Free Motion for Summary Judgment - District Court of Colorado - Colorado

Case 1:04-cv-01264-LTB-PAC

Document 31-5

Filed 01/11/2006

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO Civil Action No. 04-cv-01264-LTB-OES MARY M. HULL, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Defendant.

DECLARATION OF JOSEPH J. PLICK _________________________________________________________________

JOSEPH J. PLICK, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1746, declares as follows: 1. I am Senior Attorney for Administrative Law, Office of the Solicitor (SOL),

U.S. Department of Labor. I have served as an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor handling matters under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) since 1988. As Senior Attorney for Administrative Law, I am currently serving as the Acting Departmental FOIA contact. 2. The statements made in this declaration are based upon my personal

knowledge or upon information available to me in my official capacity and are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.

Case 1:04-cv-01264-LTB-PAC

Document 31-5

Filed 01/11/2006

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3.

This case involves Plaintiff's March 3, 2004 FOIA request for documents in

the Qwest Pension Plan (Qwest) investigation case file compiled by the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the United States Department of Labor. 4. On December 27, 2005, four service contracts previously withheld under

FOIA Exemption 4 were produced to the Plaintiff. I have reviewed those documents. 5. On pages 860 and 867, certain information has been redacted under FOIA

Exemption 7(C). 6. Exemption 7(C) provides protection for personal information maintained in

law enforcement records. To apply Exemption 7(C), an agency must first identify and evaluate the privacy interest(s), if any, implicated in the requested records. If a privacy interest exists, the public interests then must be assessed. In this regard, the requester must show that the public interest sought to be advanced is a significant one, an interest more specific than having the information for its own sake. Second, the requester must show the information is likely to advance that interest. See NARA v. Favish, 124 S.Ct. 1570, 1580-82 (2004). 7. Exemption 7(C) regularly has been applied to withhold references to people

who are not targets of the investigation and were merely mentioned in the law enforcement file. Accordingly, the names, job descriptions, telephone numbers, and other identifying information about such people has been redacted under Exemption 7(C) from

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Case 1:04-cv-01264-LTB-PAC

Document 31-5

Filed 01/11/2006

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pages 860 and 867. No public interest would be served by revealing the names of these low ranking people. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

s/ Joseph J. Plick Joseph J. Plick Senior Attorney for Administrative Law

Executed on January 11, 2006.

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