Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/339

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

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

181

Opinion of Scalia, J.

which we referred to in Department of Justice v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of Press, 489 U. S. 749, 771 (1989), that the particular purposes for which a request is made are irrelevant. The Court today pointedly abstains from deciding the derivative-use issue, saying that, since the record does not support the existence of any second-order public benefits, “we need not address the question whether a ‘derivative use’ theory would ever justify release of information about private individuals.” Ante, at 179. I am content with that. It seems to me, however, that since derivative use on the public-benefits side, and derivative use on the personalprivacy side must surely go together (there is no plausible reason to allow it for the one and bar it for the other), the Court should have been consistent in its abstention. It should not, in the portion of its opinion discussing the privacy interest (Part III), have discussed such matters as the “retaliatory action that might result from a renewed interest in [the interviewees’] aborted attempts to emigrate,” and “the fact that respondents plan to make direct contact with the individual Haitian returnees identified in the reports.” Ante, at 177. This speculation is unnecessary to the decision since, as the Court notes, ante, at 176, each of the unredacted documents requested by respondents would disclose that a particular person had agreed, under a pledge of confidentiality, to report to a foreign power concerning the conduct of his own government. This is information that a person would ordinarily not wish to be known about himself—and thus constitutes an invasion of personal privacy. Cf. Department of State v. Washington Post Co., 456 U. S. 595 (1982). Since there is nothing on the other side of the equation—the Court finding, quite correctly, that the public interests here have been “adequately served by disclosure of the redacted interview summaries,” ante, at 178—the question whether this invasion of privacy is “clearly unwarranted”