Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/329

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Cite as: 502 U. S. 164 (1991)

171

Opinion of the Court

Haiti’s treatment of the returnees or this Government’s honesty, but it concluded that the indirect benefit of giving respondents the means to locate the Haitian returnees and to cross-examine them provided a public value that required disclosure. Id., at 1555–1556. We granted certiorari to review the Court of Appeals’ construction of Exemption 6, 499 U. S. 904 (1991), and now reverse. II It is appropriate to preface our evaluation of the narrow question that we must decide with an identification of certain matters that have been resolved in earlier stages of the litigation. After the District Court’s initial decision, the State Department filed additional affidavits in support of a claim that the redacted information was protected from disclosure by Exemption 1, the exemption for classified documents, and also by Exemption 7(C), the exemption for law enforcement records which, if released, “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” 6 The District Court ruled that the Government had waived those claims by not raising them until after its Exemption 6 claim had been denied, 725 F. Supp., at 505, and the Court of Appeals held that that ruling was not an abuse of discretion, 6 The relevant portions of Exemptions 1, 6, and 7 read as follows: “(b) [The FOIA disclosure] section does not apply to matters that are— “(1)(A) specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive order; . . . . . “(6) personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; “(7) records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information. . . (C) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. . . .” 5 U. S. C. § 552.