The Long Shadow of Secrecy: What Novak v. CIA Reveals About FOIA Requests for Intelligence Records
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In Novak v. Central Intelligence Agency (2026), the court upheld the CIA’s withholdings under Exemptions 1 and 3 for classified national security information and CIA personnel records but remanded on Exemption 6 because the agency failed to adequately verify whether third-party individuals were alive or to articulate specific, non-speculative privacy harms before withholding their personal information.
Can you obtain your parent’s or grandparent’s CIA personnel file through the Freedom of Information Act? What happens when a FOIA request seeks records relating to intelligence officers, Cold War operations, enemy aliens, foreign spies, or classified national security information? How far can the Central Intelligence Agency go in withholding historical records, and when must it justify those withholdings in court?
These questions are becoming increasingly important for attorneys, genealogists, historians, journalists, academic researchers, and descendants attempting to reconstruct the lives of relatives who served in U.S. intelligence, military intelligence, or other classified government programs. As more families investigate World War II and post-World War II intelligence activities, OSS operations, and early CIA history, understanding the legal limits of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has become an essential part of historical research. For descendants pursuing genealogical and historical research, intelligence files can provide evidence about a relative’s identity, government service, wartime activities, residences, foreign contacts, and other biographical details that may be difficult to reconstruct from conventional genealogical records alone.
When Viveca Novak filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking her mother’s personnel files from the Central Intelligence Agency, she likely expected answers about a family member’s public service during the Cold War. Instead, her request ran into the formidable legal barriers that stand between private citizens and the records of America’s intelligence agencies.
The February 2026 ruling in Novak v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 23-cv-2989) offers a revealing window into how FOIA operates when national security is invoked—and where requesters might find rare openings for success.
Congress enacted the Freedom of Information Act in 1966 to promote transparency in government by generally requiring federal agencies to make their records available to the public upon request. The statute reflects a fundamental commitment to open government, allowing citizens to access information about the operations and activities of their government. However, Congress also recognized that certain legitimate governmental interests—particularly national security and personal privacy—could be harmed by the release of certain types of information. Accordingly, FOIA balances the public’s need for access with the government’s need for confidentiality by exempting nine categories of records from disclosure. The burden is on the agency to justify any withholding, and courts review agency decisions de novo, though they must accord substantial weight to agency affidavits in national security matters. FOIA exemptions 1 (properly classified national security information), 3 (information withheld under other statutes), and 6 (personal privacy) are central to the dispute in Novak.
The Case in Brief
Novak sought records concerning her mother, Dagmar Stapleton, a Czech refugee who worked at the CIA during the Cold War and retired in 1994. The CIA acknowledged her mother’s employment but produced 260 documents with redactions and withheld 32 entirely, citing FOIA Exemptions 1 (properly classified national security information), 3 (statutory protections, including the CIA Act of 1949), and 6 (personal privacy, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy).
Novak’s central argument was straightforward: documents about her mother’s career from the 1960s and 1980s should be disclosed because they are decades old and presumably subject to automatic declassification under Executive Order 13526. The court’s response illustrates why FOIA litigation against intelligence agencies is an uphill battle – though not entirely without hope.
The Centrality of Deference
Judge Chutkan’s opinion demonstrates the nearly insurmountable deference courts afford to agency national security determinations. When reviewing Exemption 1 claims, which cover properly classified information, courts must “accord substantial weight to an agency’s affidavit” regarding classified status and need only find that the agency has “plausibly asserted that the matters are in fact properly classified.”
The CIA’s declarant, Mary Williams, explained that the withheld material “squarely concerns intelligence methods that are either still in use or which remain viable for use.” Disclosure would reveal who the CIA “targets” for intelligence collection, the “activities,” “means,” “locations,” and “sources” used, and how the agency “trains officers.” The court found this sufficient and no further inquiry was required.
This deference reflects a consistent judicial posture established in cases like DiBacco v. U.S. Army (795 F.3d 178, D.C. Cir. 2015), where the D.C. Circuit affirmed that courts “must accord substantial weight to an agency’s affidavit concerning the details of the classified status of the disputed record.” As the Circuit has observed, national security assessments are “uniquely” within the Executive’s “purview,” and courts “lack the expertise necessary to second-guess” such judgments “in the typical national security FOIA case.”
The Limits of Automatic Declassification
Novak’s strongest argument was that records over 25 years old are subject to automatic declassification under Executive Order 13526. The court acknowledged this rule but noted a crucial exception: agencies can exempt information from automatic declassification when release would “impair the effectiveness of an intelligence method currently in use, available for use, or under development.”
The CIA invoked this exception, explaining that even retirement records from 62 years ago could reveal “details of methods currently used to support CIA’s clandestine activities.” The court deemed this plausible, reasoning that foreign intelligence agencies are “zealous ferrets” capable of “piecing together other bits of information” from seemingly insignificant details. As the D.C. Circuit held in Sims v. CIA (471 U.S. 159, 1985), “Foreign intelligence services have the substantial expertise in deducing insights from seemingly unimportant details.”
This is the same logic that sustained withholdings in the decades-long DiBacco litigation, where the Army and CIA defended records from the 1940s concerning Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen and his postwar intelligence relationship with the United States. In that case, the court noted that intelligence sources and methods “remain viable for use” and that disclosing details about “targeting, collection capabilities and techniques, and covert operations” would allow adversaries to “deploy countermeasures that would render the Agency’s methods ineffective.”
The DiBacco case also highlighted the historical depth of these secrecy battles. The request in DiBacco sought records dating back to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the World War II intelligence agency that was the CIA’s direct predecessor, including documents about “Operation Sunrise” and meetings between Gehlen and OSS officer Allen Welsh Dulles, who would later become CIA Director. The fact that the court found intelligence methods from the OSS era could still be protected underscores just how long the cloak of secrecy can remain drawn.
Exemption 3 and the CIA Act
The CIA also invoked Exemption 3 through the CIA Act of 1949 (50 U.S.C. § 3507), which exempts disclosure of “the organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed by the Agency.” As the court noted, this exemption “does not cover only personnel records” but rather certain personnel information “wherever that information may be found,” extending to current and former CIA employees alike.
Under Exemption 3, the agency need only show “that the withheld material falls within the statute.” As the D.C. Circuit explained in DiBacco v. Department of the Army (926 F.3d 827, D.C. Cir. 2019), “Exemption 3 differs from other FOIA exemptions in that its applicability depends less on the detailed factual contents of supporting declarations.” The court found the CIA’s explanation that Stapleton’s personnel files contained information about “organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel” was “precisely the type of information that falls within the scope of the statute.”
Where Government Can Lose: Exemption 6
The most significant aspect of Novak for future FOIA requesters is where the CIA lost. The court found the agency failed to justify withholding third-party personal information under Exemption 6, which covers records whose disclosure “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
The CIA made two critical errors. First, it failed to verify whether the third parties were still alive. As the court noted, “the CIA has not made any real effort to determine whether the third parties involved are still alive,” leaving the agency unable to establish a cognizable privacy interest. Under D.C. Circuit precedent established in Schrecker v. Department of Justice (349 F.3d 657, D.C. Cir. 2003), the privacy interest in biographical information is not self-evident, and agencies must actually demonstrate that disclosure would invade a living person’s privacy.
Second, the CIA offered only “vague” assertions that disclosure could expose individuals to harassment, without the “reasonable specificity of detail” required to demonstrate a real, non-speculative risk. The court emphasized that “the potential adverse consequences [of disclosure] must be real rather than speculative” and “more palpable than mere possibilities.”
The court also noted that many third parties were relatives of Stapleton, “who the CIA has officially acknowledged as a former CIA employee,” raising questions about whether their affiliation was already effectively public. The CIA will now have an opportunity to submit more detailed affidavits justifying its Exemption 6 withholdings.
The Segregability Obligation
Novak also argued that the CIA failed to meet its obligation to determine whether there was “any reasonably segregable information within the record that could be disclosed without causing reasonably foreseeable harm.” The court rejected this argument, noting that agencies are “entitled to a presumption that it complied with the obligation to disclose reasonably segregable material.”
The CIA’s declarant represented that “the CIA conducted a line-by-line review of each document and released all reasonably segregable, non-exempt information.” Novak “offered no evidence to the contrary” and thus “fail[ed] to rebut the presumption.” This aligns with the standard articulated in DiBacco, where the court held that summary judgment is warranted based on agency affidavits that “describe the justifications for withholding the information with specific detail” and “demonstrate that the information withheld logically falls within the claimed exemption.”
Lessons for FOIA Requesters
Novak offers several practical insights for those seeking intelligence records:
1. Deference is nearly absolute for Exemptions 1 and 3. Courts will accept agency explanations that are “plausible” and “logical,” even when requesters offer counterarguments. The D.C. Circuit has held that agencies invoking Exemption 3 need only show “that the withheld material falls within the statute” and no detailed factual justification is required.
2. Age alone does not guarantee declassification. The automatic declassification provisions of Executive Order 13526 contain broad exceptions. Documents decades old can remain classified if they relate to methods or sources that remain sensitive, a determination courts will rarely second-guess. As the DiBacco court noted, nothing in the Executive Order “calls the CIA’s classification decisions into question.”
3. Exemption 6 may offer a path forward. When agencies withhold personal information about third parties, they must provide specific, non-conclusory explanations demonstrating actual privacy interests. The CIA’s failure to verify whether third parties were alive or to articulate specific risks gave Novak a partial victory, forcing the agency to reassess its Exemption 6 withholdings.
4. In camera review remains a “last resort.” Courts will not review documents privately unless agency affidavits are insufficient or there is evidence of bad faith. In Novak, the court found that because the CIA had met its burden with “sufficiently detailed affidavits and there is no evidence of bad faith, in camera review is neither necessary nor appropriate.”
5. Persistence can produce results – but not quickly. The DiBacco litigation spanned over thirty years and multiple appeals, ultimately resulting in thousands of pages of disclosures. In that case, the Army conducted “comprehensive searches pursuant to the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act which yielded thousands of responsive documents,” and the CIA provided “seven discs containing all records released under the Disclosure Act.” But the process required decades of litigation.
The Historical Dimension: the OSS and the Deep Roots of Secrecy
The DiBacco case offers a striking illustration of how far back intelligence secrecy can reach. Carl Oglesby’s original 1985 FOIA request specifically sought records of “Operation Sunrise,” an OSS initiative during World War II, as well as records of meetings between Gehlen and OSS officer Allen Welsh Dulles at Fort Hunt, Virginia, in the summer of 1945. Dulles would later become CIA Director, and his wartime OSS work laid the groundwork for the postwar intelligence relationship with Gehlen that the CIA long refused to acknowledge.
Remarkably, even records from the OSS era, which included documents now over eighty years old, remained subject to classification withholdings. The court in DiBacco upheld the CIA’s position that certain information concerning intelligence sources and methods from that period could still cause harm if disclosed. This demonstrates that while the OSS was formally disbanded in 1945 and its functions absorbed into the CIA upon its creation in 1947, the secrets of America’s first centralized intelligence agency can remain protected for generations.
For requesters, this historical depth presents a sobering reality: the passage of time alone does not guarantee transparency. Documents from the dawn of American intelligence gathering may still be deemed too sensitive for public release, whether because the methods described remain in use or because the information could, as the court noted in Sims, be pieced together by foreign intelligence services to compromise current operations.
Deference and Its Limits
Novak v. CIA underscores the fundamental asymmetry of FOIA when intelligence agencies are involved. Agencies can invoke national security with minimal justification, and courts will defer. Requesters face the burden of rebutting agency affidavits with “contrary evidence or evidence of bad faith,” which very likely is a nearly impossible standard given that the relevant information is precisely what they seek.
Yet the case also reveals a rare vulnerability. When agencies rely on personal privacy to withhold information, they must actually substantiate the claimed harm. The CIA’s failure to verify whether third parties were alive or to articulate specific risks gave Novak a partial victory, forcing the agency to reassess its Exemption 6 withholdings.
Using FOIA Litigation to Remove the Cloak from the Cloak-and-Dagger Business of Spying
For those navigating the FOIA process, Novak suggests a strategic focus: challenge personal privacy withholdings where agencies make generic, unsupported assertions. On matters of national security, however, the law offers little leverage. As the D.C. Circuit acknowledged in Sims, “secrecy is inherently a key to successful intelligence operations,” and courts will not lightly compel its breach.
The thirty-year odyssey of the DiBacco litigation—which began in 1985 and continued through three appeals—attests to the complex twists and turns the disclosure process can take. As that court noted, “removing the cloak from the cloak-and-dagger business of spying can be a lengthy and arduous process. Understandably so, given the competing needs to protect national security and to ensure appropriate governmental transparency.”
For Viveca Novak, the path to learning about her mother’s career has only just begun and the court’s partial remand on Exemption 6 withholdings offers a narrow but potentially meaningful avenue for additional disclosure. For others considering FOIA requests to intelligence agencies, be prepared for a long journey, focus your challenges where the law offers traction, and understand that national security secrecy, whether concerning Cold War personnel files or OSS operations from World War II, will nearly always prevail.
Cases Discussed:
Novak v. Central Intelligence Agency, No. 23-cv-2989-TSC (D.D.C. Feb. 4, 2026);
DiBacco v. U.S. Army, 795 F.3d 178 (2015).
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