August Term 2023 Argued: April 16, 2024 Decided: September 26, 2024

No. 23-1005

BLOOMBERG L.P. AND DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

Before: LYNCH, PÉREZ, AND KAHN, Circuit Judges.

On appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Cote, J.).

The Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) was designed to create a broad public right of access to official information held by federal agencies. Under this general statutory presumption of access, federal agencies must disclose agency records upon request unless said records fall into one of nine specific statutory exemptions. This case concerns FOIA Exemption #3, which establishes that the general FOIA disclosure requirement “does not apply to matters that are . . . specifically exempted from disclosure by statute . . . if that statute . . . establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3)(A)(ii). The withholding statute relevant to this case is the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 (the “Postal Reorganization Act”), specifically a provision allowing the United States Postal Service (“USPS” or “Postal Service”) to withhold production of “information of a commercial nature.” 39 U.S.C. § 410(c)(2).

Appellants in this case are the publishers of two media outlets that produce reporting on economics and urban policy trends—CityLab and The Wall Street Journal. Reporters from each outlet sought disclosure of aggregated, anonymized change-of-address (“COA”) data collected by USPS that they wish to use to produce reporting about movement trends in the United States. USPS denied the FOIA requests at issue, citing FOIA Exemption #3 and asserting that the data was protected as “information of a commercial nature” because it intended to incorporate the data into a commercial product called “Population Mobility Trends.” The district court granted summary judgment to USPS. Because we agree that USPS has satisfied its burden of demonstrating that the requested COA data is protected as “information of a commercial nature” pursuant to the Postal Reorganization Act and FOIA Exemption #3, we affirm. AFFIRMED. Judge Kahn concurs and dissents in a separate opinion.

2 ADAM A. MARSHALL (Katie Townsend, on the brief), Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Washington, D.C., for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

TOMOKO ONOZAWA (Benjamin Torrance, on the brief) for Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellee.

MYRNA PÉREZ, Circuit Judge:

The Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) generally requires federal agencies to produce any document considered an agency record “upon any request” by a member of the public. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A). FOIA was “designed to create a broad right of access to ‘official information.’” U.S. Dep’t of Justice v. Reps. Comm. for Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 772 (1989) (quoting EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 80 (1973)). Under this general statutory presumption of access, federal agencies must disclose agency records upon request unless said records fall into one of nine specific statutory exemptions. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1)–(9). Most cases about FOIA exempt