The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) applied to the District Court for enforcement of an administrative subpoena duces tecum requiring the Retail Credit Company (Retail) to produce documentary evidence for a Commission investigation of the practices of certain consumer reporting agencies under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. Following a trial the District Court ruled that the FTC, like other Government agencies seeking consumer credit reports regulated by the FCRA, must obtain a court order or the permission of affected consumers in order to compel disclosure of the documents.1 Because we conclude that the FTC has special statutory power incident to its role as enforcer of the FCRA, we reverse.

* In 1970 Congress appended to the Consumer Credit Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq., a number of provisions collectively known as the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Section 602 of the FCRA recognized that "(c)onsumer reporting agencies have assumed a vital role in assembling and evaluating consumer credit and other information on consumers" and affirmed the "need to insure that (such) agencies exercise their grave responsibilities with fairness, impartiality, and a respect for the consumer's right to privacy." The congressional prescription was a comprehensive series of restrictions on the disclosure and use of credit information assembled by consumer reporting agencies. Section 604 identifies three instances in which reporting agencies may furnish credit reports: (1) in response to an appropriate court order; (2) by permission of consumers whose credit ratings are documented in the reports sought; and (3) to a person with a legitimate business interest in the information.2 Section 608 allows disclosure of limited portions of the reports essentially identifying information to governmental agencies unable to qualify under any of the subsections of section 604.3 The Act attaches special restrictions to the preparation and disclosure of investigative consumer reports4 and requires that an agency apprise a consumer who makes an appropriate request of the nature and substance of information in his file, the sources of the data, and the identity of parties to whom it is released.5

Section 621 sets forth an elaborate scheme for administrative enforcement of the FCRA. Subsection (a) imposes upon the Federal Trade Commission the responsibility for enforcing compliance with the requirements of the FCRA with respect to the preponderance of consumer reporting agencies and affirms the Commission's right to use its customary procedural, investigative and enforcement powers.6 Subsection (b) commits enforcement obligations to specified Government agencies where enumerated institutions or statutes are involved.7 Though each of the agencies listed in (b) is authorized to use all authority conferred on it by law to enforce the FCRA in its respective province, none wields powers as comprehensive as that of the FTC.

On April 1, 1972, as part of an ongoing investigation of the practices of certain consumer reporting agencies, the FTC issued a subpoena duces tecum to the Manager of the Miami Branch Office of the Retail Credit Company.8 The company assembles and sells data bearing on an individual's credit rating, fitness for employment, and qualifications for insurance, including personal information on character, reputation, and life style. Specification 7 of the subpoena requested production of the complete files of all consumers who since January 1 had directed the Miami Branch Office to release information in their files. Specification 9 sought the complete files of all individuals investigated by four named credit investigators during certain periods of time. Retail complied with the entirety of the subpoena save specifications 7 and 9; in a letter dated May 8, 1972, the company explained that the disclosures requested in those paragraphs would violate both section 604 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the rights of privacy of those consumers whose reports the Commission was seeking.9

The FTC petitioned the District Court for an order compelling compliance with its subpoena and for a declaration, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2201 (1959), that section 621 of the FCRA permits voluntary compliance with Commission requests for the production of consumer reports. Retail Credit counterclaimed for a declaration that the Act forbids distribution of consumer reports unless the request is supported by court order or consumer authorization. Because the FTC managed to obtain some of Retail's consumer reports distributed to insurance companies after the initial pleadings were filed, Retail amended its counterclaim to include a request for a declaration that no person or organization could release its reports unless the requirements of section 604 were followed.

At trial Commission witnesses testified to the need for prompt access to consumer reports in investigations of reporting agencies' compliance with the FCRA. Retail responded that the language of the statute did not allow disclosure by administrative subpoena, that the procedures which the Act specified were adequate for the Commission's task, and that the privacy considerations which had prompted passage of the FCRA militated against any unauthorized or unnecessary disclosure. On April 23, 1973, the District Court entered an order denying the Commission's power to compel production of Retail's consumer reports by administrative subpoena. Instead the court treated the FTC petition as an application for a court order under section 604 of the FCRA and proceeded to grant the application, subject to Commission notification, by mail and publication, of the consumers whose reports were sought, in order to afford them an opportunity to refuse disclosure. Because the court denied the FTC direct access to Retail's consumer reports, it similarly disapproved the agency's efforts to secure the reports from third parties who had purchased them for legitimate business purposes, and forbad that line of attack in the future.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act speaks with apparent ambiguity of the FTC's power to obtain consumer reports from reporting agencies. Section 604 establishes a seemingly exclusive catalogue of the instances in which reports may be disclosed "A consumer reporting agency may furnish a consumer report under the following circumstances and no other" and includes in the list disclosure by court order, with consumer permission, and for a legitimate business purpose. Section 608 also specifically authorizes disclosure of limited identifying information to Government agencies and thus creates no real exception to the general prohibition of section 604.

On the other hand, section 621(a), the provision for administrative enforcement of the FCRA, grants the Commission "such procedural, investigative, and enforcement powers, including the power . . . to require . . . the production of documents, and the appearance of witnesses as though the applicable terms and conditions of the Federal Trade Commission Act were part of this title." (Emphasis added.) The inclusive language of the relevant portion of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 49, applicable to enforcement of the FCRA mutatis mutandis, indicates that the investigative powers of the Commission are broad enough to include the subpoena of consumer reports:

(F)or the purposes of this Act the Commission . . . shall at all reasonable times have access to, for the purpose of examination, and the right to copy any documentary evidence of any corporation being investigated or proceeded against; and the commission shall have the power to require by subpoena the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of all such documentary evidence relating to any matter under investigation. . . . (Emphasis added.)

The Commission's plenary power to secure information bearing on authorized agency inquiries is well established by judicial decision. United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338 U.S. 632, 652-53, 70 S. Ct. 357, 94 L. Ed. 401 (1950); Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186, 199-201, 216-17, 66 S. Ct. 494, 90 L. Ed. 614 (1946); Adams v. FTC, 296 F.2d 861, 866 (8th Cir. 1961), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 864, 82 S. Ct. 1029, 8 L. Ed. 2d 83 (1962); FTC v. Green, 252 F. Supp. 153 (S.D.N.Y.1966). Cf. FTC v. Browning, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 292, 295 n. 7, 435 F.2d 96, 99 n. 7 (1970). Claims of secrecy of subpoenaed information have generally proved no barrier to discovery by the FTC. FTC v. Tuttle, 244 F.2d 605 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 354 U.S. 925, 77 S. Ct. 1379, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1436 (1957); FTC v. Cooper, CCH 1962 Trade Cases, P 70, 353 (S.D.N.Y.). As Justice Jackson remarked in Morton Salt, supra, interpreting the precise statute that is here incorporated by reference, "(w)hen investigative and accusatory duties are delegated by statute to an administrative body, it, too, may take steps to inform itself as to whether there is probable violation of the law." 338 U.S. at 643, 70 S.Ct. at 364. "The only power that is involved here is the power to get information from those who best can give it and who are most interested in not doing so." 338 U.S. at 642, 70 S.Ct. at 364.

To interpret correctly the powers which Congress conferred on the FTC we must resort to various tools of interpretation. The District Court employed two distinct analytic methods legislative history and traditional canons of statutory construction both of which led it to the determination that sections 604 and 608 define the limits of FTC power to obtain consumer credit reports. We find the latter method dispositive, and mention the legislative history of the FCRA only to demonstrate that it neither supports nor undermines our conclusion, but is in fact mute on the issue involved in this case.

The principle that a specific statutory provision prevails over a more general provision is established beyond question. Clifford F. MacEvoy Co. v. United States, 322 U.S. 102, 107, 64 S. Ct. 890, 88 L. Ed. 1163 (1944)10; D. Ginsberg & Sons v. Popkin, 285 U.S. 204, 208, 52 S. Ct. 322, 76 L. Ed. 704 (1932); United States v. City of Chester, 144 F.2d 415, 421 (3d Cir. 1944). The District Court applied this rule and found that sections 604 and 608 deal more specifically with disclosure of consumer reports than section 621, a general statement of FTC powers and responsibilities. Because disclosure was identified as the pertinent subject, the Act's general statement of disclosure requirements, section 604, the most thorough treatment of the topic, was accorded priority. Of course a topic can always be isolated which is treated more precisely in one paragraph than in the next. But this controversy revolves around FTC power to compel production of reports in aid of its duty to enforce the Act, not around reporting agencies' responsibilities in voluntarily releasing data in their daily operations. The proposition can scarcely be stated in terms which do not answer the question this case presents, that section 621 deals more specifically with FTC authority to obtain consumer reports for enforcement purposes than do sections 604 and 608, which outline the general requirements of confidentiality imposed on reporting agencies vis-a-vis consumers and clients.

Section 608, "Disclosure to Governmental Agencies," specifically allows disclosure of "identifying information respecting any consumer . . . to a government agency." Clearly agencies in need of greater detail must pursue it according to the strictures of section 604, absent some other statutory basis for access to consumer reports. Retail reasoned, and the trial court ruled, that section 608 creates "no special exception . . . for the Federal Trade Commission."11 This conclusion is predicated on the faulty premise that section 608 is the sole provision in the Act creating an exception from section 604 for governmental agencies. Section 608 confers additional power on agencies, but without restrictive language of the sort used in section 604. Section 621, like section 608, constitutes an exception to the general rule of section 604 in fact, it is the precise "special exception . . . for the Federal Trade Commission" which the trial court overlooked. To the general rule for governmental agencies, section 621 adds additional authority: in fulfilling its duty of administrative enforcement, the FTC shall have "the power . . . to require . . . the production of documents . . . as though the applicable terms and conditions of the Federal Trade Commission Act were part of this title." As noted, in the absence of a statutory directive to the contrary FTC power to subpoena documents is not circumscribed by claims of confidentiality. It is difficult to imagine a more specific grant of enforcement powers under the FCRA or a more explicit articulation of FTC authority to compel production of consumer reports than the language of section 621.

Another canon of construction might be invoked to yield the same conclusion. The presumption against interpreting a statute in a way which renders it ineffective is hornbook law. General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Whisnant, 387 F.2d 774, 778 (5th Cir. 1968); Uptagrafft v. United States,315 F.2d 200, 204 (4th Cir. 1963); Abbot v. Bralove, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 189, 190-91, 176 F.2d 64, 65-66 (1949). We perceive no way to read that part of section 621 which vests investigatory power in the FTC as subordinate to sections 604 and 608 without stripping the former provision of all significance. Such a construction would make all language in section 621 affirming Commission power to use its administrative subpoena to compel the production of relevant documents either redundant or an utter nullity.12 In the face of a perfectly plausible and consistent alternative construction of the statute, this position is untenable. See generally Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co., 367 U.S. 303, 307-08, 81 S. Ct. 1579, 6 L. Ed. 2d 859 (1961); United States v. Menasche, 348 U.S. 528, 538-39, 75 S. Ct. 513, 99 L. Ed. 615 (1955); Abbot v. Bralove, supra; Ruiz v. Morton, 462 F.2d 818, 819-20 (9th Cir. 1972).

The principle that a statute should be read and construed as a whole is also germane to this situation. See United States v. American Trucking Ass'ns, Inc., 310 U.S. 534, 542-43, 60 S. Ct. 1059, 84 L. Ed. 1345 (1940); Smither & Co. v. Coles, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 68, 70, 242 F.2d 220, 222, cert. denied, 354 U.S. 914, 77 S. Ct. 1299, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1129 (1957). Had sections 604 and 608 not contained generalized statements on the disclosure and discoverability of consumer reports, the FTC would have enjoyed its customary enforcement powers, including the power to obtain documents by administrative subpoena, without any express declaration to that effect.13 Because the broad language of sections 604 and 608 might call the FTC's investigatory powers into question, section 621 specifically authorizes the Commission by administrative subpoena to compel the production of documents in enforcement proceedings. The significance of this latter provision is highlighted when it is read in conjunction with sections 604 and 608; it is the specific exception to the more general statements limiting the disclosure of consumer reports which the District Court sought.

The proper function of legislative history is to resolve ambiguity, not to create it. United States v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 278 U.S. 269, 278, 49 S. Ct. 133, 73 L. Ed. 322 (1929)14; Montgomery Charter Service, Inc. v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission, 117 U.S.App.D.C. 34, 37, 325 F.2d 230, 233 (1963). When the FCRA is read as an integrated whole it does not speak ambiguously of the FTC's power to compel the production of consumer reports; on the contrary, the specific language of section 621 affirms that power. We examine the legislative history of the Act to demonstrate that it does not contradict our interpretation of provisions of the statute.

Retail argued, and the District Court ruled, that the Senate meant unequivocally to require that information disclosed to any governmental agency be limited to identifying data, unless the requirements of section 604 were met. The Senate Committee Report on S. 823, passed by the Senate on November 6, 1969, states:

Section 608. Disclosure to Governmental Agencies

The disclosure of information to governmental agencies is limited to identifying type information . . . unless the governmental agency has obtained a court order or is a bona fide creditor, insurer, employer, or licensor.15

We find the impact of this "unequivocal legislative history" mitigated substantially by the Senate Committee's equally concise explanation of the provision enacted as section 621. The Committee report states that to supplement judicial enforcement of the Act through civil actions brought by consumers,

(c)ompliance would be further enforced by the Federal Trade Commission with respect to consumer reporting agencies and users of reports who are not regulated by another Federal agency. The FTC can use the cease and desist authorities and other procedural, investigative and enforcement powers which it has under the FTC Act to secure compliance.16

No more explicit affirmation of the availability of the full panoply of FTC investigative powers was necessary to indicate that the Commission's statutory role as guardian of the FCRA excepted it from the strictures of sections 604 and 608 in fulfilling that role. That the specific should prevail over the general is not merely a technical canon of statutory construction, but also, to borrow Justice Holmes' phrase, an axiom of experience.17 Logic, experience and the law dictate that the item of legislative history which speaks most particularly of the FTC's power to require the production of documents in a given situation should be given the greatest weight.

During congressional deliberation of the FCRA other agencies whose statutory functions would be aided by access to the reports and whose use of the documents would be to the consumers' advantage requested the power to obtain consumer reports without securing a court order or consumer permission. Because Congress did not act upon these claims of need and benign purpose, Retail argues that the FTC should not be accorded a preferred position on the ground that prompt access to the reports is essential to enforcement of the Act and the protection of consumers' interests. But the legislative decision to ignore pleas for outright exemptions from sections 604 and 608 advanced by the Federal Reserve Board and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are of negligible significance. Both agencies are given specific authority to enforce compliance with the FCRA in section 621(b) of the Act, according to the terms of their respective organic statutes. Those bodies appealed to Congress for new statutory authority, the power to obtain confidential reports by administrative subpoena; the FTC seeks only to maintain an investigative tool which has traditionally been part of its hegemony, and which is specifically incorporated into the FCRA by the language of section 621(a). Moreover, the significance of congressional inaction in these circumstances cannot be equated with the force of the explicit phrasing of section 621.

The legislative history of the Act, particularly the Senate Committee's broad affirmation of the FTC's investigative enforcement powers, is consistent with specific language in section 621 outlining the Commission's unique role in supervising the conduct of reporting agencies. In that supervisory capacity the FTC is distinct from the general class of governmental agencies to which section 608 refers; its duty to enforce the FCRA creates a particular and continuous need for access to consumer reports, a need of a different order from that of any other governmental agency.

The District Court also ruled that the limitations of section 604 governed the FTC's attempts to obtain consumer credit reports from Retail's customers in particular, from certain insurance companies which on several occasions had furnished the Commission with the documents in the absence of an appropriate court order. That ruling was predicated on two conclusions: that the Commission could not pursue by indirection a course specifically forbidden by the FCRA; and implicitly, that the Act was intended to cover disclosure of confidential credit information by parties other than reporting agencies. Because we disagree with its premises, we must disapprove this ancillary holding as well.

By its terms section 604 regulates disclosure by "consumer reporting agencies" and no other parties. Passage of the FCRA was prompted by concern over the power of those agencies and the potential for abuse it presented, not the lesser risk of subsequent disclosures or distortions by the more fragmented group of customers of reporting agencies.18 The sole manifestation of congressional attention to the latter problem is section 615, which imposes upon users of consumer reports the duty to disclose to individuals whose credit is impaired the identity of reporting agencies which compiled the damaging information, and which allows a consumer to discover the nature of data which adversely affects his credit standing regardless of whether it is disseminated by a reporting agency. A number of other consumer safeguards19 help to create a substantial likelihood that a consumer will be aware that information potentially damaging to his credit standing is in circulation. Because at that point the consumer may discover and challenge the information, regulation of disclosure by users to third parties is a less essential aspect of the protection of the confidentiality of personal information used in the determination of credit standing.

Since the Commission may obtain reports from reporting agencies without regard to sections 604 or 608 in enforcing the FCRA, a fortiori those provisions should not bar disclosure to the FTC by the customers of the agencies, parties not within the purview of the Act.

Our determination that third parties may obtain consumer reports from customers of reporting agencies is founded on the language of the FCRA; it does not evidence disagreement with the congressional conclusion that unlimited disclosure of information bearing on personal financial affairs, lifestyle and character will do harm both to individuals involved and to the banking system. Though we rule that the FTC may obtain consumer reports by administrative subpoena in enforcing the Act, we find implicit in the statutory scheme of the FCRA the caveat that the Commission is prohibited from using information which it obtains under section 621 for any purpose other than carrying out its enforcement duties under the Act.20

This qualification imposes on the FTC a burden not shared by individuals or organizations who obtain consumer reports under section 604. But those users of reporting agencies' data have either made a showing sufficient to secure a court order compelling disclosure, or they have purchased the information to fulfill a presumably legitimate business need. As users of credit reports they are specifically made liable to the civil penalties imposed by sections 616 and 617 for failure to comply with the notification requirements of section 615. Certain natural forces may induce these users to keep credit reports confidential. For example, a potential employer or business associate whose reputation is essential to financial success will be chary of indiscriminate disclosures of personal material when to make those disclosures could harm his esteem and thus his competitive position in a given business community.

The FTC stands in an altogether different posture. Congress afforded it a means of quick access to consumer reports for a solitary and limited purpose: enforcement of the FCRA. The Commission's interest lies not in evaluating the details of consumers' financial positions or character analyses, but rather in protecting consumers from certain proscribed reporting practices. Because section 621 gives the FTC a specific and exclusive province of administrative enforcement, subsequent disclosure of data the Commission subpoenas cannot, in the ordinary case, serve the limited purpose for which the subpoena is authorized. Thus we conclude that the FTC, to the maximum extent consistent with its enforcement duties, must safeguard the confidentiality of any information in consumer reports it obtains by administrative subpoena under section 621 of the FCRA.

Reversed.