Pickard v. Dept. of Justice, No. 08-15504 (9th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, an inmate, sought enforcement of his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA or Act), 5 U.S.C. 552, request to the DEA for records pertaining to a certain confidential informant. In response, the DEA submitted a Glomar response, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of any responsive records pertaining to the informant, citing exemptions 6 and 7(C), (D), and (F) of the Act. The court held that because the government officially confirmed the informant's status as an informant in open court in the course of official proceedings, the government could not continue to "neither admit nor deny" his informant status in response to a FOIA request. Therefore, the court held that the government must provide an index of the documents it has and make whatever additional objections to disclosure it deemed appropriate. Accordingly, the district court's grant of summary judgment was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.
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