Long v. OPM

This Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit was brought by the co-directors of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for its failure to provide requested information from its Central Personnel Data File, a database of information on the federal civilian workforce. In particular, the agency withheld names, duty stations, and organizational components of employees in five agencies and 24 occupations it deemed “sensitive,” over 40% of the federal civilian workforce. The district court held that OPM could withhold the names and some of the duty-station information, but that it had to release the other duty-station information. On appeal, however, the Second Circuit held that all of the contested information was exempt from disclosure and could be withheld.