Court: DCMA wanted to be too open with FOIA

The Defense Contract Management Agency wanted to release too much information in response to two Freedom of Information Act requests, said the District of Columbia Circuit's Court of Appeals in a March 23 ruling.

The case stems from a March 2004 FOIA request from a Connecticut television reporter who wanted to see "corrective action requests" DCMA issued to Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, maker of the Black Hawk helicopter. Later that year, a Connecticut newspaper submitted a FOIA request information pertaining a Pratt & Whitney factory; both companies are owned by United Technologies Corp.

In both cases, the companies tried to prevent the documents from being released under a FOIA exemption that protects "trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person [that is] privileged or confidential."

DCMA said in 2005 it would go ahead, regardless. Both companies' objections were based in part on not wanting to suffer embarrassment, DCMA officials wrote at the time.

In late 2005, Sikorsky and Pratt filed separate suits in federal district court, where the DCMA decision was upheld. However, the Court of Appeals now finds for the companies.

"The documents, even as redacted by DCMA, appear to reveal details about Sikorsky's and Pratt's proprietary manufacturing and quality control processes. At the least, they identify and locate particular parts and equipment and describe the timing and criteria of internal inspections," wrote Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson. The case was remanded for further consideration.

As Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy notes, the ruling is unusual in that "most criticism of [FOIA] centers on agency refusals to disclose requested records in a timely manner."

For more:
- read the District of Columbia Circuit's Court of Appeals March 23 ruling (.pdf)
- read this Project on Government Oversight blog post on the decision
- this blog post by Steven Aftergood on the ruling
- check out this Justice Department 2009 guide to FOIA

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