grounds gentleman was tried on a drug case the informant who was the material witness against him admitted on cross examination that the name he'd been using was not his real name the defense lawyer asked his real name the prosecutor objected the judge sustained the injection did not allow the defendant to learn the informers name or where he lived this priem court found that sufficient to reverse the gentleman's conviction the court found that knowing someone's identity and where they are from is the heart of any effective cross examination that opinion was to got eight identity correct in for the informant in this case was known my client the informant was known to my client which is why he's not part of this appeal but the case agent who met with my client here in the united states was certainly not known to my client and the agent in afghanistan who participated in these deals in afghanistan was not known to my client never met my client i don't think it ever been to the united states before he testified so that i don't think there's any question that you preserved your argument as to how did you preserve this issue on appeal with regard to  enough the agent and i filed i don't know i think a ten page opposition and shortly after that the government filed another motion motion  requesting anonymity for the afghan agent i thought the arguments in my motion i didn't know the specifics because the factual proffered were under seal as to the st filing so i couldn't respond as to the specifics i could only make general legal arguments which were actually i thought applicable to both the agent at and the afghani officer but with regard to paul you specifically said realistically no background investigation i'm going to be able to do on him even if i know on the afghan agent even if i knew who he was i mean that's what you said on the record and what i said on the record but i'm able to talk to my client who had some knowledge of afghanistan and perhaps glean other ever mation  and wasn't proposing to go there myself but in any event i think that only goes to whether it's harmless error or not whether there was a or because it's just an audio found there was no factual proffer made as to to support anonymity so with regard to mystify i mean you're not arguing that no matter what the facts are you're entitle to  a name i mean there's a there's a test that we have to apply and it's not just that you always get the name right i mean and the question i think the question is i think  how involved was the person how helpful with the name be to the defense and what's the government's interest in non disclosure so we wanted to take a minute and address if if i've stated the test correctly those aspects of the test i can if i can just point out the beginning of your question actually the supreme court has never ruled that there are times where you can't get the true name the court the courts opinions said you are entitled to the to name all of  all of the jurisprudence supporting the government's right to allow someone this is a test by under pseudonyms or only circuit opinions there are no supreme court opinions allowing that the supreme court said pretty clearly in smithville versus illinois or in top of the name in your title to know where they live if you don't get it it's a reversible error so all of the supreme court all of the court of appeal opinions saying that some witnesses can testify anonymous or based on the concurring opinion by justice white and i'll admit there all the circuits have allowed this including the circuit for over forty years now and essentially they have to prove that there's  they have to prove that there's a threat and then this court and this court has to decide whether or not the anonymous testimony deprived the defendant the right to effective cross examination found and they ordered the government to provide me with some background information about his training how long you've been an agent where i had been trained that type of thing  there was no as you can see from the record there was nothing disclosed that was useful in  but did you at any time complain about the scope or deficiencies with respect to the potential of petri material that the government provided to mr dosed no i mean judge basically told them to provide anything that could be useful in impeachment and i had no reason to think they didn't comply with his order so what what what i got was what was there so i  good morning honors may please the court my name is nick hill but got and i represent the united states in this appeal under the very specific circumstances of this case the district court did not abuse its discretion or plainly error when it allowed two witnesses an undercover f b i agent and an undercover afghan police officer to testify under pseudonyms and moreover because the disclosure of these two witnesses true names would not have altered the outcome of this trial any alleged error is harmless honour's the district court did exactly what it was supposed to do under the supreme court's cases invent hours stall in and in smith it conducted a careful balancing analysis balancing the defendant's right to confrontation with the government's interests here in witness safety and in national security and in fact your honour's judge and below took pains to place he only place limits on the defendant's confrontation clause rights by what he called quote the least intrusive means and that's at the written order at record seven hundred and forty seven dollars the district court made a number of very specific findings here with regard to both of these witnesses with regard to the f b i agent the district  found the disclosure would jeopardize national security that it would compromise the value and usefulness of one of just a handful of undercover f b i agents who were engaged in counterterrorism work the district court also found that disclosing this agent's name would disclose f b i techniques to foreign intelligence services and finally also found that disclosing the name would place the agent and his family at risk with respect to the afghan officer was it paul the government did not it is true the government did not submit a declaration in support of its motion as to a ball but the government but the government provided very specific facts that the district court accepted in this case the government provided specific evidence that the afghan officer was going to continue to conduct undercover counter narcotics work in afghanistan that after the arrest in this case a person connected to this case had offered a reward of forty thousand dollars in order to locate this person and as we noted in our briefing forty thousand dollars in afghanistan means a lot something a lot different than it does in the united states was a reason why the government did it didn't provide a declaration with respect to mr ekdahl but he did so from a stuff so your honor  it's it's not in the record why there was not a declaration provided as to it ball with respect to mustafa the undercover officer the government sees me provided that declaration pursuant to the procedures of the classified information procedures act and that statute lays out how the government supposed to provide that information to the court and that includes a sealed declaration that was filed in accordance with the classified procedures as well  s the ex parte procedures so is understand the evidence the defendant testified and admitted he was part of a plan to sell five kilos of her when in afghanistan but but he said that any discussion about the united states was worth a law is is that in is is that the the substance of his testimony on that issue so that's one part of it your honor he did not dispute anything that he said to me stop at the f b i he was asked on direct you just do any of that stuff you told him he said no but i think the gist of the testimony was well i was just bragging to the f b i agent trying to impress him that i had all these connections in the united states when really in fact that wasn't the case so that i was there was a key part of his defense the the yes i said it but i didn't really mean it i think that would be one part of the defense and the the other part of the mr  direct mr dos testimony was look you know i i got involved in the drugs and i was part of this but i didn't really get involved in it until the informant got me involved in it and so there wasn't there was an entrapment defense presented sort of in the end of this trial but i think i think a fair characterization of mr davis testimony would be look all all the things that i said to mr weren't really true and also with respect to  the informant he's the one who sort of got me into this was an entrapment instruction request that are given no your honor to both of those things and i would also say your honor mustafa's testimony was lengthier than it falls in this case and certainly we don't dispute that but if you look at the substance of mustafa's testimony in this case it's almost entirely authenticating audio and video recorded evidence none of which the defendant disputed when he testified district also ordered the disclosure of background information training information employment information as to both of these witnesses your honor you mention that the mr dos had admitted to his involvement in the five kilogram deal and that was the subject of count three here but mr davis also admitted to also admitted drug traffic in other aspects of his testimony he said that he was trying to find someone to sell heroin that that record excerpt one hundred and sixty eight he testified that well i didn't know anything about drugs until the the informant until i met the informant until the informant got me involved all of those were admissions again also go to the harmlessness here for mr ball the government argued that mr dos had forfeited this argument with respect to image or was there any reason why i didn't argue that whether he waived that argument as opposed to forfeit your honor i think i think i'm not i'm not entirely sure that we didn't we didn't argue that he waived it i think what we said was the correct standard that this court should apply here is plain error because it wasn't raised below and certainly there's nowhere in the in the district court record where you can find where the the issue of a ball comes up and as the court mentioned previously in fact those counsel admit that he cases talk about balancing tests and they also talk about making sure that the government has specific reasons and we would submit that in this case the district court found that with regard to the f b i agent there was a detailed declaration set out from w was able to make those very specific findings and with respect to ball although there was no declaration there certainly was the government's motion and attach to the government's motion was a report that set out the very  accurate so in the van arsdale case the district the supreme court said that the district court has wide latitude to place reasonable limits on cross and that the confrontation clause right is not unlimited in the supreme court said that there's  no fixed rule with respect to disclosure and in smith in smith they characterized the confrontation clause right as quote the adequate opportunity to place a witness in his proper setting and put the weight of his testimony in credibility to  a test and in this case particularly given that the district court provided the background information the training records the employment information of both of these witnesses certainly the defendant had that opportunity as to b would obviously disagree with the characterization that his testimony was just authenticating videos it was not i was there it was it was devastating he offered opinions about things that my client said  about whether they were the kinds of things that an experienced drug trafficker would say his testimony was not he was not just some sort of custodian here finally  as to the threats the government was asking for a sentence of something closer to twenty years here i forget judge and out it gave him ten which was a mandatory minimum because my client was working in an outlet store and there were more he was not an international drug trafficker he may have been an aspiring one obviously that there were no threats by my client or relating to my client it was all just puffery thank you doctor if you don't questions i think you're on i'm thank you the case just argued will be deemed submitted