence. "In the ostensible belief that Agency documents relating to the 1978 correspondence would exonerate it, and no doubt in the unstated belief that the documents would be useful in responding to the investigation or defending criminal charges, Corporation filed a request with the Agency for such documents under the FOIA on September 30, 1986." Pet. App. 2a. Specifically, Corporation requested "all documents, (etc.) that are related in any way to the subject matter of the (1978) correspondence between (John Doe Agency) and (John Doe Corporation)." J.A. 19. On November 18, 1986, John Doe Agency, acting on the advice of an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, denied the request, citing Exemptions 7(A) and 7(E). J.A. 29. On November 20, 1986, the requested records were transferred from John Doe Agency to John Doe Government Agency, a federal law enforcement agency. J.A. 92. On February 3, 1987, Corporation made a FOIA request to John Doe Government Agency for "all documents that are related in any way to the subject matter of the (1978) correspondence between (John Doe Agency) and (John Doe Corporation)." J.A. 46. On June 9, 1987, John Doe Government Agency denied the request, relying on Exemption 7(A). J.A. 49-50. Corporation filed an administrative appeal on June 15, 1987. J.A. 51-53. On July 22, 1987, having received no decision on its administrative appeal, Corporation filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. J.A. 11-14. /3/ Meanwhile, on March 23, 1987, a special grand jury was empaneled in the Eastern District of New York to consider evidence arising out of the investigation of Corporation's accounting practices. J.A. 83. All of the documents that are the subject of Corporation's FOIA requests have been presented to the grand jury. J.A. 61. As of the date of this brief, the grand jury is still sitting and is considering the filing of criminal charges against Corporation. 2. In the district court proceedings on respondent's FOIA suit, the government opposed disclosure on the basis, among others, that the documents are exempt under Exemptions 7(A) and 7(E). See note 2, supra. The government also opposed the preparation of a Vaughn index or answers to interrogatories, on the ground that giving such documents to respondent would itself reveal information that respondent is seeking in this lawsuit and interfere with the grand jury proceeding. C.A. App. 65-74; see also J.A. 60-61. To accommodate the government's concerns, but also aid its consideration of the case, the court ordered the government to prepare a Vaughn index and to answer respondent's interrogatories, but it also ordered these documents to be submitted to the court for an in camera examination rather then furnished to respondent. J.A. 62-71. /4/ After conducting the in camera examination, the district court ruled on March 28, 1988, that petitioners are not required to turn over any of the documents to Corporation. Pet. App. 12a-14a. The court found that "there is a substantial risk that disclosure of any of this material, the documents, the Vaughn index and the answers to (John Doe Corporation's) interrogatories, would jeopardize the grand jury proceedings." Id. at 14a. 3. Respondent appealed, and the case was expedited. On June 23, 1988, the court of appeals ruled that Exemption 7 did not protect the documents from disclosure because they were not "compiled for law enforcement purposes" (Pet. App. 7a-8a) -- a phrase the court construed to mean originally obtained or generated for law enforcement purposes. The court's entire analysis of this issue was as follows (ibid.): The district court held that the documents were exempt under FOIA Subsection (b)(7), which exempts from disclosure "matters that are . . . records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information() could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings." Although the district court concluded that disclosure would "jeopardize" the grand jury proceedings, it made no finding as to whether the records sought were "compiled for law enforcement purposes." Such a finding is essential to a valid claim of exemption under Subsection (b)(7). * * * In the instant case, the documents requested were generated by Agency independent of any investigation in the course of its routine monitoring of Corporation's accounting procedures with regard to Corporation's defense contracts. The records were compiled in 1978, seven years before the investigation began in 1985. They were thus "compiled for law enforcement purposes" and are not exempted by Subsection (b)(7). The 1974 amendments to the FOIA make it clear that a governmental entity cannot withhold materials requested under the FOIA on the ground that materials that were not investigatory records when compiled have since acquired investigative significance. Originally, the FOIA exemption in question applied to "investigatory files." In 1974, however, Congress substituted the word "records" for "files" to insure that documents produced in the routine course of government operations would not be withheld under Subsection (b)(7) merely because they have been commingled with investigative materials generated later in the course of a law enforcement proceeding. (NLRB v.) Robbins Tire & Rubber (Co.), 437 U.S. (214,) 227-30 ((1978)); see also (FBI v.) Abramson, 456 U.S. (615,) 626-27 ((1982)). The attempt in the instant case to withhold documents generated in the course of routine audits because they are now part of an investigatory file thus contravenes the obvious intent of the 1974 amendments to FOIA. See Hatcher (v. United States Postal Service), 556 F. Supp. (331,) 335 ((D.D.C. 1982)). We realize that compliance with the FOIA may compel the government to disclose matters that are ordinarily beyond the scope of discovery in criminal investigations and thus may enable a potential defendant to prepare responses to the investigation and to construct a defense to criminal charges. That is a concern that should be addressed to Congress, however. 4. The court of appeals denied rehearing and rehearing en banc on November 8, 1988. Pet. App. 17a. The court of appeals also refused to stay its mandate, which issued on November 28, 1988. Id. at 16a. On December 12, 1988, the district court held that the decision of the court of appeals required that the government turn over the Vaughn index to Corporation. J.A. 86-87. The court of appeals denied a stay of that order on January 10, 1989 (J.A. 96), but later that day the Circuit Justice entered a temporary stay pending receipt of Corporation's response to the government's stay application. On January 30, 1989, the Circuit Justice granted a full stay pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari. John Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 109 S. Ct. 852 (1989) (Marshall, J., in chambers). On February 21, 1989, this Court granted certiorari. 109 S. Ct. 1116. SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT A. The statute does not, by its terms, require that records or information be originally compiled for law enforcement purposes in order to qualify for protection under Exemption 7. Rather, Exemption 7 requires only that the records or information be "compiled" for law enforcement purposes. The word "compiled" does not itself connote a distinction between the original obtaining of information and the act of gathering it from other sources -- inside or outside the government. The dictionary definition of "compile" includes "to collect and edit into a volume(;) to compose out of materials from other documents." Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary (1985). In its ordinary usage, "(a) compilation of information or materials 'compiled' for law enforcement purposes therefore can be 'composed out of materials from other documents' -- including other documents already generated or collected by the government for non-law enforcement purposes." Gould, Inc. v. GSA, 688 Supp. 689, 698 (D.D.C. 1988). The court of appeals has not accorded the word "compiled" its plain meaning or even acknowledged that the word, in ordinary usage, refers to an act that can performed many times on the same documents or information. Only by departing from the ordinary meaning of the word "compiled" could the court of appeals reach the conclusion that records or information could not be "compiled for law enforcement purposes" if they were not originally obtained for those purposes. B. The court of appeals also relied on the legislative history of the 1974 amendments to FOIA to support its reasoning. The language of the statute so plainly supports the government's position and refutes that of the court of appeals that resort to the legislative history is basically superfluous. In any event, the court of appeals seriously misinterpreted the legislative record. The 1974 amendment to Exemption 7 was a congressional reaction to four decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. See NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 227-230 (1978). One of those decisions was Ditlow v. Brinegar, 494 F.2d 1073 (D.C. Cir. 1974), in which the court held that everything found in an investigatory file compiled for law enforcement purposes was automatically exempt from mandatory disclosure under the then-current version of Exemption 7, 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (1970). Fearing that agencies would use that rule to commingle otherwise nonexempt material with exempt material in law enforcement files, Congress amended the statute to overrule Ditlow and similar decisions. See Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 227-230. Congress did not, however, change in any way the statutory phrase "compiled for law enforcement purposes." Rather it changed the description of the exempt materials from "investigatory files compiled for law enforcement purposes" (5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (1970) (emphasis added)) to "investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes" (5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (1982) (emphasis added)). In addition, Congress changed the status of having been "compiled for law enforcement purposes" from a sufficient condition for withholding to a necessary condition, adding the further requirement that the records meet one of six specific criteria. The clear thrust of the 1974 amendments is to make an agency and a court look at each individual record and determine whether withholding that record is justified by one of the six specific policies. In that way, Congress prevented unwarranted "commingling" and the withholding of non-law-enforcement information just because it was contained in a file that also contained legitimate law enforcement information. In contrast to Congress's intent to do away with broad determinations based solely on the kinds of files in which documents are located and substitute substantive examination in light of the six criteria justifying exemption from mandatory disclosure, the court of appeals in the present case interpreted Congress's action as a mandate to engage in formalistic determinations and to require the release of records that fit precisely within the categories that Congress determined should be exempt. Thus, the decision of the court of appeals turns the legislative history of the 1974 amendments on its head and reaches a result directly contrary to Congress's intent. C. The assertion by the court of appeals (Pet. App. 8a) that it was only following the dictates of the statute, notwithstanding the anomalous results of its decision, is not only at odds with the plain language of the statute and its legislative history. It is also contrary to the understanding of Exemption 7 expressed in this Court's decisions. In Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 244, this Court, after carefully canvassing the legislative history of the 1974 amendments, explained that the essential determination in ruling on an Exemption 7 claim is whether release of the requested documents would contravene any of the six criteria set forth in the exemption. Moreover, the reasoning of the court of appeals markedly departs from the approach that this Court took in FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. 615 (1982). The issue in that case -- closely related to the issue here -- was whether information originally compiled for law enforcement purposes and meeting the other criteria of Exemption 7 lost its exempt status when it was recompiled for non-law-enforcement purposes. Looking to "the intention of Congress, * * * the structure of the Act, and * * * the purposes of the statute" (id. at 625), this Court specifically ruled that "(t)he enumeration of (six) categories of undesirable consequences (in Exemption 7) indicates that Congress believed the harm of disclosing this type of information would outweigh its benefits" (id. at 627-628). The Court found "nothing to suggest, and no reason for believing, that Congress would have preferred a different outcome simply because the information is now reproduced in a non-law-enforcement record." Id. at 628. The rationale of Abramson indicates that "compiled for law enforcement purposes" is not to be construed as a high, or highly technical, barrier to claims of exemption. Rather, as this Court said, "(i)t is therefore critical that the compiled-for-law-enforcement requirement be construed to avoid the release of information that would produce the undesirable results specified (in the six criteria listed in the exemption)." 456 U.S. at 630. Finally, Congress has recently expressed approval of the practical approach adopted by this Court in Abramson. See S. Rep. No. 221, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 23 (1983) (containing pertinent discussion and citing Abramson twice with apparent approval). Exemption 7, as amended in 1986, applies to "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes." The amendment plainly is designed "to ensure that sensitive law enforcement information is protected under Exemption 7 regardless of the particular format or record in which the record is maintained." Ibid. (emphasis added). Congress's most recent view of how Exemption 7 is to be applied is thus very much at odds with the erroneous approach of the court of appeals in this case. ARGUMENT DOCUMENTS THAT ARE ORIGINALLY COMPILED FOR NON-LAW-ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES, BUT LATER COMPILED FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES, ARE "COMPILED FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES" WITHIN THE MEANING OF EXEMPTION 7 Through FOIA, Congress has provided for broad disclosure of government documents in order "to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society." NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 242 (1978); EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 80 (1973); see also United States Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, No. 87-1379 (Mar. 22, 1989), slip op. 22-25. But Congress equally realized that "legitimate governmental and private interests could be harmed by release of certain types of information and provided nine specific exemptions under which disclosure could be refused." FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. 615, 621 (1982). Congress thus intended to provide a "workable balance between the right of the public to know and the need of the Government to keep information in confidence to the extent necessary." H.R. Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. (1966), reprinted in Subcomm. on Administrative Practice and Procedure, Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 93d Cong., 2d Sess., Freedom of Information Act Source Book: Legislative Materials, Cases, Articles 27 (1974) (hereinafter FOIA Source Book). See also EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 80 (1973); Baldrige v. Shapiro, 455 U.S. 345, 352 (1982). One of the types of information that Congress recognized should not be made public is "investigatory materials which might be used in a law enforcement action." FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. at 621. To protect such materials from disclosure, Exemption 7 exempts from FOIA's disclosure requirements "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes" to the extent that their production meets any one of six criteria set forth in the exemption. Exemption 7, first and foremost, makes clear in the law enforcement context what is true in all contexts: that the purpose of FOIA is not to supplement or displace the rules of discovery. See Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 236-239, 242 (construing Exemption 7(A) not to require discovery not permitted by NLRB's discovery rules); id. at 243 (Stevens, J., concurring) ("A statute that authorized discovery greater than that available under the rules normally applicable to an enforcement proceeding would 'interfere' with the proceeding in (the relevant) sense. * * * (The Court's) rationale applies equally to any enforcement proceeding."); Lewis v. IRS, 823 F.2d 375, 380 (9th Cir. 1987); see also United States v. Weber Aircraft Corp., 465 U.S. 792, 801-802 (1984); Baldrige v. Shapiro, 455 U.S. at 360 n.14; NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 143 n.10 (1975); Renegotiation Board v. Bannercraft Co., 415 U.S. 1, 24 (1974); McClellan Ecological Seepage Situation v. Carlucci, 835 F.2d 1282, 1287 (9th Cir. 1987); Cleary v. FBI, 811 F.2d 421, 424 n.4 (8th Cir. 1987). The court of appeals acknowledged that point (Pet. App. 6a-7a ("the FOIA was not principally intended to be a device enlarging the scope of private discovery in litigation")), but it proceeded, by its own admission, to "compel the government to disclose matters that are ordinarily beyond the scope of discovery in criminal investigations" (id at 8a). The court of appeals has upset the balance provided by Congress and vitiated to a significant extent the protection for law enforcement materials provided in Exemption 7 by imposing a requirement under Exemption 7 that the records or information be originally gathered for law enforcement purposes. The court has held that records or information that are currently being used in an ongoing criminal law investigation are not protected from disclosure by Exemption 7 because they were originally obtained by the government in the course of an agency's routine monitoring functions and only later compiled for law enforcement purposes. Such premature criminal discovery as sanctioned by the court below would systematically (1) provide the targets of grand jury (or other) investigations with valuable clues concerning the grand jury's (or agency's) strategy and direction of its inquiry; (2) apprise such targets, by negative inference, of types or classes of documents that may not yet have been reviewed by the grand jury (or agency), thereby creating the potential for such documents to be placed permanently beyond the grand jury's (or agency's) reach and hindering its investigation; and (3) create the potential for the target of the investigation to "tailor its responses to the Government's inquiries so as to provide the least possible relevant information * * * (thereby tending) to frustrate the (grand jury's or agency's) proceedings." Fedders Corp. v. FTC, 494 F. Supp. 325, 329 (S.D.N.Y.), aff'd mem., 646 F.2d 560 (2d Cir. 1980). And, again, the court of appeals did not deny that its decision would have those untoward effects, instead admitting that it would "enable a potential defendant to prepare responses to the investigation and to construct a defense to criminal charges." Pet. App. 8a. The decision of the court of appeals is in conflict with the plain language of the exemption, its legislative history, and its underlying purpose. A. Under The Plain Meaning Of Exemption 7, Documents Are "Compiled For Law Enforcement Purposes" If They Are Gathered Together For Law Enforcement Purposes, Regardless Of Whether They Were Originally Obtained By The Government For Such Purposes The analysis in this statutory case, of course, "must begin with the language of the statute itself." Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U.S. 560, 568 (1979); Consumer Product Safety Commission v. GTE Sylvania, 447 U.S. 102, 108 (1980); see Landreth Timber Co. v. Landreth, 471 U.S. 681, 685 (1985); United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 109 S. Ct. 1026, 1030 (1989). Congress has provided that in order for records or information to satisfy the threshold requirement of Exemption 7 they must have been "compiled for law enforcement purposes." The sole issue in this case involves the meaning to be given to the word "compiled." Specifically, the question is whether the court of appeals erred in holding that, in order for records of information to satisfy the statutory requirement that they be "compiled for law enforcement purposes," they must have been originally obtained by the government for those purposes. This Court has repeatedly stated that "words used in a statute are to be given their ordinary meaning in the absence of persuasive reasons to the contrary." Burns v. Alcala, 420 U.S. 575, 580-581 (1975); see also Escondido Mutual Water Co. v. Jolla Band of Mission Indians, 466 U.S. 765, 772 (1984); Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42 (1979). The court of appeals erred in this case in giving "compiled" an unduly narrow and artificial meaning, rather than according the statutory word its ordinary meaning. Cf. Beech Aircraft Corp. v. Rainey, 109 S. Ct. 439, 446-447 (1988) (criticizing lower court's interpretation of a rule of evidence because that interpretation unjustifiably departed from the precise words used in the rule and their dictionary definition). In its ordinary usage, "compile" does not have the restricted meaning accorded to it by the court of appeals. In common parlance, "compile" does not connote a distinction between the original obtaining of information and the act of gathering it from other sources. According to Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary (1985), the word "compile" means "to collect and edit into a volume(;) to compose out of materials from other documents(;) to run (as a program) through a compiler(;) to build up gradually." Thus, under the ordinary meaning of "compile," records or information can be "compiled for law enforcement purposes" if they are "composed out of materials from other documents," and such documents could include those "already generated or collected by the government for non-law enforcement purposes * * * (because) materials originally drafted, generated, or even compiled for one purpose * * * subsequently can be 'compiled for law enforcement purposes.'" Gould Inc. v. GSA, 688 F. Supp. 689, 698 (D.D.C. 1988); see also Crowell & Moring v. Department of Defense, 703 F. Supp. 1004, 1009-1010 (D.D.C. 1989); Raytheon Co. v. Department of the Navy, Civ. No. 88-94 (D.D.C. Jan. 5, 1989), slip op. 9. /5/ The court of appeals did not even acknowledge that in its ordinary usage the word "compiled" refers to an act that can be performed many times on the same documents or information. Instead, the court interpreted "compiled" throughout its opinion as meaning "originally compiled." See, e.g., Pet. App. 7a-8a (referring to the requested records as "materials that were not investigatory records when compiled (but) have since acquired investigatory significance"). The court relied on one and only one fact in determining that the records at issue were not "compiled for law enforcement purposes": that they were generated by John Doe Agency for purposes other than law enforcement before they were compiled by John Doe Government Agency for law enforcement purposes. Thus, the basis underlying the decision of the court of appeals is that, once the records or information were originally obtained in 1978 for a purpose other than law enforcement, they could not later be "compiled for law enforcement purposes." See Pet. App. 7a. The language of Exemption 7, however, neither contains nor implies any such restriction. Under the court's analysis, a federal law enforcement agency such as John Doe Government Agency "compiles" auditing records for law enforcement purposes when it gets them from an organization outside the government, such as Price Waterhouse or Arthur Andersen, but not when it gets them from another government agency, such as John Doe Agency. The plain meaning of the word "compile" does not permit such a distinction. It is the pulling together of materials that constitutes the compiling. It does not matter whence the documents were obtained. For example, it is in the ordinary use of the term "compiled" that we say that opinions of this Court collected for the purpose of teaching a course in constitutional law have been "compiled," even though the opinions were not originally generated for that purpose. Or one might readily say that the famous collection of correspondence published in Holmes-Laski Letters (M. Howe ed. 1953) has been "compiled" for historical purposes. Yet the court of appeals, if faithful to its reasoning in this case, would have to disagree. To paraphrase, the court would have to say: "(T)he (letters) were generated by (Justice Holmes and Mr. Laski) independent of any (historical purpose) in the course of (their friendship). The (letters) were compiled in (1916-1935), (18 to 37) years before the (publication) began in (1953). They were thus not 'compiled for (historical) purposes' * * *." Pet. App. 7a. The court would necessarily regard the letters as "materials that were not (historical) records when compiled (but) have since acquired (historical) significance." Id. at 7a-8a. Yet such statements would ascribe to the word "compiled" a meaning that is far removed from its ordinary usage. This Court itself has used the word "compiled," quite naturally, to refer to the process of pulling together at one time records and information that were generated (or even compiled) at an earlier time and for different purposes. In FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. at 622 n.5, the Court described the respondent's argument in that case (which the Court proceeded to reject) as being "that information admittedly compiled in a law enforcement record loses its exemption when recompiled." The Court thus was well aware that to be "compiled" once is not at all inconsistent with being "compiled" again. The question is what consequences flow from the second compilation. Abramson holds that the second compilation does not negate, for purposes of Exemption 7, the fact that the information was once compiled for law enforcement purposes. And the related question presented here -- whether the first compilation somehow negates the fact that the information was later compiled for law enforcement purposes -- is, fortunately, answered by the words of the statute itself, which applies unequivocally (at the threshold) to all "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes" and not just records or information originally so compiled. /6/ Likewise, the Court's recent opinion in United States Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, supra, repeatedly uses the word "compiled" and its variants to describe the collection of information into FBI "rap sheets," which often consist of information that was, like the audit records at issue in this case, generated long before the information was gathered together in the particular format that is of significance for FOIA purposes. The Court noted that "the issue here is whether the compilation of otherwise hard-to-obtain information alters the privacy interest implicated by disclosure of that information." Slip op. 14 (emphasis added). The Court referred to "a congressional intent to protect the privacy of rap-sheet subjects, and a concomitant recognition of the power of compilations to affect personal privacy that outstrips the combined power of the bits of information contained within." Id. at 15 (emphasis added). The Court found a "basic difference between scattered bits of criminal history and a federal compilation." Id. at 17 (emphasis added); see also id. at 16 ("a strong privacy interest inheres in the nondisclosure of compiled computerized information") (emphasis added); id. at 30 ("When the subject of such a rap sheet is a private citizen and when the information is in the Government's control as a compilation, * * * the privacy interest protected by Exemption 7(C) is in fact at its apex * * *.") (emphasis added). There is, of course, nothing out of the ordinary about those references, but they serve to show that there is something very much out of the ordinary about the way the court of appeals here used the word "compiled," for the court of appeals seemed to think that information can be "compiled" only once, at the time of its generation, and thereafter is not "compiled" when it is collected for another use. As Reporters Committee illustrates, that simply is not what the word means. Even respondent has used the noun form of the word "compiled" in its ordinary sense to refer to the gathering together of documents, whether or not they were generated or compiled at an earlier time for a different purpose. In its FOIA requests of September 30, 1986, and February 3, 1987, respondent "ask(ed) that copies of the requested materials be furnished to us as soon as individual items are available, and that your response to this request not await a compilation of all the materials requested." J.A. 21, 47-48. Thus respondent, unlike the court of appeals, obviously and quite properly recognized that the documents' having been "compiled" once for the purpose of routine audits would in no way prevent their being compiled again later for a different purpose. Congress had good reason for protecting in Exemption 7, subject to a showing under subsections (A)-(F), all documents that have at some point been "compiled for law enforcement purposes" and not only those documents that were originally generated or obtained for such purposes. As the district court stated in Gould, 688 F. Supp. at 698: Information drawn from a number of different sources can be benign when separately considered. When combined, or "compiled for law enforcement purposes," however, these various pieces of information can indeed become accusatory. As a direct result of their becoming accusatory in nature, these materials may qualify for Exemption 7 of FOIA for their release may interfere with an ongoing law enforcement investigation. Hence, even though the component, derivative parts of a criminal investigatory file, when considered independently and without reference to the remainder of the materials in the investigatory file, may not be covered by any exemption from FOIA, those materials, once combined and incorporated in a law enforcement "mosaic" may well be entitled to Exemption 7. Accord Crowell & Moring, 703 F. Supp. at 1010. In sum, the ruling of the court of appeals that Exemption 7(A) cannot be invoked in this case is at odds with the plain meaning of the exemption. The artificial distinction that the court of appeals has drawn between documents that were originally obtained for law enforcement purposes and those that were not so originally obtained, but later gathered together for law enforcement purposes, finds no support in the plain language of Exemption 7. The government refused to release the documents at issue because they were gathered together for law enforcement purposes and have consequently acquired investigatory significance. /7/ The purpose for which they were originally obtained is irrelevant. The documents have now been gathered together "for law enforcement purposes." Thus, the threshold requirement of Exemption 7 is satisfied, and this Court should remand so that the court of appeals can determine whether (as the district court found) the government has met its burden of showing that the further requirements of subsection (A) or subsection (E) are also satisfied. B. The Legislative History Of Exemption 7, As Enacted And As Amended In 1974, Confirms The Plain Meaning Of Exemption 7 The court of appeals also relied on the legislative history of the 1974 amendments to FOIA to support its reasoning. Inquiry into the legislative history was basically superfluous in this case in view of the plain statutory language supporting the government's position. See, e.g., Garcia v. United States, 469 U.S. 70, 75 (1984) (when terms of a statute are unambiguous, judicial inquiry is complete, except in "rare and exceptional" circumstances). In any event, the court seriously misinterpreted the legislative record. This Court thoroughly discussed the legislative history of Exemption 7 in NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 224-236 (1978). As originally enacted, Exemption 7 permitted nondisclosure of "investigatory files compiled for law enforcement purposes except to the extent available by law to a private party." 80 Stat. 251. By that exemption, "Congress recognized that law enforcement agencies had legitimate needs to keep certain records confidential, lest the agencies be hindered in their investigations or placed at a disadvantage when it came time to present their cases." Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 224. The exemption was intended to prevent FOIA from "giv(ing) a private party indirectly any earlier or greater access to investigatory files than he would have directly in such litigation or proceedings." H.R. Rep. No. 1497, FOIA Source Book 32; see Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. EPA, 856 F.2d 309, 313 (D.C. Cir. 1988). "FOIA was not intended to function as a private discovery tool." Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 242 (emphasis in original); see also United States v. Murdock, 548 F.2d 599, 601 (5th Cir. 1977); United States v. United States District Court, 717 F.2d 478, 480-481 (9th Cir. 1983). The "workable balance" that FOIA was intended to provide, H.R. Rep. No. 1497, FOIA Source Book 27, included recognition that it is "necessary for the very operation of our Government to allow it to keep confidential certain material, such as the investigatory files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation." S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965), FOIA Source Book 38; see also id. at 82 (statement of Congressman Gallagher). Thus, foremost among the purposes of Exemption 7 was to prevent "harm (to) the Government's case in court." Id. at 44; see Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 224. In 1974, Congress amended FOIA in several respects. See Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 226-227. The 1974 amendment to Exemption 7 resulted from a proposal on the floor by Senator Hart. Id. at 227. Senator Hart indicated his continuing agreement with the original purposes behind Exemption 7 but expressed concern that recent court decisions had permitted the exemption to be applied "whenever an agency can show that the document sought is an investigatory file compiled for law enforcement purposes * * * without the need of the agency to show why the disclosure of the particular document should not be made." Senate Debate May 30, 1974, reprinted in Subcomm. on Government Information and Individual Rights of the House Comm. on Government Operations & Subcomm. on Administrative Practice and Procedure of the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., Freedom of Information Act and Amendments of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-502) Source Book: Legislative History, Texts, and Other Documents 332 (1975) (hereinafter 1975 Source Book). Senator Hart stated in a colloquy with Senator Kennedy (1975 Source Book 349) that his proposed amendment was intended to respond specifically to and overrule four decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. /8/ 1975 Source Book 333. In one of those four decisions -- Ditlow v. Brinegar, 494 F.2d 1073 (D.C. Cir. 1974) -- the court of appeals had indicated that, in determining whether Exemption 7 applied, the only question was whether the requested material was found in an investigatory file compiled for law enforcement purposes. Senator Hart feared that agencies would use that rule to commingle otherwise nonexempt materials with exempt materials in a law enforcement investigatory file and claim protection from disclosure for the whole file. 1975 Source Book 332-333; see also Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 227-230. Accordingly, Senator Hart's amendment was intended to require agencies and the courts to look at particular documents and determine whether disclosure would interfere with certain legitimate governmental interests against disclosure. 1975 Source Book 333. Congress, however, recognized the need to continue "to protect Federal Bureau of Investigation records, Central Intelligence Agency records, and the files of other Federal law enforcement agencies." Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1974 (P.L. 93-502): A History of the Legislative Proceedings, Prepared by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, reprinted in 1975 Source Book 107, 116; see also Irons v. Bell, 596 F.2d 468 (1st Cir. 1979) (all investigative files of a law enforcement agency satisfy the "for law enforcement purposes" requirement of Exemption 7). Congress's intent to prevent "commingling" and withholding of documents that it had not intended to be protected by Exemption 7 was accomplished by two changes to Exemption 7. The description of the exempted materials was changed from "investigatory files compiled for law enforcement purposes" (5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (1970) (emphasis added)) to "investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes" (5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (1982) (emphasis added)). In addition, the amendment changed the status of having been "compiled for law enforcement purposes" from a sufficient condition for withholding to a necessary condition by adding the further requirement that the records meet one of the six specific criteria in subsections (A)-(F). See Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 221-222, 229-230, 235; New England Medical Center Hospital v. NLRB, 548 F.2d 377, 386 (1st Cir. 1976). Those two changes required agencies and courts to consider the nature of each particular document as to which the exemption was claimed and the reasons why withholding that document would be in accord with the balance between disclosure and protecting the needs of the government that FOIA was intended to accomplish. See Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 229-230. Such an inquiry would prevent the "commingling" that Senator Hart and others feared would be possible after the District of Columbia Circuit decisions. Proponents of the amendment, however, were emphatic in declaring that the amendment was not intended to undercut the original intent of Exemption 7 to "meet legitimate law enforcement concerns." 1975 Source Book 350. Indeed, with reference to Exemption 7(A), the subsection at issue here, Senator Hart stated that under the new amendment, the exemption would apply whenever the Government's case in court -- a concrete prospective law enforcement proceeding -- would be harmed by the premature release of evidence or information not in the possession of known or potential defendants. This would apply also where the agency could show that the disclosure of the information would substantially harm such proceedings by impeding any necessary investigation before the proceeding. 1975 Source Book 333. The court of appeals thought it "obvious" from the foregoing history that the "intent of the 1974 amendments" would forbid any "attempt * * * to withhold documents generated in the course of routine audits because they are now part of an investigatory file." Pet. App. 8a. But that conclusion, far from being obvious, is most assuredly wrong. The legislative history of the 1974 amendments says nothing about limiting Exemption 7 to those documents originating as law enforcement records. Congress chose a very different means to deal with the problem of commingling of documents that should be protected and documents that should not: Congress amended Exemption 7 in 1974 because it was concerned that records or information tucked away in investigative files would be withheld pursuant to Exemption 7 without requiring an agency to demonstrate that a particular document's disclosure could result in one of the harms enumerated in Exemption 7. The placement of a record or other information in a larger compilation of records or information gathered for a law enforcement purpose in no way precludes an agency from having to link the disclosure of each record or piece of information placed in the file to one of the six harms specified in Exemption 7. Crowell & Moring, 703 F. Supp. at 1010. In other words, construing "compiled" to mean "compiled" rather than "originally compiled" poses no danger whatever to the interests Congress sought to protect in the 1974 amendments to Exemption 7, and honors Congress's concomitant intent to preserve the basic purposes of that exemption. "When Congress adopted the 1974 amendments it neither altered the threshold phrase 'compiled for law enforcement purposes' nor indicated that it intended to modify those decisions * * * which treated the phrase as a broad, descriptive classification, the use of which was largely determined by the agency in question." Williams v. FBI, 730 F.2d 882, 884 (2d Cir. 1984). As the above summary shows, the 1974 amendments were intended to make agencies and courts engage in a more particularized consideration of the specific documents at issue in light of the purposes of that exemption. The 1974 amendments "explicitly enumerate the purposes and objectives of the Exemption, and thus require reviewing courts to 'loo(k) to the reasons' for allowing withholding of investigatory files before making their decisions. (1975 Source Book) 334." Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 230. In contrast to that intent, the court of appeals here adopted a "wooden() and mechanical()" rule, 1975 Source Book 335, prescribing a broad categorical determination based on how the documents were originally obtained by the governmental agency and wholly unrelated to whether protection of the particular documents from disclosure would be in accord with the objectives of Exemption 7. See Gould, 688 F. Supp. at 701. Nothing in the legislative history supports the idea that withholding under Exemption 7 should turn on the reason the government originally obtained the information. Instead, the point of the 1974 amendments was to make agencies and courts focus on whether release of the particular documents at issue would impinge on the specified interests sought to be protected by Exemption 7 -- an inquiry wholly unrelated to the reason why the information was originally obtained by the government. See Gould, 688 F. Supp. at 701. As the district court stated in Fedders Corp. v. FTC, 494 F. Supp. at 328, in rejecting the position adopted by the court of appeals in this case: to "exclude * * * documents from the scope of Exemption 7(A) simply because of the manner in which they were received, and despite the fact that they were, at the time requested, an important element in the record of an active investigation, would be to exalt form over substance and to defeat the purpose for which the (1974) amendment was enacted." The court of appeals endeavored to justify its misreading of the legislative history on the basis that reading "compiled" to mean "originally compiled" would serve Congress's objective -- if not the letter -- of the 1974 amendments. There is, however, no reason to think that the rule fashioned by the court of appeals would achieve that result. The problem with allowing agencies to commingle information and withhold too much information is that such withholding is unnecessary to protect the interests that Exemption 7 was intended to protect. The rule fashioned by the court of appeals -- basing the disclosure determination on the reason for which the information was originally obtained by the government -- does not address that problem. But, even if the rule established by the court of appeals would tend to result in less wrongful withholding, it is not consistent with the method that Congress prescribed to achieve its objective and is vastly overbroad. The court of appeals has imposed an artificial distinction among records or information -- unauthorized by Congress -- that would require agencies to segregate out records or information originally obtained for non-law-enforcement purposes and to release those materials no matter how adversely such disclosure would affect ongoing law enforcement. That procedure is wholly different from and inconsistent with the congressional directive that agencies and courts view materials with reference to the six criteria that Congress enacted and by which Congress believed that agencies and courts could properly evaluate whether release of the information would harm the interests Congress sought to protect. In essence, the court of appeals simply concluded that reading "compiled" to mean "originally compiled" will serve Congress's objective of preventing withholding by commingling and therefore must be the proper interpretation of the statute. "But no legislation pursues its purposes at all costs. Deciding what competing values will or will not be sacrificed to the achievement of a particular objective is the very essence of legislative choice -- and it frustrates rather than effectuates legislative intent simplistically to assume that whatever furthers the statute's primary objective must be the law." Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U.S. 522, 525-526 (1987). Here, Congress did not merely prohibit exemption by commingling; it also indicated the criteria by which records qualifying for the exemption are to be differentiated from the commingled records that do not qualify -- criteria that differ substantially from the broad-brush approach of the court of appeals. Furthermore, although this case involves Exemption 7(A), the rule established by the court of appeals would have broader implications because the court's ruling construes the threshold requirement to all of Exemption 7. Thus, it would prevent the government from invoking the protections provided by other subsections of Exemption 7, including the protection of confidential informants, the privacy of innocent individuals named in law enforcement records, and the protection of the lives and physical safety of law enforcement officers or others identified in such records, solely because of the reasons for which the information was originally obtained by the government. Such a rule is totally at odds with the substantive intent of the 1974 amendments to Exemption 7, for it would require federal agencies to segregate and disclose information and records even though those records or information were, at the time of the required disclosure, an integral part of a legitimate, ongoing criminal (or other law enforcement) investigation and the disclosure would violate the very interests that Congress enumerated in the 1974 amendments. The severe harm that such a rule would cause to federal law enforcement interests is manifest and wholly contrary to Congress's intent. C. A Rule Limiting Exemption 7 To Documents Originally Obtained Or Generated For Law Enforcement Purposes Would Be Inconsistent With The Purposes Of Exemption 7 The court of appeals acknowledged that its opinion would lead to an anomalous result, but the court suggested that the problem was one of Congress's making and that the government should address its concerns to Congress. Pet. App. 8a. But, as we have shown, the problem arises not because of anything Congress did but because of the errors committed by the court of appeals in misreading the plain language of the statute and the legislative history of the 1974 amendments; far from dictating the result reached by the court of appeals, the statute leaves no room for it. And, even if there were room to read the statute and the legislative history to support the result that the court of appeals reached, it would not follow that the courts are powerless to avoid anomalous results. To the contrary, this Court's Exemption 7 cases teach that any ambiguity in that exemption should be resolved in favor of sensible results that comport with the underlying purposes of FOIA's basic disclosure mandate and the exceptions to that mandate. See United States Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, supra; NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., supra; FBI v. Abramson, supra. This Court has consistently taken a practical approach to interpreting FOIA in an effort to apply a workable statutory balance between the interests of the public in greater access to information and the needs of the government in protecting certain kinds of information from disclosure. See, e.g., EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 80 (1973); Department of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361-362 (1976); Baldrige v. Shapiro, 455 U.S. 345, 352 (1982). In accord with that approach, the Court looks to the reasons for exemption from FOIA's mandatory disclosure requirements in determining whether the government has properly invoked a particular exemption. See, e.g., NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 148-154 (1975); FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. at 630. In applying Exemption 7, this Court has looked carefully at the effect that disclosure would have on the interests that exemption seeks to protect. In NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. at 242-243, the Court held that Congress did not "intend() to overturn the NLRB's longstanding rule against prehearing disclosure of witness statements * * * (and that) the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the Board was not entitled to withhold such statements under Exemption 7(A)." In reaching that result, this Court canvassed the legislative history of the exemption (437 U.S. at 224-236) and concluded that the key determination it must make in ruling on an Exemption 7 claim is whether release of particular kinds of records would contravene any of the six criteria listed in Exemption 7. 437 U.S. at 235-236. The approach taken by the court of appeals in this case -- applying a categorical rule that is unrelated to the purpose of Exemption 7 -- is directly contrary to that approach. The decision of the court of appeals is even more at odds with FBI v. Abramson, supra. The issue in that case was whether information originally compiled for law enforcement purposes and meeting the other criteria of Exemption 7 lost its exempt status when it was recompiled for non-law-enforcement purposes. In answering that question, the Court reasoned it must look to "the intention of Congress, * * * the structure of the Act, and * * * the purposes of the statute" (456 U.S. at 625) because the statutory language and the legislative history were ambiguous on the question that the Court had to decide. Although here the statutory language and legislative history are themselves unambiguous and dispositive, the Abramson analysis provides further support for reversal of the decision of the court of appeals. In looking for guides to Congress's intent, the Court in Abramson, 456 U.S. at 627-628, specifically ruled that "(t)he enumeration of (six) categories of undesirable consequences (in Exemption 7) indicates (that) Congress believed the harm of disclosing this type of information would outweigh its benefits." The Court found "nothing to suggest, and no reason for believing, that Congress would have preferred a different outcome simply because the information is now reproduced in a non-law-enforcement record." Id. at 628. Contrary to the approach of the court of appeals in this case, the rationale of Abramson indicates that "compiled for law enforcement purposes" is not to be construed as a high, or highly technical, barrier to claims of exemption. Rather, in light of the 1974 amendments, the emphasis should be placed on the six criteria that Congress specified as justifying withholding. See also United States Department of State v. Washington Post Co., 456 U.S. 595 (1982) (rejecting highly technical and formalistic construction of "similar files" threshold criterion of Exemption 6, 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(6), and emphasizing the need for courts to conduct the substantive task of balancing the public interest in disclosure that FOIA was designed to promote against the interests that the exemption was designed to protect). The requirement that records or information be "compiled for law enforcement purposes" is not meaningless, but neither is it to be construed in a restrictive or non-functional way. Abramson teaches that "(i)t is * * * critical that the compiled-for-law-enforcement requirement be construed to avoid the release of information that would produce the undesirable results specified (in the six criteria listed in the exemption)." 456 U.S. at 630. Thus, to the extent that there may be ambiguity in the "compiled for law enforcement purposes" requirement, it should be resolved in favor of deeming a particular record to be a law enforcement record and disclosing it or not disclosing it depending on the application of subsections (A)-(F) of Exemption 7. The court of appeals accordingly erred in failing to follow the rationale of Abramson. The incompatibility between the purposes underlying Exemption 7 and the rule adopted by the court of appeals is further shown by the 1986 amendments to Exemption 7, which reflect basically the same practical approach applied by this Court in Abramson. The 1974 amendments had made Exemption 7 applicable to "investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes." 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (1982). In 1986, Congress amended Exemption 7 to delete the word "investigatory" and add the words "or information," so as to extend Exemption 7's protections to "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes." Freedom of Information Reform Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-570, Subtit. N, Section 1802, 100 Stat. 3207-48. The 1986 amendments were "intended to broaden the reach of this exemption and to ease considerably a Federal law enforcement agency's burden in invoking it," Reporters Committee, slip op. 6 n.9 (quoting 132 Cong. Rec. S16,504 (daily ed. Oct. 15, 1986) (statement of Sen. Hatch)), /9// and "to ensure that sensitive law enforcement information is protected under Exemption 7 regardless of the particular format or record in which (it) is maintained." S. Rep. No. 221, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 23 (1983) (citing Abramson twice with apparent approval). /10/ See Attorney General's Memorandum on the 1986 Amendments to the Freedom of Information Act 5-9 (1987). The ruling of the court of appeals is directly contrary to the congressional intent expressed in the 1986 amendments: it would make it much harder for federal agencies to invoke Exemption 7; it fails to focus on whether release of particular information would harm the interests sought to be protected by the exemption; and it would incapacitate agencies from protecting the legitimate needs of law enforcement solely because of the manner in which the information was originally obtained. Finally, it is noteworthy how very far removed the present disclosure request lies from the purposes for which Congress enacted FOIA. This Court recently issued an emphatic reminder that "(the) basic policy of full agency disclosure unless information is exempted under clearly delineated statutory language * * * focuses on the citizens' right to be informed about what their government is up to." Reporters Committee, slip op. 23 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The request in this case involves no such noble purpose, but rather the very kind of "meddling" in a grand jury proceeding that Justice Stevens condemned in his concurring opinion in Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. at 243. In the absence of statutory language compelling that result, there is no reason why a court should allow such meddling. And, we submit, the language of Exemption 7 actually refutes the decision of the court of appeals to base FOIA determinations on a wholly nonsubstantive distinction between documents that originate as law enforcement records and those that are only later compiled for law enforcement purposes. That distinction serves no purpose that Congress articulated or could conceivably have had in mind in 1966, in 1974, or in 1986. It should be rejected. CONCLUSION The judgment of the court of appeals should be reversed. Respectfully submitted. WILLIAM C. BRYSON Acting Solicitor General JOHN R. BOLTON Assistant Attorney General LAWRENCE G. WALLACE Deputy Solicitor General ROY T. ENGLERT, JR. Assistant to the Solicitor General LEONARD SCHAITMAN JOHN C. HOYLE Attorneys APRIL 1989 /1/ The Vaughn index (see Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (D.C. Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 977 (1974)) describes the documents that are being withheld by the government pursuant to Exemption 7. /2/ Exemption 7 exempts from mandatory disclosure "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information" gives rise to one or more of six specified harms. 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7) (Supp. V 1987). One of the specified harms is that disclosure of such information or records "could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings." 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7)(A) (Supp. V 1987). Another is that disclosure "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." 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7)(E) (Supp. V 1987). In our view, the district court's determination based on its review of the in camera submissions is best viewed as a determination that the criterion of subsection (A) is met in this case. The district court itself, at times, appears to have regarded interference with a pending grand jury investigation as a subject more appropriately addressed under subsection (E). J.A. 68 & n.1. In any event, we do not understand respondent to dispute that the documents at issue are exempt from mandatory disclosure under FOIA if they were "compiled for law enforcement purposes" within the meaning of Exemption 7 and their disclosure would in fact "jeopardize the grand jury proceeding." Rather, the dispute between petitioners and respondent centers on the meaning of "compiled for law enforcement purposes" (the issue before this Court) and, if that issue is resolved in the government's favor, on the accuracy of the district court's determination regarding jeopardy to the grand jury proceeding (an issue that the court of appeals did not address and should address in the first instance). /3/ The administrative appeal was denied on August 6, 1987, while the lawsuit was pending before the district court. /4/ At respondent's request, the documents that were submitted to the district court for in camera examination have also been furnished under seal to the Clerk of this Court. /5/ We have previously furnished the Clerk copies of the Crowell & Moring and Raytheon decisions, which we believe correctly analyze the issue that is now before this Court. /6/ Of course, a showing that information was so compiled suffices only to get the government past the threshold inquiry. The government still must show that the information comes within one or more of subsections (A)-(F). /7/ To be sure, the documents were compiled for law enforcement purposes by John Doe Government Agency after respondent requested them from John Doe Agency and John Doe Agency denied the request. In some circumstances, that order of proceeding could raise questions about the bona fides of the government's claims that it was for law enforcement purposes -- and not solely to defeat the FOIA request -- that the agency compiled the documents, and that production of the documents would interfere with enforcement proceedings. Here, however, the pendency of the grand jury investigation and the consideration by the grand jury of all of the documents that respondent has requested obviously corroborate the legitimacy of the law enforcement purposes of the 1986 compilation. There is, moreover, no proper basis for a prophylactic rule that Exemption 7 can be asserted only in cases in which the compilation preceded rather than followed the FOIA request. Such a rule would seriously undermine the important statutory purposes of Exemption 7. And no such rule applies in other situations in which agencies take steps after they receive FOIA requests in order to bring documents within a FOIA exemption and thus assure compliance with the statutory objective that sensitive documents not be disclosed. See, e.g., Goldberg v. Department of State, 818 F.2d 71, 77 (D.C. Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 108 S. Ct. 1075 (1988); Miller v. Department of State, 779 F.2d 1378, 1388 (8th Cir. 1896); Baez v. Department of Justice, 647 F.2d 1328, 1332-1333 (D.C. Cir. 1980). /8/ The four decisions were Weisberg v. United States Department of Justice, 489 F.2d 1195 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (en banc), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 993 (1974); Aspin v. Department of Defense, 491 F.2d 24 (D.C. Cir. 1973); Ditlow v. Brinegar, 494 F.2d 1073 (D.C. Cir. 1974); and Center for National Policy Review on Race & Urban Issues v. Weinberger, 502 F.2d 370 (D.C. Cir. 1974). /9/ See also Irons v. FBI, 811 F.2d 681, 687 (1st Cir. 1987); Curran v. Department of Justice, 813 F.2d 473, 474, n.1 (1st Cir. 1987) (the "drift" of the 1986 amendments is "to ease -- rather than to increase -- the government's burden in respect to Exemption 7(A)"). /10/ This report, which concerned a predecessor bill to what eventually became the 1986 amendments to Exemption 7, is recognized as authoritative concerning the meaning of those amendments. See Reporters Committee, slip op. 28 n.22; King v. Department of Justice, 830 F.2d 210, 229 n.141 (D.C. Cir. 1987); 132 Cong. Rec. S14,296 (daily ed. Sept. 30, 1986) (statement of Sen Leahy) (Senate Report 98-221 "sets out the legislative history which should be consulted to determine the scope of the section we are adopting in this bill").