Department of Justice v. Landano, 508 U.S. 165, 15 (1993)

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Cite as: 508 U. S. 165 (1993)

Opinion of the Court

III

Although we have determined that it is unreasonable to infer that all FBI criminal investigative sources are confidential, we expect that the Government often can point to more narrowly defined circumstances that will support the inference. For example, as the courts below recognized, and respondent concedes, see Brief for Respondent 46, it is reasonable to infer that paid informants normally expect their cooperation with the FBI to be kept confidential. The nature of the informant's ongoing relationship with the Bureau, and the fact that the Bureau typically communicates with informants "only at locations and under conditions which assure the contact will not be noticed," Superneau Declaration, App. 36, justify the inference.

There may well be other generic circumstances in which an implied assurance of confidentiality fairly can be inferred. The Court of Appeals suggested that the fact that the investigation in this case concerned the potentially gang-related shooting of a police officer was probative. We agree that the character of the crime at issue may be relevant to determining whether a source cooperated with the FBI with an implied assurance of confidentiality. So too may the source's relation to the crime. Most people would think that witnesses to a gang-related murder likely would be unwilling to speak to the Bureau except on the condition of confidentiality.

The Court of Appeals below declined to rely on such circumstances. But several other Court of Appeals decisions (including some of those the Government cites favorably) have justified nondisclosure under Exemption 7(D) by examining factors such as the nature of the crime and the source's relation to it. See, e. g., Keys v. United States Dept. of Justice, 265 U. S. App. D. C. 189, 197-198, 830 F. 2d 337, 345- 346 (1987) (individuals who provided information about subject's possible Communist sympathies, criminal activity, and murder by foreign operatives would have worried about re-

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