EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; REFUSAL TO PROVIDE INFORMATION – Confidentiality; Privacy

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Analyzing FOIA’s “Exemption 6,” which protects “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6)), to determine its application to specific facts requires balancing the public interest in disclosure—principally public understanding of the operations or activities of the government—against the potential harm an individual would face based on disclosure of private information. (U.S. Dept. of Defense v. Federal Labor Relations Authority (1994) 510 U.S. 487, 495 (DOD v. FLRA).) Thus, “information that sheds light on an agency’s performance of its statutory duties falls squarely within that statutory purpose,” unlike “information about private citizens that is accumulated in various governmental files but that reveals little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.” (Id. at p. 496 [internal quotation marks and citation omitted].) (p. 26.)