Case ID: f-appx_506/html/0547-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Leonard Weinglass, Esq., Plaintiff, v. NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY; National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 11-55754.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted Jan. 9, 2013.
    Filed Jan. 23, 2013.
    Carlos R. Holguin, Esquire, Peter Anthony Schey, Esquire, Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law, Los Angeles, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellant and Plaintiff.
    Michael P. Abate, Karen P. Seifert, Michael Raab, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Defendants-Appel-lees.
    Before: KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, McKEOWN and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges.
   MEMORANDUM

The district court erred in granting summary judgment without requiring the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to submit a classified declaration for in camera review. The government’s unclassified declaration failed to provide “reasonably specific detail” that would show why merely acknowledging the existence of records might reveal intelligence sources or methods, or affect our foreign relations. See Berman v. CIA, 501 F.3d 1136, 1140 (9th Cir.2007); see also 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1), (8); 50 U.S.C. § 403-1(0(1); Exec. Order No. 13,526, §§ 1.1, 1.4(c), (d), 75 Fed.Reg. 707 (Jan. 5, 2010). If this were sufficient to support summary judgment, the government would be free to issue a Glomar response in practically every case involving satellite images and records, as well as many other surveillance activities.

On remand, the agency shall provide a classified declaration for in camera review by the district court, as it offered at oral argument. The court may then reconsider its summary judgment ruling in light of the information so provided.

REVERSED AND REMANDED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.