Phillippi v. Central Intelligence Agency’s Empirical Analysis
655 F.2d 1325 · 1981
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 19 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently August 2021 · most notably Fitzgibbon v. Central Intelligence Agency (1990), Afshar v. Department of State (1983)
20 federal appellate · 19 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 294 · 5 U.S.C. § 552 (Freedom of Information Act) · 50 U.S.C. § 403 (§ 102 of the National Security Act of 1947)
Relies on Military Audit Project v. Casey · Phillippi v. Central Intelligence Agency
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“named for the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a ship used in a classified Central Intelligence Agency project 'to raise a sunken Soviet submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean to recover the missiles, codes, and communications equipment onboard for analysis by United States military and intelligence experts.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]n the world of international diplomacy, where face-saving may often be as important as substance....”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In sum, the line between what may be revealed and what must be concealed is itself capable of conveying information to foreign intelligence agencies. For this reason, this court cannot simply assume, over the well-documented and specific affidavits of the CIA to the contrary, that revelation of seemingly innocent information which might nonetheless jeopardize a fallback cover story is required under the FOIA, either because the information in question has already been made public, or even, as in the present case, because it was disseminated for confidential purposes by the CIA itself. Without the ability to engineer controlled leaks of disinformation, the CIA would be deprived of the ability to disseminate a fallback cover while simultaneously protecting it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.