spirit of the Act and with court decisions interpreting FOIA to mandate disclosure of information to the public. See, e. g., Administration of the Freedom of Information Act, H. R. Rep. No. 92-1419 (1972), reprinted in 1975 Source Book 18, 79-80. As the amending legislation was reported out of the respective Committees, no change in Exemption 7 was recommended. See n. 14, infra. The 1974 amendment of Exemption 7 resulted instead from a proposal on the floor by Senator Hart during Senate debate.

Senator Hart, in introducing his floor amendment, noted that the original intent of the 1966 Congress "was to prevent harm to the Government's case in court by not allowing an opposing litigant earlier or greater access to investigatory files than he would otherwise have." 1975 Source Book 332. He indicated his continued agreement with this purpose, id., at 333, but stated that recent court decisions had gone beyond this original intent by shielding from disclosure information that Congress had not intended to protect. Senator Hart emphasized his concern that "material cannot be and ought not be exempt merely because it can be categorized as an investigatory file compiled for law enforcement purposes." Ibid.

In colloquy with Senator Kennedy on the floor, Senator Hart stated specifically, id., at 349, that the amendment's purpose was to respond to four decisions of the District of

This 89-page Report resulted from several days of hearings held by the House Government Operations Committee. Its focus was primarily on the procedural aspects of FOIA, and it manifested little discontent with the substantive disclosure and exemption requirements of the Act. See Administration of the Freedom of Information Act, H. R. Rep. No. 92-1419 (1972), reprinted in House Committee on Government Operations and Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Freedom of Information Act and Amendments of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-502) Source Book, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 15 (Joint Comm. Print 1975) (identification of "major problem areas") (hereinafter cited as 1975 Source Book).

Columbia Circuit, commencing with the en banc decision in Weisberg v. United States Dept. of Justice, 160 U. S. App. D. C. 71, 489 F. 2d 1195 (1973), cert. denied, 416 U. S. 993 (1974). There, the plaintiff had sought disclosure of certain material in investigatory files relating to the assassination of President Kennedy, files that had been compiled 10 years before. Although the court acknowledged that no enforcement proceedings were then pending or contemplated, it held that all the agency need show to be entitled to withhold under Exemption 7 was that the records were investigatory in nature and had been compiled for law enforcement purposes. 160 U. S. App. D. C., at 74, 489 F. 2d, at 1198. The court adhered to this holding in Aspin v. Department of Defense, 160 U. S. App. D. C. 231, 237, 491 F. 2d 24, 30 (1973), stating that even "after the termination of investigation and enforcement proceedings," material found in an investigatory file is entirely exempt. In Ditlow v. Brinegar, 161 U. S. App. D. C. 154, 494 F.2d 1073 (1974), the court indicated that, after Weisberg, the only question before it was whether the requested material was found in an investigatory file compiled for law enforcement purposes. Finally, in Center for National Policy Review on Race and Urban Issues v. Weinberger, 163 U. S. App. D. C. 368, 502 F.2d 370 (1974), the court held that the investigatory file exemption was available even if an enforcement proceeding

In response to Senator Hruska's remarks that the amendment of Exemption 7 was likely to result in lawlessness due to ineffective law enforcement activities, Senator Kennedy stated that there had "been a gross misinterpretation of the actual words of the amendment and its intention." 1975 Source Book 349. In order "for the record to be extremely clear," he continued, what the amendment sought to do was "be specific about safeguarding . . . legitimate investigations... by the Federal agencies." He then asked Senator Hart whether its "impact and effect [was] to override" the four decisions discussed in the text. Ibid. The Conference Report on the 1974 amendments similarly states that the Exemption 7 amendment was designed to clarify Congress' intent to disapprove of certain court decisions. Id., at 229.

were neither imminent nor likely either at the time of the compilation or at the time disclosure was sought. These four cases, in Senator Hart's view, erected a "stone wall" against public access to any material in an investigatory file. 1975 Source Book 332.10

Senator Hart believed that his amendment would rectify these erroneous judicial interpretations and clarify Congress' original intent in two ways. First, by substituting the word "records" for "files," it would make clear that courts had to consider the nature of the particular document as to which exemption was claimed, in order to avoid the possibility of

10 Although much of the debate on this amendment focused on the problems of access to "closed files," two of the four D. C. Circuit cases involved files in still-pending investigations. Ditlow v. Brinegar; Center for National Policy Review of Race and Urban Issues v. Weinberger. But we do not understand the thrust of the Board's argument to depend solely on its file being "open." Instead, the Board points to the particular nature of these proceedings and the imminence of an actual adjudicatory proceeding on the charge. Since Senators Kennedy and Hart carefully explained the amendment's purpose as being to eliminate a "wooden" and overly literal approach to the language of the Exemption, we do not read their reference to these two cases to mean that consideration of the pendency of an as-yet-unresolved charge to which the material sought relates is a factor that cannot be considered.

Assuming, arguendo, that the references to Ditlow and Weinberger mean that Congress disapproved of their holdings, as well as their reasoning, we do not think this disapproval undercuts our conclusion that the records sought here are protected. In Ditlow, Exemption 7 was held to protect correspondence between automobile manufacturers and the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration concerning an apparently extended investigation of possible defects. Similarly, in Weinberger, Exemption 7 protection was extended to material in investigatory files of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare relating to desegregation of the public schools in the North. In each of these cases, no enforcement proceeding was contemplated, much less imminent. Here, by contrast, an imminent adjudicatory proceeding is involved, in which the special dangers of interference with enforcement proceedings from prehearing disclosure are necessarily of a finite duration.

impermissible "commingling" by an agency's placing in an investigatory file material that did not legitimately have to be kept confidential. Id., at 451. Second, it would explicitly enumerate the purposes and objectives of the Exemption, and thus require reviewing courts to "loo[k] to the reasons" for allowing withholding of investigatory files before making their decisions. Id., at 334. The "woode[n] and mechanica [1]" approach taken by the D. C. Circuit and disapproved by Congress would thereby be eliminated. Id., at 335 (remarks of Sen. Kennedy). As Congressman Moorhead explained to the House, the Senate amendment was needed to address "recent court decisions" that had applied the exemptions to investigatory files "even if they ha[d] long since lost any requirement for secrecy." Id., at 378.

Thus, the thrust of congressional concern in its amendment of Exemption 7 was to make clear that the Exemption did not endlessly protect material simply because it was in an investigatory file. Although, as indicated previously, no change in this section was reported out of committee, both Senate and House Committees had considered proposals to amend the provision." The Hart amendment was identical in respects

11 Both S. 1142 and H. R. 5425, as introduced in the 93d Congress, would have amended Exemption 7 to read as follows:

"(7) investigatory records compiled for any specific law-enforcement purpose the disclosure of which is not in the public interest, except to the extent that

"(A) any such investigatory records are available by law to a party other than an agency, or

"(B) any such investigatory records are

"(i) scientific tests, reports, or data.

"(ii) inspection reports of any agency which relate to health, safety, environmental protection, or

"'(iii) records which serve as a basis for any public policy statement made by any agency or officer or employee of the United States or which serve as a basis for rulemaking by any agency.'

See 1 Hearings on S. 858 et al. before the Subcommittee on Intergovern

here relevant to a proposal submitted during the hearings by the Administrative Law Division of the American Bar Association.12 2 Senate Hearings 158. The purpose of this proposal,

mental Relations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and the Subcommittees on Separation of Powers and Administrative Practice and Procedure of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 507 (1973) (hereinafter Senate Hearings); Hearings on H. R. 5425 et al. before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (1973) (hereinafter House Hearings). In addition, H. R. 4960 would have amended the Exemption with the following language:

"investigatory records complied [sic] for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that production of such records would constitute (A) a genuine risk to enforcement proceedings. (B) a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, or (c) [sic] a threat to life." House Hearings 12.

The hearings on these proposals reflected Senator Hart's concern that the courts were applying the language of the Exemption too literally and without regard for its underlying purposes. One witness from the American Civil Liberties Union, for example, emphasized that "[w]hat is being gotten at here . . . is the old investigatory files, the dead files, the files that are yellowing in the Justice Department and the FBI . . . ." 2 Hearings on S. 1142 et al. before the Subcommittees on Administrative Practice and Procedure and Separation of Powers of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 40 (1973) (hereinafter cited as 2 Senate Hearings) (statement of John Shattuck, ACLU staff counsel). See also House Hearings 28 (remarks of Rep. Erlenborn); id., at 78 (remarks of Rep. Horton). Senator Kennedy at one point proposed an amendment that would protect only actively pending cases, 2 Senate Hearings 2; the proposal was similar to a Justice Department proposal that would exempt all files in pending cases, and closed files but to a more limited extent. Id., at 227.

12 The ABA proposal exempted:

"Investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such records would (A) interfere with enforcement proceedings, (B) deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) disclose the identity of an