Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/333

 502us1$14I 08-21-96 15:27:02 PAGES OPINPGT

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

175

Opinion of the Court

in the leading case interpreting Exemption 6, we held that the statute required disclosure of summaries of Air Force Academy disciplinary proceedings “with personal references or other identifying information deleted.” Rose, 425 U. S., at 380. The question in this case is whether petitioner has discharged its burden of demonstrating that the disclosure of the contents of the interviews with the Haitian returnees adequately served the statutory purpose and that the release of the information identifying the particular interviewees would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of their privacy. As we held in Rose, the text of the exemption requires the Court to balance “the individual’s right of privacy” against the basic policy of opening “agency action to the light of public scrutiny,” id., at 372. The District Court and the Court of Appeals properly began their analysis by considering the significance of the privacy interest at stake. We are persuaded, however, that several factors, when considered together, make the privacy interest more substantial than the Court of Appeals recognized. First, the Court of Appeals appeared to assume that respondents sought only the names and addresses of the interviewees. But respondents sought—and the District Court ordered that the Government disclose—the unredacted interview summaries. As the Government points out, many of these summaries contain personal details about particular interviewees.11 Thus, if the summaries are released without the names redacted, highly personal information regarding marital and employment status, children, living conditions, and attempts to enter the United States would be linked reveal only the dry, chronological, personal history of individuals who have had brushes with the law, and tell us nothing about matters of substantive law enforcement policy that are properly the subject of public concern.” Id., at 766, n. 18. 11 See n. 5, supra.