Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-56867/USCOURTS-ca9-12-56867-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

YASSIR FAZAGA; ALI UDDIN 

MALIK; YASSER ABDELRAHIM,

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v. 

FEDERAL BUREAU OF 

INVESTIGATION; CHRISTOPHER 

A. WRAY, Director of the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation, in his official 

capacity; PAUL DELACOURT, 

Assistant Director in Charge, Federal 

Bureau of Investigation’s Los Angeles 

Division, in his official capacity; PAT 

ROSE; KEVIN ARMSTRONG; 

PAUL ALLEN,

Defendants, 

and 

BARBARA WALLS; J. STEPHEN 

TIDWELL,

Defendants-Appellants,

No. 12-56867 

D.C. No. 

8:11-cv-00301-

CJC-VBK 

OPINION

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2 FAZAGA V. FBI

YASSIR FAZAGA; ALI UDDIN 

MALIK; YASSER ABDELRAHIM,

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v. 

FEDERAL BUREAU OF 

INVESTIGATION; CHRISTOPHER 

A. WRAY, Director of the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation, in his official 

capacity; PAUL DELACOURT, 

Assistant Director in Charge, Federal 

Bureau of Investigation's Los Angeles 

Division, in his official capacity; J. 

STEPHEN TIDWELL; BARBARA 

WALLS,

Defendants, 

and 

PAT ROSE; KEVIN ARMSTRONG; 

PAUL ALLEN,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 12-56874 

D.C. No. 

8:11-cv-00301-

CJC-VBK 

YASSIR FAZAGA; ALI UDDIN 

MALIK; YASSER ABDELRAHIM,

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v. 

No. 13-55017 

D.C. No. 

8:11-cv-00301-

CJC-VBK 

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FAZAGA V. FBI 3

FEDERAL BUREAU OF 

INVESTIGATION; CHRISTOPHER 

A. WRAY, Director of the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation, in his official 

capacity; PAUL DELACOURT, 

Assistant Director in Charge, Federal 

Bureau of Investigation’s Los Angeles 

Division, in his official capacity; J. 

STEPHEN TIDWELL; BARBARA 

WALLS; PAT ROSE; KEVIN 

ARMSTRONG; PAUL ALLEN; 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Defendants-Appellees.

On Remand from the United States Supreme Court

Argued and Submitted June 8, 2023

Seattle, Washington

Filed December 20, 2024

Before: Ronald M. Gould and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit 

Judges, and George Caram Steeh III,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Berzon

* The Honorable George Caram Steeh III, United States District Judge 

for the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designation.

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4 FAZAGA V. FBI

SUMMARY**

Bivens / State Secrets Privilege

On remand from the United States Supreme Court in a 

case involving constitutional and statutory claims arising out 

of the FBI’s alleged improper surveillance of Muslims in 

Southern California, the panel (1) affirmed the district 

court’s dismissal of Bivens claims asserted by Yassir Fazaga 

and other Muslim residents of Southern California against 

individual defendants; and (2) reversed the district court’s 

dismissal, under the state secrets privilege, of Fazaga’s 

claims alleging that defendants improperly targeted Fazaga 

and other Muslims because of their religion. 

The panel held that Egbert v. Boule, 596 U.S. 482 

(2022), foreclosed a Bivens remedy for any of Fazaga’s 

Bivens claims against FBI agents in their individual 

capacities. Applying Egbert, the panel concluded that no 

Bivens remedy was available for Fazaga’s First and Fifth 

Amendment claims because the claims arose in a new 

context and several factors weighed against expanding 

Bivens to reach Fazaga’s claims. For similar reasons, a 

Bivens remedy was not available for Fazaga’s Fourth 

Amendment claim.

The remaining issue concerned the effect of the 

government’s assertion of the state secrets privilege under 

United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953), on Fazaga’s 

religion claims. Rather than just seeking exclusion of the 

assertedly privileged information, the government requested 

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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FAZAGA V. FBI 5 

dismissal at the pleading stage, which the district court 

granted. 

Reviewing the district court’s dismissal, the panel held 

that the government properly invoked the Reynolds

privilege, and that the information in the identified 

categories was in fact privileged. However, although at 

least some of the information at issue was privileged, the 

district court did not apply the proper standard or use the 

proper process when it held that Fazaga’s religion claims 

should be dismissed outright on the grounds that privileged 

information gives defendants a valid defense, and that 

litigation would present an unacceptable risk of disclosing 

state secrets. The district court has not yet conducted the 

detailed and fact-intensive inquiry required to dismiss a 

claim based on a valid defense under Reynolds, nor did the 

district court’s dismissal of Fazaga’s claims on the basis that 

litigation would present an unacceptable risk of disclosing 

state secrets meet the stringent standard for such 

dismissals. The panel remanded this case to the district 

court for further proceedings.

COUNSEL

Peter Bibring (argued), Mohammad Tajsar, and Catherine A. 

Wagner, ACLU of Southern California, Pasadena, 

California; Ahilan T. Arulanantham, UCLA School of Law, 

Center for Immigration Law and Policy, Los Angeles, 

California; Dan Stormer and Shaleen Shanbhag, Hadsell 

Stormer & Renick LLP, Pasadena, California; Amr Shabaik, 

Fatima Dadabhoy, Ameena M. Qazi, and Dina Chehata, 

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6 FAZAGA V. FBI

Council on American-Islamic Relations, Anaheim, 

California; for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Joseph F. Busa (argued), Sharon Swingle, Daniel Tenny, 

Mark B. Stern, and Douglas N. Letter, Appellate Staff 

Attorneys; Stephanie Yonekura, Former Acting United 

States Attorney; Martin Estrada, United States Attorney; 

Benjamin C. Mizer, Former Deputy Assistant Attorney 

General; Sarah E. Harrington, Deputy Assistant Attorney 

General; United States Department of Justice, Civil 

Division, Washington, D.C.; Catherine M.A. Carroll 

(argued), Howard M. Shapiro, Carl J. Nichols, David G. 

Beraka, Allison M. Schultz, Charlie Johnson, and Daniel 

Volchok, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, 

Washington, D.C.; Alexander H. Cote, Angela M. Machala, 

Amos A. Lowder, and David C. Scheper, Winston & Strawn 

LLP, Los Angeles, California; Katie Moran, Wilmer Cutler 

Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Los Angeles, California; for 

Defendants-Appellants.

Richard R. Wiebe, Law Office of Richard R. Wiebe, San 

Francisco, California; Thomas E. Moore III, Royse Law 

Firm PC, Palo Alto, California; Cindy Cohn, Lee Tien, Kurt 

Opsahl, James S. Tyre, Mark Rumold, Andrew Crocker, and 

David Greene, Electronic Frontier Foundation, San 

Francisco, California; for Amicus Curiae Electronic Frontier 

Foundation.

Elizabeth Wydra, Brianne J. Gorod, and Brian R. Frazelle, 

Constitutional Accountability Center, Washington, D.C., for 

Amicus Curiae Constitutional Accountability Center.

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FAZAGA V. FBI 7

OPINION

BERZON, Circuit Judge:

This case involves constitutional and statutory claims 

arising out of the FBI’s alleged improper surveillance of 

Muslims in Southern California. We revisit it after a remand

from the Supreme Court. The Court reversed our prior 

conclusion that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 50 

U.S.C. § 1806(f), displaced the state secrets privilege and its 

dismissal remedy with respect to electronic surveillance. See

Fazaga v. FBI, 965 F.3d 1015 (9th Cir. 2020), rev’d, 595 

U.S. 344, 355, 359 (2022). The issues before us now are

(i) whether to address the Bivens claims asserted against the 

individual defendants, which we declined to do in our earlier 

opinion, and if we do so, how to resolve them, and 

(ii) whether the state secrets privilege requires dismissal of 

Fazaga’s religion claims at the motion to dismiss stage.

We hold this time around that the Bivens claims should 

be dismissed. The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence since our 

earlier consideration of this case establishes that no Bivens 

cause of action is cognizable on the facts alleged.

As to the religion claims, we affirm the district court’s 

determination that the government properly invoked the 

state secrets evidentiary privilege under United States v. 

Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953), and that at least some of the 

information the government describes is privileged. But we

conclude that the application of that privilege does not 

warrant dismissal of the claims at this juncture. The 

government has not demonstrated that excluding the 

privileged information would deprive it of a valid defense or 

that the privileged information is so intertwined with the 

relevant nonprivileged information that further litigation 

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8 FAZAGA V. FBI

unacceptably risks disclosing state secrets. We therefore 

reverse the dismissal of the religion claims and remand those

claims to the district court to consider how the case should 

proceed.

I.

Here is a brief summary of the factual background of this 

case:

The plaintiffs—Yassir Fazaga, Ali Malik, and Yasser 

AbdelRahim (collectively, “Fazaga”)—are three Muslim 

residents of Southern California. They allege that, as part of 

a counterterrorism investigation known as “Operation Flex,” 

the FBI paid a confidential informant, Craig Monteilh, to 

gather information about Muslims. The operative complaint 

states that Operation Flex was a “dragnet surveillance” 

program that targeted them and other Muslims “solely due 

to their religion.” In accordance with an expansive directive 

to gather information on Muslims generally, Monteilh 

engaged with a broad range of Muslim people at mosques, 

community events, gyms, and other settings, and recorded 

virtually all of his interactions.

Fazaga filed a putative class action against the United 

States, the FBI, and two FBI leaders in their official 

capacities (collectively, “the government”), and against five 

FBI agents in their individual capacities (“the agent 

defendants”).1 The operative complaint asserts eleven 

causes of action of two types: (i) claims alleging 

unconstitutional searches in violation of the Fourth 

1 The putative class includes “[a]ll individuals targeted by Defendants 

for surveillance or information-gathering through Monteilh and 

Operation Flex, on account of their religion, about whom the FBI thereby 

gathered personally identifiable information.”

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FAZAGA V. FBI 9

Amendment and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 

(FISA), and (ii) claims alleging religious discrimination, 

burdens on religion, and other violations of Fazaga’s

religious freedom rights under the First and Fifth 

Amendments, the Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom 

Restoration Act (RFRA), and the Federal Tort Claims Act 

(FTCA). Fazaga seeks an injunction “ordering Defendants 

to destroy or return any information gathered through the 

unlawful surveillance program,” as well as compensatory 

and punitive damages against the agent defendants.

Central to Fazaga’s case is Monteilh, whom the 

government acknowledges was a confidential informant.

The record contains extensive public declarations by 

Monteilh detailing his interactions with Fazaga and others. 

Fazaga’s complaint also references news reporting on 

Monteilh’s activities. The government does not maintain 

that the information in Fazaga’s complaint or Monteilh’s 

declarations is privileged or classified. This case thus arises 

with a considerable amount of information related to 

Fazaga’s religious discrimination claims already public and 

unprivileged.

The Attorney General of the United States invoked the 

state secrets privilege with respect to three categories of

potential evidence. In support of its privilege assertion, the 

government filed public declarations from the Attorney 

General and from the Assistant Director of the FBI’s 

Counterterrorism Division. It also provided two classified 

declarations from the Assistant Director and a classified 

supplemental memorandum, which the district court, and 

we, reviewed ex parte and in camera.

The government moved to dismiss Fazaga’s religion 

claims pursuant to the state secrets privilege, as well as on 

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10 FAZAGA V. FBI

other grounds. The agent defendants moved to dismiss all

the claims against them on various grounds. The district 

court dismissed all of Fazaga’s non-FISA claims on the basis 

of the state secrets privilege—including the Fourth 

Amendment claim, although the government had not sought 

its dismissal on privilege grounds.

On appeal, we reversed the district court’s dismissal of 

certain claims and affirmed the dismissal of others. Relevant 

here, we held that FISA’s procedures for challenging

electronic surveillance, 50 U.S.C. § 1806(f), applied in lieu 

of the state secrets privilege and its dismissal remedy with 

respect to such surveillance. Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1052. 

Having done so, we concluded that certain of the religion 

claims against the government defendants could go 

forward.2 Id. at 1064–65. We declined to address whether 

the Bivens claims against the agent defendants survived. Id. 

at 1055–59.

The Supreme Court reversed the case on the “narrow” 

ground that FISA “does not displace the state secrets 

privilege” and remanded. Fazaga, 595 U.S. at 355, 359. The 

Court expressly did not “decide whether the Government’s 

evidence is privileged or whether the District Court was 

correct to dismiss respondents’ claims on the pleadings.” Id.

And the Court did not address any aspect of our opinion not 

involving the state secrets doctrine.

2 Specifically, we reversed the dismissal of the First and Fifth 

Amendment and RFRA claims. 965 F.3d at 1056–64. We did not address 

on the merits Fazaga’s FTCA claims because the “applicability of the 

discretionary function exception [to the FTCA] will largely turn on the 

district court’s ultimate resolution of the merits of Plaintiffs’ various 

federal constitutional and statutory claims.” Id. at 1065.

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FAZAGA V. FBI 11

We ordered, and the parties filed, supplemental briefing 

addressing, among other things, which issues should be 

considered by this panel on remand. The remaining issues 

have narrowed considerably, to (i) whether the Bivens 

claims against the agent defendants may go forward in light 

of the Supreme Court’s recent Bivens jurisprudence, and 

(ii) whether the remaining religion claims should be 

dismissed on the basis of the state secrets privilege. We 

address each issue in turn.

II.

In our earlier opinion we declined to reach the Bivens 

claims. We now revisit that decision in light of later case law.

Relying on Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 

U.S. 388 (1971), Fazaga seeks monetary damages against 

the agent defendants for the alleged Fourth Amendment 

search violation and for his First and Fifth Amendment 

religious discrimination claims. In our previous opinion, we 

held with respect to the search issues that, “[i]n light of the 

overlap between the [Fourth Amendment] Bivens claim and 

the narrow range of the remaining FISA claim against the 

Agent Defendants that can proceed, it is far from clear that 

Plaintiffs will continue to press this claim.” Fazaga, 965 

F.3d at 1056. And as to the First and Fifth Amendment 

Bivens claims, we held that only those claims premised on 

alleged “conduct motivated by intentional discrimination 

against Plaintiffs because of their Muslim faith” could 

proceed.3 Id. at 1058–59. We remanded the issue to the 

3 We held earlier that no Bivens remedy was available for Plaintiffs’ 

religion claims to the extent they were premised on the agent defendants’ 

alleged improper collection and retention of information about the 

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12 FAZAGA V. FBI

district court to determine whether a Bivens remedy is 

available for any of the surviving claims. Id. at 1056, 1059.

The Supreme Court has, since our earlier opinion,

clarified the limited availability of Bivens remedies, 

obviating the need to remand to the district court. See Egbert 

v. Boule, 596 U.S. 482 (2022). Egbert forecloses a Bivens 

remedy for any of the remaining Bivens claims against the 

agent defendants. “[U]nder Egbert in all but the most 

unusual circumstances, prescribing a cause of action is a job 

for Congress, not the courts. This case is not the rare 

exception.” Mejia v. Miller, 61 F.4th 663, 669 (9th Cir. 

2023) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Before Egbert, the Supreme Court had set out a two-step 

inquiry for evaluating a Bivens claim. “First, we ask whether 

the case presents a new Bivens context—i.e., is it 

meaningfully different from the three cases in which the 

Court has implied a damages action.”4 Egbert, 596 U.S. at 

492 (quoting Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 139 (2017)) 

(internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Second, 

if the context is new, we consider whether “there are ‘special 

factors’ indicating that the Judiciary is at least arguably less 

equipped than Congress to ‘weigh the costs and benefits of 

allowing a damages action to proceed.’” Id. (quoting Ziglar, 

582 U.S. at 136). If so, no Bivens remedy is available.

Plaintiffs, or on the burden of that surveillance on Plaintiffs’ exercise of 

religion. Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1057–58. The Privacy Act and RFRA, 

“taken together, function as an alternative remedial scheme” for those 

claims, we held, id. at 1059, so a Bivens remedy is unavailable, id. at 

1057; Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 137 (2017).

4 Namely, Bivens, 403 U.S. 388; Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979); 

and Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980). See Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 131.

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FAZAGA V. FBI 13

Egbert explained that these two steps “often resolve to a 

single question: whether there is any reason to think that 

Congress might be better equipped to create a damages 

remedy.” 596 U.S. at 492. Since Bivens was decided, 

“expanding the Bivens remedy” to other contexts has 

become “a disfavored judicial activity.” Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 

135 (quotation marks omitted). Under Egbert, “any rational 

reason (even one) to think that Congress is better suited to 

weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a damages action” 

precludes a Bivens claim. 596 U.S. at 496 (internal quotation 

marks omitted).

A.

Applying Egbert, we are constrained to conclude that no 

Bivens remedy is available for Fazaga’s First and Fifth 

Amendment religion claims.

First, these claims arise in an entirely new context. The

Supreme Court has “never held that Bivens extends to First 

Amendment claims.” Egbert, 596 U.S. at 498 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). And, although the Supreme Court

recognized a Bivens remedy for violations of the Fifth 

Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in Davis v. Passman, 

442 U.S. 228 (1979), that case involved a “meaningfully 

different” context. Egbert, 596 U.S. at 492 (internal 

quotation marks and alterations omitted). In Davis, the 

Supreme Court inferred a damages claim against a member 

of Congress who allegedly terminated the plaintiff because 

of her gender. 442 U.S. at 248–49. In contrast, this case 

involves FBI agents who conducted a counterterrorism 

investigation that allegedly discriminated on the basis of 

religion.

A case presents a new Bivens context when it “is 

different in a meaningful way from previous Bivens cases 

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14 FAZAGA V. FBI

decided by this Court”—for example, if it involves a “new 

category of defendants” or if “the statutory or other legal 

mandate under which the officer was operating” differs. 

Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 135, 139–40 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Applying a case about an employment decision 

made by a Congressman to investigative decisions made by 

law enforcement agents carrying out a national security 

program in the executive branch would undoubtedly extend 

Bivens to a new context. Harper v. Nedd, 71 F.4th 1181, 

1187 (9th Cir. 2023), for example, held that a challenge to 

adverse employment actions by the Bureau of Land 

Management is a meaningfully different context from Davis, 

although the context, an employment dispute, was 

considerably closer to Davis than here. Not only does this 

case involve a new category of defendants, but the agent 

defendants’ conduct was carried out under distinct legal 

mandates to investigate threats to national security, 

including the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention 

Act, 50 U.S.C. § 401 et seq., and Executive Order No. 

12,333, 46 Fed. Reg. 59941 (Dec. 4, 1981). Further, the 

discrimination alleged was on the basis of religion, rather 

than on the basis of gender as in Davis.

Second, given this new context, several factors weigh 

against expanding Bivens to reach Fazaga’s claims—or, put 

in Egbert terms, there is at least one rational reason to 

believe that Congress is better suited than the judiciary to 

determine the availability of a damages remedy. Chiefly, “a 

Bivens cause of action may not lie where, as here, national 

security is at issue.” Egbert, 596 U.S. at 494; see Hernandez

v. Mesa, 589 U.S. 93, 105–09 (2020). Fazaga’s claims that 

he was impermissibly targeted for surveillance on the basis 

of his religion “challenge more than standard law 

enforcement operations.” See Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 142 

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FAZAGA V. FBI 15

(internal quotation marks omitted). These claims concern the 

FBI’s counterterrorism operations and so involve “major 

elements of the Government’s whole response to the 

September 11 attacks, thus of necessity requiring an inquiry 

into sensitive issues of national security.” See id. Such 

“[j]udicial inquiry into the national-security realm raises 

concerns for the separation of powers in trenching on matters 

committed to the other branches.” Id. (internal quotation 

marks omitted). “[F]ear of personal monetary liability and 

harassing litigation” may “unduly inhibit officials in the 

discharge of their duties,” Egbert, 596 U.S. at 499 (internal 

quotation marks omitted), presenting a serious concern 

regarding national security decisionmaking. In that context,

FBI agents may need to “tak[e] urgent and lawful action in a 

time of crisis.” Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 145.

For these reasons, “the Judiciary is not undoubtedly 

better positioned than Congress to authorize a damages 

action in this national-security context.” See Egbert, 596 

U.S. at 495. Under Egbert, a Bivens remedy for Fazaga’s

religious discrimination claims is precluded.

B.

For similar reasons, a Bivens remedy is not available for 

Fazaga’s Fourth Amendment claim.

This claim too arises in a new context. Bivens concerned 

a Fourth Amendment violation by federal officers. But “our 

understanding of a ‘new context’ is broad.” Hernandez, 589 

U.S. at 102. “A claim may arise in a new context even if it is 

based on the same constitutional provision as a claim in a 

case in which a damages remedy was previously 

recognized.” Id. at 103. Bivens involved an allegedly 

unconstitutional arrest and physical search of the plaintiff’s 

home. Bivens, 403 U.S. at 389. “There is a world of 

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16 FAZAGA V. FBI

difference” between those claims and Fazaga’s Fourth 

Amendment claim about unlawful surveillance conducted 

pursuant to the FBI’s counterterrorism strategies, “where the 

risk of disruptive intrusion by the Judiciary into the 

functioning of other branches is significant.” See Hernandez,

589 U.S. at 103 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Applying Hernandez, we conclude that the national 

security concerns we’ve discussed preclude expanding 

Bivens to this new Fourth Amendment context. A Bivens 

remedy against individual FBI agents could have 

“systemwide consequences” for the FBI’s execution of its

mandate to protect the United States against terrorist attacks. 

See Egbert, 596 U.S. at 493 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). The “uncertainty” of the effects of expanding 

Bivens in this manner “alone is a special factor that 

forecloses relief.” Id.

Moreover, we previously noted that “the substance of 

Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment Bivens claim is identical to 

the allegations raised in their FISA § 1810 claim.” Fazaga, 

965 F.3d at 1055. Thus, an “alternative remedial structure” 

exists that counsels against fashioning a Bivens remedy here. 

Egbert, 596 U.S. at 493 (internal quotation marks omitted).

For these reasons, we affirm the dismissal of the Bivens 

claims.

III.

The remaining issue before us concerns the effect of the 

government’s assertion of the state secrets privilege under 

United States v. Reynolds on Fazaga’s religion claims.

The state secrets privilege arises from “the sometimescompelling necessity of governmental secrecy” to protect 

national security, which the Supreme Court has recognized 

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FAZAGA V. FBI 17

“by acknowledging a Government privilege against courtordered disclosure” of secret “information about . . . 

military, intelligence, and diplomatic efforts.” Gen.

Dynamics Corp. v. United States, 563 U.S. 478, 484 (2011).

The privilege has two distinct applications. The first, set 

forth in Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105 (1875), forbids

courts to adjudicate claims directly premised on state secrets. 

This “unique and categorical . . . bar,” Tenet v. Doe, 544 U.S. 

1, 6 n.4 (2005), applies only where “the very subject matter 

of the action” is itself “a matter of state secret,” Reynolds, 

345 U.S. at 11 n.26. If Totten applies, the result is always 

dismissal. In Totten, for example, the Supreme Court 

affirmed dismissal of a suit against the United States to 

recover compensation allegedly promised to a Civil War 

spy, noting that the “existence” of the contract was “itself a 

fact not to be disclosed” and that litigation would “inevitably 

lead to the disclosure of matters which the law itself regards 

as confidential.” 92 U.S. at 105–07.

Acknowledging the harshness of categorical dismissal, 

the Supreme Court recently explained that the Totten rule 

“captures what the ex ante expectations of the parties were 

or reasonably ought to have been. Both parties ‘must have 

understood’ . . . that state secrets would prevent courts from 

resolving many possible disputes under the . . . agreement.” 

Gen. Dynamics, 563 U.S. at 490 (quoting Totten, 92 U.S. at 

106). So the Totten bar is rooted in the plaintiff’s choice to 

participate in a matter involving a state secret, the secret 

nature of which precludes judicial review of ensuing 

disputes.

The second version of the state secrets privilege, set forth 

in Reynolds, is an evidentiary one. Unlike the Totten bar, 

which always requires dismissal, the Reynolds privilege 

ordinarily requires only that a court “apply[] evidentiary 

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18 FAZAGA V. FBI

rules: The privileged information is excluded, and the trial 

goes on without it.” Gen. Dynamics, 563 U.S. at 485.

Here, the government asserts only the Reynolds 

evidentiary privilege. It seeks to keep secret information that 

could tend to “confirm or deny whether a particular 

individual was or was not the subject of an FBI 

counterterrorism investigation”; “reveal the initial reasons 

. . . for an FBI counterterrorism investigation of a particular 

person . . . , any information obtained during the course of 

such an investigation, and the status and results of the 

investigation”; or “reveal whether particular sources and 

methods were used in a counterterrorism investigation.”

But rather than just seeking exclusion of the assertedly 

privileged information, the government requested dismissal

of the case at the pleading stage, which the district court 

granted. To review the dismissal, we must decide 

(a) whether the government has properly invoked Reynolds

privilege, (b) whether information in the identified 

categories is in fact privileged, and (c) if it is privileged, 

whether Fazaga’s religion claims must be dismissed as a 

result, as the government maintains is necessary to protect 

the information.5 See Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.,

614 F.3d 1070, 1080 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc). We review 

de novo the interpretation and application of the state secrets 

5 The district court dismissed Fazaga’s Fourth Amendment claims under 

the state secrets privilege, although the government expressly did not 

seek dismissal on that ground. See Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1042–43. We 

previously held that this dismissal was erroneous because the 

government had not formally invoked the state secrets privilege as to 

those claims. See id. The Supreme Court did not address this portion of 

our holding and the parties do not now challenge it, so it remains in 

effect.

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FAZAGA V. FBI 19

doctrine and review for clear error the district court’s 

underlying factual findings. Id. at 1077.

A.

First, did the government properly invoke the Reynolds 

privilege? Doing so requires a “formal claim . . . by the head 

of the department which has control over the matter, after 

actual personal consideration by that officer.” Reynolds, 345 

U.S. at 7–8 (footnote omitted). “To ensure that the privilege 

is invoked no more often or extensively than necessary,” the 

claim must be a “serious” and “considered” one and “reflect 

the certifying official’s personal judgment.” Jeppesen, 614 

F.3d at 1080 (quoting United States v. W.R. Grace, 526 F.3d 

499, 507–08 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc)). It must include 

“sufficient detail for the court to make an independent 

determination of the validity of the claim of privilege and the 

scope of the evidence subject to the privilege.” Id. 

The government has met these requirements. In a public 

declaration, then-Attorney General Eric Holder asserted the 

privilege over three categories of information that “could 

reasonably be expected to cause significant harm to the 

national security” if disclosed, based on his “personal 

consideration of the matter.” We are satisfied that this 

declaration and the supporting public and classified 

declarations by an FBI counterterrorism official include 

sufficient detail for this courts’ review.

6

6 In 2022, after the Justice Department supplemented the internal 

procedures for invoking the state secrets privilege in effect at the time of 

the privilege assertion in this case, the government informed us that,

based on another round of review, it had again “concluded that 

invocation of the privilege and dismissal of certain claims remained 

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20 FAZAGA V. FBI

Fazaga challenges this privilege assertion because the 

Attorney General declared that he had considered “the 

matter” but did not say that he had reviewed the underlying 

source material. This argument fails. The declaration reflects 

Reynolds’ instruction that the privilege must be claimed “by 

the head of the department which has control over the 

matter, after actual personal consideration.” 345 U.S. at 8 

(emphasis added) (footnote omitted). The official need not 

have reviewed every piece of information to validly invoke 

the privilege. “[O]nce [an official] has . . . adequately 

identified categories of privileged information, [she] cannot 

reasonably be expected personally to explain why each item 

. . . responsive to a discovery request affects the national 

interest.” Kasza v. Browner, 133 F.3d 1159, 1169 (9th Cir. 

1998).

In sum, the Attorney General properly invoked the 

Reynolds privilege.

B.

Next, was the information at issue in fact privileged? The 

state secrets privilege has been held generally to apply to 

information that would result in “impairment of the nation’s 

defense capabilities, disclosure of intelligence-gathering 

methods or capabilities, and disruption of diplomatic 

relations with foreign governments, or where disclosure 

would be inimical to national security.” Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 

1040–41 (quoting Black v. United States, 62 F.3d 1115, 1118 

necessary to protect national security.” See Memorandum from the Att’y 

Gen. on Policies & Procedures Governing Invocation of the State Secrets 

Privilege (Sept. 23, 2009), perma.cc/FRX3-5U5J; Memorandum from 

Att’y Gen. on Supplement to Policies & Procedures Governing 

Invocation of the State Secrets Privilege (Sept. 30, 2022), 

perma.cc/25QX-6PLL.

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FAZAGA V. FBI 21

(8th Cir. 1995)). We will sustain a privilege claim if we 

determine “from all the circumstances of the case, that there 

is a reasonable danger that compulsion of the evidence will 

expose . . . matters which, in the interest of national security, 

should not be divulged.” Reynolds, 345 U.S. at 10. Though 

“in camera review is not always required,” United States v. 

Zubaydah, 595 U.S. 195, 205–06 (2022), “[s]ufficient detail 

must be . . . provided for us to make a meaningful 

examination,” Al-Haramain Islamic Found., Inc. v. Bush, 

507 F.3d 1190, 1203 (9th Cir. 2007).

Fazaga does not dispute that the identified categories 

encompass at least some privileged information. But “we 

must make an independent determination whether the 

information is privileged” and “assure [ourselves] that an 

appropriate balance is struck between protecting national 

security matters and preserving an open court system.” 

Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1081 (quoting Al-Haramain, 507 F.3d 

at 1202–03).

As we have explained, the government here asserts the 

state secrets privilege over three categories of information 

pertaining to FBI counterterrorism investigations:

(i) “[i]nformation that could tend to confirm or deny whether 

a particular individual was or was not the subject of an FBI 

counterterrorism investigation”; (ii) “[i]nformation that 

could tend to reveal the initial reasons (i.e., predicate) for an 

FBI counterterrorism investigation of a particular person 

(including in Operation Flex), any information obtained 

during the course of such an investigation, and the status and 

results of the investigation”; and (iii) “[i]nformation that 

could tend to reveal whether particular sources and methods 

were used in a counterterrorism investigation.” These 

categories of information “indisputably are matters that the 

state secrets privilege may cover.” See Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 

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22 FAZAGA V. FBI

1086. We have carefully examined the government’s public 

and classified declarations and classified supplemental 

briefs in support of its privilege claim, all of which were 

reviewed by the district court as well.7 We also held an ex 

parte, in camera argument with the government defendants’ 

counsel immediately after the public argument regarding the 

assertedly privileged information. Having done so, we are 

convinced that the disclosure of at least some information 

within the three identified categories would seriously harm 

legitimate national interests and so is privileged.

C.

Finally, given our conclusion that at least some of the 

information at issue in this case is privileged, how should 

this case proceed?

1.

Normally the Reynolds privilege operates like any other 

evidentiary privilege: the privileged information does not 

come in and the case goes on without it. “Ordinarily, simply 

excluding or otherwise walling off the privileged 

information . . . suffice[s] to protect the state secrets and the 

case will proceed accordingly, with no consequences save 

those resulting from the loss of evidence.” Jeppesen, 614 

F.3d at 1082 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

In Reynolds, for example, the Supreme Court concluded that 

an Air Force report sought during discovery was privileged 

and remanded the case to the district court to allow the 

plaintiffs to establish their claims without the privileged 

report. See 345 U.S. at 10–12. As with other evidentiary 

privileges, an opposing party remains free to seek 

7 The government’s classified disclosures to the court do not include the 

underlying source material but provide detailed accounts of that material.

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FAZAGA V. FBI 23

nonprivileged evidence or go forward based on accessible 

information. See Zubaydah, 595 U.S. at 255–56 (Gorsuch, 

J., dissenting); see also 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal 

Practice and Procedure § 1280 (4th ed. 2023) (privilege 

against self-incrimination); 3 Weinstein’s Federal Evidence 

§ 511.05 (attorney-client privilege).

In this case, however, the government maintains that

protecting state secrets requires dismissing Fazaga’s religion 

claims outright rather than just excluding the privileged 

information. The government invokes two of the 

“exceptional circumstances” which this court in Jeppesen

recognized as requiring dismissal rather than just excluding 

evidence when the Reynolds privilege is properly invoked.8

Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1077; Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1041. The 

first exceptional circumstance is “if the privilege deprives 

the defendant of information that would otherwise give the 

defendant a valid defense to the claim.” Jeppesen, 614 F.3d 

at 1083 (quoting Kasza, 133 F.3d at 1166); see also In re 

Sealed Case, 494 F.3d 139, 149 (D.C. Cir. 2007); 

Tenenbaum v. Simonini, 372 F.3d 776, 777 (6th Cir. 2004); 

Zuckerbraun v. Gen. Dynamics Corp., 935 F.2d 544, 547 (2d 

Cir. 1991). The second is if it is “impossible to proceed with 

the litigation because—privileged evidence being 

inseparable from nonprivileged information that will be 

necessary to the claims or defenses—litigating the case to a 

judgment on the merits would present an unacceptable risk 

of disclosing state secrets.” Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1083; see 

also Sakab Saudi Holding Co. v. Aljabri, 58 F.4th 585, 597 

8 A third exceptional circumstance—if “the plaintiff cannot prove the 

prima facie elements of her claim with nonprivileged evidence,”

Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1083 (quoting Kasza, 133 F.3d at 1166)—is not at 

issue in this case. Fazaga maintains that he can establish his prima facie

case without privileged evidence.

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24 FAZAGA V. FBI

(1st Cir. 2023); Wikimedia Found. v. Nat’l Sec. 

Agency/Cent. Sec. Serv., 14 F.4th 276, 303 (4th Cir. 2021).

9

a.

Fazaga’s primary response to the government’s 

invocation of the Jeppesen exceptions is that Jeppesen is 

“clearly irreconcilable” with the Supreme Court’s 

subsequent decision in General Dynamics Corp. v. United 

States. After General Dynamics, Fazaga maintains, the

invocation of the Reynolds evidentiary privilege results in 

the dismissal of a claim at the pleading stage only if the 

plaintiff cannot make a prima facie case without the 

privileged evidence.10 See Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 

9 We previously noted that the “modern state secrets doctrine,” including 

both the Totten bar and the Reynolds privilege, is “[c]reated by federal 

common law.” Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1041. The Reynolds court noted that 

the existence of a “privilege against revealing military secrets” was “well 

established in the law of evidence,” looking to both American and 

English historical precedent. 345 U.S. at 6–7. But the effect of the 

privilege in Reynolds—that the privileged evidence could not be 

compelled—was created by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which 

exempt privileged material from disclosure. Outright dismissal, by 

contrast—whether because the entire subject matter of a case is a state 

secret as in Totten or because the case cannot be litigated without 

unacceptable risk of disclosing privileged material—is a remedy not 

provided by rule or statute and was created entirely as a matter of federal 

common law.

10 The government asserts that Fazaga forfeited the argument that 

Jeppesen has been abrogated because the argument was not raised in the 

original briefing on appeal. But Plaintiffs raised and argued this same 

issue before the Supreme Court, which expressly reserved it, see Fazaga, 

595 U.S. at 357, and it has been fully addressed in the parties’ 

supplemental briefs before us now. As there is no prejudice to the 

defendants, we are comfortable addressing this purely legal issue on its 

merits. See In re Mercury Interactive Corp. Sec. Litig., 618 F.3d 988, 

992 (9th Cir. 2010).

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900 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc). We do not agree that Jeppesen 

and General Dynamics are at odds in this respect.

General Dynamics involved a contract dispute between 

the Navy and two aerospace companies. 563 U.S. at 480–81. 

The parties disagreed about how application of the state 

secrets privilege under Reynolds should affect the case. Id. 

at 485. Noting that “Reynolds has less to do with these cases 

than the parties believe,” the Supreme Court dismissed the 

case under the Totten bar. Id. at 485, 489–90. In reasoning 

that Totten applied, General Dynamics differentiated 

between the “common-law authority to fashion contractual 

remedies in Government-contracting disputes” under Totten, 

and the “power to determine the procedural rules of 

evidence” under Reynolds. Id. at 485. The Court also stated

that, because the Reynolds privilege concerns evidentiary 

rules, “[t]he privileged information is excluded and the trial 

goes on without it.” Id.

Like General Dynamics, Jeppesen had explained that the 

dismissal that results from Totten’s justiciability bar is 

distinct from the consequences of the Reynolds evidentiary 

rule. 614 F.3d at 1087 n.12. So the two cases are the same in 

this regard. Because the dispute in General Dynamics was 

not resolved under Reynolds, the Supreme Court did not go 

on to address whether and in what circumstances the 

invocation of the Reynolds privilege justifies dismissing a 

case entirely. Jeppesen did address that question, before 

General Dynamics was decided. And in this case, decided 

after General Dynamics, the Supreme Court expressly 

declined to “delineate the circumstances in which dismissal 

is appropriate” or “determine whether dismissal was proper 

in this case” under the Reynolds privilege. Fazaga, 595 U.S. 

at 357. In other words, the Court recognized that the 

availability of dismissal as a remedy where the Reynolds

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privilege applies is an open question at the Supreme Court 

level. 

The upshot is that General Dynamics’ recognition that 

Reynolds applied an evidentiary rule does not contradict 

Jeppesen’s instruction that in certain “rare” circumstances, 

the invocation of the Reynolds evidentiary privilege may 

lead to dismissal. Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1092. The General 

Dynamics declaration thus did not wash out our own 

decision on that issue in Jeppesen, and Jeppesen’s 

parameters for dismissal under Reynolds remain binding in 

this circuit.

b.

Proceeding, then, to the question whether dismissal at the 

pleading stage was appropriate in this case, we begin with 

some background principles. We have made clear that “it 

should be a rare case” in which the Reynolds evidentiary 

privilege leads to dismissal—especially “at the outset of a 

case.” Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1092. “Dismissal at the 

pleading stage under Reynolds is a drastic result and should 

not be readily granted.” Id. at 1089.

These cautions reflect that ordinarily, an evidentiary 

privilege is invoked to prevent the disclosure of specific

evidence sought in discovery. Reynolds, for example, 

involved an assertion of the state secrets privilege over a 

particular government report alleged to contain state secrets. 

345 U.S. at 3–4. Similarly, Zubaydah involved an assertion 

of the privilege to quash subpoenas to two former 

contractors requesting thirteen specific categories of 

documents related to a Central Intelligence Agency 

detention facility in Poland and to Zubaydah’s treatment 

there. See 595 U.S. at 198–99. When the government asserts 

its state secrets privilege over particular evidence sought in 

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FAZAGA V. FBI 27

discovery, the need for the assertion and its impact on the 

parties can be concretely evaluated and refined through 

discovery processes that serve to narrow and clarify the 

evidentiary issues in dispute between the parties. See 

Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 501 (1947); see also 5 C. 

Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure 

§§ 1202, 1261 (4th ed. 2023). This “detailed Reynolds 

analysis,” focused on specific evidence, helps to “ensure that 

the [state secrets] privilege is invoked no more . . .

extensively than necessary” and to “improve the accuracy, 

transparency, and legitimacy of the proceedings.” Jeppesen, 

614 F.3d at 1080, 1084.

At the pleading stage, in contrast, any invocation of 

secrecy is necessarily broad and hypothetical. The plaintiff 

has not had an opportunity to pursue her theory of the case 

and so has not determined what specific evidence she needs 

for it to succeed. The defendant also likely does not yet know 

in detail the defense to be asserted nor the evidence that will 

need to be relied on to support the defenses chosen. 

Dismissal at this preliminary stage travels far afield from the 

ordinary principles of evidentiary privilege and risks 

unnecessarily compromising access to the courts and 

foreclosing meritorious claims.

So, when the government seeks early dismissal based on 

the Reynolds privilege, we conduct a “searching 

examination,” Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1092, with “a very 

careful, indeed a skeptical, eye,” Al-Haramain, 507 F.3d at

1203, before concluding that dismissal is required. This 

inquiry does not detract from our firm “acknowledge[ment] 

[of] the need to defer to the Executive on matters of foreign 

policy and national security and surely [not] find ourselves 

second guessing the Executive in this arena.” Al-Haramain, 

507 F.3d at 1203. At the same time, the court’s duty to 

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“decide for itself whether the occasion is appropriate for 

claiming the privilege,” Zubaydah, 595 U.S. at 205, is of 

paramount importance when the consequence of recognizing 

the privilege is outright dismissal at the pleading stage of a 

possibly meritorious lawsuit. 

* * *

Here, after reviewing the government’s classified 

materials ex parte and in camera, the district court dismissed 

Fazaga’s claims under Reynolds and Jeppesen because 

(i) “privileged information gives Defendants a valid 

defense,” and (ii) litigation “would present an unacceptable 

risk of disclosing state secrets.” We address each rationale 

for dismissal in turn.

2.

One of the “exceptional circumstances” in which the 

Reynolds privilege can require dismissing a claim is if the 

state secrets privilege “deprives the defendant of information 

that would otherwise give the defendant a valid defense to 

the claim.” Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1083 (quoting Kasza, 133 

F.3d at 1166). We first address the proper standard and 

procedures for concluding that privileged information 

establishes a valid defense that requires dismissal, which the 

parties dispute, and then consider whether that standard has 

been met in this case.

a.

Although Jeppesen briefly restated the “valid defense” 

ground for dismissal, it did not dismiss any claims on that 

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FAZAGA V. FBI 29

basis and so did not elaborate on the standard for doing so.11

We addressed the “valid defense” standard in some detail in 

our earlier opinion in this case, adopting the D.C. Circuit’s 

approach as set forth in In re Sealed Case, 494 F.3d at 149, 

and explaining that a “valid defense” is one that “is 

meritorious and not merely plausible and would require

judgment for the defendant,” Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1067 

(emphasis added). Addressing the implementation of this 

concept, we explained that “where the government contends 

that dismissal is required because the state secrets privilege 

inhibits it from presenting a valid defense, the district court 

may properly dismiss the complaint only if it conducts an 

‘appropriately tailored in camera review of the privileged 

record,’ and determines that defendants have a legally 

meritorious defense that prevents recovery by the plaintiffs.” 

Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1067 (citation omitted) (quoting In re 

Sealed Case, 494 F.3d at 151).

We discussed the meaning of “valid defense” in our 

earlier opinion because we recognized that the district court 

might need to evaluate privilege claims involving 

information not covered by FISA’s alternate procedure (as 

we interpreted it) to determine whether dismissal was 

11 None of the cases to which Jeppesen’s “valid defense” language can 

be traced actually applied the stated rule that “if the privilege deprives 

the defendant of information that would otherwise give the defendant a 

valid defense to the claim, then the court may grant summary judgment 

to the defendant.” Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1083 (quoting Kasza, 133 F.3d 

at 1166). Jeppesen quoted this language from Kasza, which similarly 

stated but did not apply the rule. See Kasza, 133 F.3d at 1166, 1170. 

Kasza quoted this language from Bareford v. General Dynamics Corp., 

973 F.2d 1138, 1141 (5th Cir. 1992). But the Bareford language was not 

a holding: Bareford recognized but expressly declined to adopt other

courts’ conclusions that dismissal was warranted “if privileged 

information would establish a valid defense.” Id. at 1143.

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required under Jeppesen. Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1067. The 

Supreme Court reversed our resolution under FISA of the 

state secrets challenge but did not address our articulation of 

the valid defense standard. Fazaga, 595 U.S. at 357–59.

Contrary to the government’s argument, our definition of 

“valid defense” in our earlier opinion in this case was not 

dicta and remains circuit law. “Where a panel confronts an 

issue germane to the eventual resolution of the case, and 

resolves it after reasoned consideration in a published 

opinion, that ruling becomes the law of the circuit, regardless 

of whether doing so is necessary in some strict logical 

sense.” United States v. McAdory, 935 F.3d 838, 843 (9th 

Cir. 2019) (quoting Cetacean Cmty. v. Bush, 386 F.3d 1169, 

1173 (9th Cir. 2004)). In particular, “direction to the district 

court on how to proceed continues to be binding precedent.” 

California Pro-Life Council, Inc. v. Randolph, 507 F.3d 

1172, 1176 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting Operating Eng’rs 

Pension Tr. v. Charles Minor Equip. Rental, Inc., 766 F.2d 

1301, 1304 (9th Cir. 1985)). Regardless of whether it was 

“in some technical sense ‘necessary,’” our definition of 

“valid defense” was intended to govern this case as it went 

forward, and so is the “law of the circuit.” See Barapind v. 

Enomoto, 400 F.3d 744, 751 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (per 

curiam).12

In any event, we remain of the view that our earlier 

explanation of the “valid defense” ground for dismissal was 

12 We reject the government’s invocation of the “clear error” exception 

to the law of the case doctrine. “[E]xceptions to the law of the case 

doctrine are not exceptions to our general ‘law of the circuit.’” Gonzalez 

v. Arizona, 677 F.3d 383, 389 n.4 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc). As we have 

explained, our explanation of “valid defense” is circuit law that “must be 

followed unless and until overruled.” Hart v. Massanari, 266 F.3d 1155, 

1170 (9th Cir. 2001).

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FAZAGA V. FBI 31

correct.13 To see why, we begin by outlining the rationales 

for sanctioning dismissals in rare circumstances when the 

state secrets privilege is invoked by a government defendant, 

and then explain why those rationales do not justify 

expanding the exception to defenses that may be meritorious 

but may not be.

First, to repeat, dismissal because privileged information 

supports a valid defense turns the normal principles of 

evidentiary privilege on their head; normally, “privileged 

information is excluded and the trial goes on.” Gen. 

Dynamics, 563 U.S. at 485. But most evidentiary privileges, 

like the attorney-client privilege or the marital privilege, 

protect private interests, either of the litigants themselves or 

of other people. In such instances, if a claim or defense 

depends on privileged information, the privilege holder “has 

a choice” between waiving the privilege to pursue the claim 

or defense and waiving the claim or defense to keep the 

privileged information confidential. United States v. 

Gonzalez, 669 F.3d 974, 982 (9th Cir. 2012). For evidentiary 

privileges that protect private interests, allowing the 

privilege holders to decide for themselves whether to forfeit 

a claim or defense so as to keep the privileged information 

private suffices; there is no need for the court to decide 

13 None of the cases the government cites in arguing that our “valid 

defense” standard is foreclosed substantively addressed that ground for 

dismissal or dismissed a claim on this basis. See Reynolds, 345 U.S. at 

11 (remand); Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1087 (dismissal “because there is no 

feasible way to litigate . . . without creating an unjustifiable risk of 

divulging state secrets”); Gen. Dynamics, 563 U.S. at 486–89 (Totten 

dismissal); Sterling v. Tenet, 416 F.3d 338, 348 (4th Cir. 2005) 

(dismissal where “object of the suit . . . is to establish a fact that is a state 

secret”); El-Masri v. United States, 479 F.3d 296, 308–10 (4th Cir. 2007) 

(dismissal where privileged evidence necessary to the plaintiff’s prima 

facie case).

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32 FAZAGA V. FBI

whether the case should go forward despite the privilege 

invocation.

The state secrets privilege is different. It protects a public 

interest in safeguarding information that, if disclosed, would 

harm the nation’s defense, intelligence-gathering, or 

foreign-relationsinterests. So the dangers of proceeding with 

the case may transcend the impairment of the government’s 

private interest in defending the litigation; that interest, 

standing alone, might counsel waiving any privilege so as to 

enhance the defense. The “valid defense” ground for 

dismissal absolves the government, in the interest of national 

security, from having to choose between waiving the state 

secrets privilege to assert a defense and keeping the 

privileged materials private by abandoning any defense that 

relies on them.14

Second, a related reason the valid defense ground for 

dismissal has been justified is to protect the integrity of the 

judicial process. In Molerio v. FBI, for example, the plaintiff 

alleged that the FBI had decided not to hire him because of 

his father’s political activities. 749 F.2d 815, 818–20 (D.C. 

Cir. 1984). The D.C. Circuit concluded that the plaintiff had 

made out a “circumstantial case” that the FBI had violated 

the First Amendment because the political activities were a

substantial or motivating factor in the FBI’s failure to hire 

the plaintiff. Id. at 825. But the court had reviewed a 

14 There is an analogous tension in cases involving claims against 

individual defendants. Ellsberg v. Mitchell, for example, discussed how

officials sued in their individual capacities could be “trapped by the 

government’s assertion of its state secrets privilege” in cases where 

excluding privileged information “[d]eprived [them] of the ability in 

practice to adduce the evidence necessary to mount a defense to the 

plaintiffs’ prima facie case.” 709 F.2d 51, 69–70 (D.C. Cir. 1983). The 

valid defense ground for dismissal mitigates this risk as well.

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FAZAGA V. FBI 33

privileged submission from the government ex parte and in 

camera. Id. As a result of that review, “the court [knew] that 

the reason [the plaintiff] was not hired had nothing to do with 

[his father’s] assertion of First Amendment rights.” Id. The 

court recognized that if the privileged information were 

excluded as required under Reynolds, “there may be enough 

circumstantial evidence to permit a jury to come to [the] 

erroneous conclusion” that the reason the FBI didn’t hire 

Molerio was his father’s protected speech. Id. The court in 

Molerio specifically distinguished the situation before it

from that in Ellsberg v. Mitchell, where the court’s review of 

the privileged information “did not ipso facto disclose to the 

court the validity of the defense.” Id. (emphasis added). As

the Molerio court “kn[ew] that further activity in this case 

would involve an attempt . . . to convince the jury of a 

falsehood,” it concluded that “it would be a mockery of 

justice for the court—knowing the erroneousness—to 

participate in that exercise.” Id.

Crucially, these rationales for the “valid defense” ground 

for dismissal are not linked to the generalized risk that 

privileged information might be disclosed if the litigation 

moves forward. That concern is instead analyzed and 

protected under the rubric of Jeppesen’s unacceptable-riskof-disclosure dismissal ground. Rather, the “valid defense” 

ground protects against the unfairness that would result if 

there exists evidence that is factually and legally sufficient 

to establish an actually meritorious defense but cannot be 

introduced without endangering national security.

With that background, we reiterate that a valid-defense 

dismissal is warranted only if the privileged information 

establishes that the defense is legally meritorious and would 

require judgment against the plaintiff. In other words, the 

privileged information must establish a legally and factually

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34 FAZAGA V. FBI

valid defense. Any lesser standard could foreclose 

potentially meritorious claims based on conjecture and so

would go beyond protecting defendants from any unfairness 

caused by protecting state secrets and the court from 

ratifying a result it knows to be incorrect. “Just as it would 

be manifestly unfair to permit a presumption of 

unconstitutional conduct to run against the defendant when 

the privilege is invoked, it would be manifestly unfair to a 

plaintiff to impose a presumption that the defendant has a 

valid defense that is obscured by the privilege.” In re Sealed 

Case, 494 F.3d at 150 (internal quotation marks, alterations, 

and citation omitted).

We note as well that there is a risk that the state secrets 

privilege can be invoked not to protect the public interest in 

national security but to shield the government from 

embarrassment or unwanted scrutiny. In Reynolds, for 

example, courts allowed the government to invoke the state 

secrets privilege to withhold the report plaintiffs had 

requested, doing so “without even pausing to review the 

report independently in chambers or asking a lower court to 

take up that task.” Zubaydah, 595 U.S. at 251 (Gorsuch, J., 

dissenting). Decades later, the report was declassified and 

was revealed to detail the Air Force’s negligence rather than 

state secrets. See Louis Fisher, In the Name of National 

Security: Unchecked Presidential Power and the Reynolds

Case 165–69 (2006). Reynolds—and, with it, the modern 

state secrets doctrine—was thus based on the government’s 

misrepresentation in court that the report contained secret 

information. See id. at 193; Zubaydah, 595 U.S. at 251 

(Gorsuch, J., dissenting). 

We stress that we have no reason whatever to think that 

the government here is misleading this court. But the 

inherent tension when the government is both a litigating 

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party and the caretaker of national security secrets further 

cautions against dismissing a potentially viable lawsuit. As 

with conflicts of interest generally, the problem is not that 

the litigant or its attorney will consciously claim a privilege 

or make representations that prove to be unjustified or 

exaggerated. The problem is rather that the competing 

pressures will lead to unacknowledged and unintentional 

compromises of the countervailing interest in court access 

for potentially meritorious cases, especially cases like this 

one charging violations of constitutional rights. Given this 

tension—and without suggesting that the government actors 

in this case or any other are not proceeding with the utmost 

good faith in their state secrets assertions—courts are 

obliged to scrutinize independently the government’s 

invocations of the state secrets privilege, and to do so at the 

appropriate stage of the litigation and with sufficiently 

detailed support, rather than accepting them at the outset and 

at face value.

For these reasons, it is not enough to articulate a 

potentially valid defense, or to suggest that mounting a 

defense might require privileged evidence. Put another way, 

if the defense would in fact fail, there would be no prejudice 

to a government defendant from excluding the privileged 

evidence and allowing the case to proceed, nor any sense in 

which the courts were sanctioning an unfair result.

b.

That conclusion raises the question how courts are to 

determine whether privileged information establishes “a 

legally meritorious defense that prevents recovery by the 

plaintiffs.” Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1067. The inquiry is

necessarily a factual one. The district court must make 

“factual judgments,” Ellsberg, 709 F.2d at 69, and consider 

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potentially disputed issues of material fact, see Molerio, 749 

F.2d at 824. Because this inquiry focuses on potential 

defenses and other material beyond the pleadings rather than 

just the allegations of the complaint, valid-defense dismissal 

is not ordinarily appropriate under Rule 12(b)(6). As 

Jeppesen observed, “Reynolds necessarily entails 

consideration of materials outside the pleadings . . . . That 

fact alone calls into question reliance on Rule 12(b)(6).” 614 

F.3d at 1093 n.16.

So, if dismissal based on a valid defense usually cannot 

be granted under Rule 12(b)(6), what process is appropriate 

for a court to use to determine whether privileged 

information establishes a legally meritorious defense? In 

Jeppesen, we stated that “if the [Reynolds] privilege deprives 

the defendant of information that would otherwise give the 

defendant a valid defense to the claim, then the court may 

grant summary judgment to the defendant.” 614 F.3d at 1083 

(quoting Kasza, 133 F.3d at 1166) (emphasis added). But the

Rule 56 summary judgment standard is not a perfect fit for 

this determination either. See Molerio, 749 F.2d at 824. After 

all, the ex parte nature of a court’s review of privileged 

submissions means that the plaintiff will not have the chance 

to “dispute . . . material fact[s].” See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

Still, even if not in technical compliance with Rule 56, 

the practicalities of the situation counsel that both sides must 

be given an opportunity to offer evidence supporting their 

positions concerning whether the proffered defense is valid

before a court can dismiss a claim because privileged 

information establishes a valid defense. The invocation of a 

defense premised on assertedly privileged material, 

combined with a request to dismiss the case so as to protect 

the privileged material, can only be fairly evaluated if the 

district court itself reviews the defendant’s evidence, in 

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camera and ex parte to the extent the material is covered by 

the assertion of the state secrets privilege; concomitantly, the 

plaintiff must be given the opportunity to submit actual 

evidence to prove up a prima facie case and refute the 

defense. Unlike in a typical summary judgment, the task of 

evaluating each party’s evidence and resolving any disputes 

or inconsistencies to determine whether the defendant has a 

meritorious defense necessarily falls on the court. But the 

unusual nature of this procedure and the lack of transparency 

built into it is the price of protecting the defendant’s ability 

to mount a defense without exposing state secrets while 

preserving for the plaintiffs both court access and the ability 

meaningfully to litigate their case to the extent feasible.15

When the government seeks only to exclude privileged 

information, it can sometimes invoke the Reynolds privilege 

without making “a complete disclosure,” and a court need 

not “insist[] upon an examination of the evidence.” 

Reynolds, 345 U.S. at 10. But to justify dismissing a claim 

outright rather than simply excluding privileged 

information, the government must be prepared to disclose to 

the court the specific information that establishes its defense. 

The form and specificity of the government’s submission 

will of course depend on “the circumstances of the case” and 

the nature of the information. See id. But the submission 

must be detailed enough to make “clear” to the reviewing 

15 Our holding that the valid defense ground for dismissal ordinarily 

cannot be resolved at the pleading stage under Rule 12 does not mean 

that plaintiffs will be allowed to seek discovery of privileged 

information. The Federal Rules exclude privileged material from the 

scope of discovery. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). And Jeppesen’s

unacceptable-risk-of-disclosure dismissal ground protects against the 

risk that the process of discovery could itself disclose privileged 

information.

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court that “dismissal is required” because the privileged 

information clearly shows the defendant’s entitlement to 

judgment. Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1089 (emphasis added).

We recognize that the procedure we envision is 

unorthodox, as it melds summary judgment procedures with 

an expanded, nontransparent factfinding role for judges. But 

the alternative is also unorthodox: closing the courthouse 

door to potentially meritorious lawsuits because of a defense 

that may or may not be viable once examined. Faced with 

that dilemma, the procedure we have described is the best 

option.

c.

We now consider whether Fazaga’s claims must be 

dismissed at this juncture because privileged information 

establishes a valid defense. We conclude that, although at 

least some of the information at issue is privileged, the 

district court did not apply the standard we have enunciated,

or use the process we have described, when it decided that 

the case should be dismissed because the government has a 

“valid defense.” 

The district court stated tersely at the outset of its valid 

defense analysis that “the privileged information gives [the 

government] a valid defense.” But in explaining its valid 

defense ruling, the district court reasoned only that the 

defenses the government would try to mount against 

Fazaga’s various claims would all need to rely in part on 

privileged information. The court noted that defending 

against the discrimination claims would require the 

government to demonstrate that its investigations “were 

properly predicated and focused,” which would “require” the 

government “to summon privileged evidence related to 

Operation Flex.” Similarly, the district court explained that 

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the government could defend against Fazaga’s First 

Amendment claims by demonstrating that its actions were 

narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government 

interest—questions the district court noted were “fact 

intensive” and would “necessitate a detailed inquiry into the 

nature, scope, and reasons for the investigations under 

Operation Flex.” Finally, the district court stated that the 

government “may have a valid defense” against Fazaga’s 

FTCA claim under the discretionary-function exception, but 

stated that establishing such a defense would require the 

government to “marshal facts that fall within the three 

privileged categories of information related to Operation 

Flex.”

This summary demonstrates that the district court did not 

conduct the factual review required to conclude that 

Fazaga’s claims must be dismissed on the valid defense

ground. As we have explained, the government is not 

entitled to dismissal simply because it may assert a defense 

that could require introducing privileged information. The 

district court’s analysis here went only that far: The court 

speculated that defending against Fazaga’s claims could

require the government to “marshal” privileged information 

and would necessitate a “fact-intensive” and “detailed 

inquiry” into Operation Flex. But the district court dismissed 

Fazaga’s claims because such an inquiry into privileged 

information would be eventually required; it did not conduct 

that inquiry and conclude that the privileged information 

submitted established a defense that is “meritorious and not 

merely plausible,” such that it “would require judgment for 

the defendant.” Fazaga, 965 F.3d at 1067 (quoting In re 

Sealed Case, 494 F.3d at 149) (emphasis added).

In addition, the district court did not give Fazaga an 

opportunity to submit evidence to prove up his prima facie

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case, as we have held is required. Fazaga maintains that he 

can build such a case based on publicly available and 

nonprivileged evidence about Monteilh’s activities and the 

information he gathered, without any discovery.16 Fazaga 

might well, for example, be able to offer nonprivileged 

evidence from Monteilh, a percipient witness, regarding the 

government’s surveillance instructions. The district court, 

however, weighed the government’s evidentiary 

submissions against Fazaga’s allegations, without giving 

him a parallel opportunity to provide actual evidence. As we 

have explained, a court may not “grant summary judgment 

to the defendant” on the basis that the state secrets “privilege 

deprives the defendant of information that would otherwise 

give the defendant a valid defense to the claim,” Jeppesen, 

614 F.3d at 1083, without considering factual submissions 

from each party.

In sum, the district court has not yet conducted the 

detailed and fact-intensive inquiry required to dismiss a 

claim based on a valid defense under Reynolds. We cannot 

sustain its dismissal of Fazaga’s religion claims on the “valid 

defense” ground.

We therefore remand this case so that the district court 

can undertake the factual inquiry required to determine 

16 Fazaga goes on to suggest that if the government provides evidence, 

in court or in camera, to rebut the prima facie claim, “extremely limited 

discovery” into information that Fazaga maintains is not privileged 

would be sufficient to resolve the issue. As we explain later, infra p. 44–

45 and note 20, the government has indicated that considerably more 

unprivileged material will be available on remand than previously, 

including with regard to the instructions Monteilh received. The result 

may be that Fazaga will not request even “extremely limited discovery.” 

We comment later on the appropriate approach if he does. See infra p. 

46.

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whether dismissal based on a valid defense is warranted. On 

remand, the district court should provide Fazaga an 

opportunity to prove his prima facie case without privileged 

information. The government should have the chance to 

show that specific privileged information establishes a valid 

defense.17 The district court will be able to review the 

privileged information in camera and consider, based on the 

submissions from each party, whether the privileged 

information establishes a valid defense and so requires 

dismissing Fazaga’s claims.

3.

Another “exceptional circumstance” in which the 

Reynolds privilege can require dismissing a claim is if the 

privileged information is so “inseparable from nonprivileged 

information that will be necessary to the claims or defenses” 

that “litigating the case . . . would present an unacceptable 

risk of disclosing state secrets.” Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1083. 

The district court’s dismissal of Fazaga’s claims on this basis

does not meet the stringent standard for such dismissals.

“[W]henever possible, sensitive information must be 

disentangled from nonsensitive information to allow for the 

17 If the government’s prior submissions (which summarize but do not 

actually include the underlying classified source material) are not 

detailed and reliable enough to support this inquiry, the district court can 

request a more robust record. If the submissions are detailed and reliable 

enough, the district court can carefully consider which of the 

government’s evidentiary submissions is (i) privileged, and 

(ii) necessary to prove a valid defense. If the valid defense can be proven 

without privileged information, dismissal is not warranted; if only some 

of the information is privileged, the unprivileged material relied upon 

should be provided to the plaintiffs, as in an ordinary summary judgment 

proceeding (subject to the other Jeppesen ground for dismissal,

discussed next).

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release of the latter.” Kasza, 133 F.3d at 1166 (quoting 

Ellsberg, 709 F.2d at 57). District courts generally “are well 

equipped to wall off isolated secrets from disclosure.” 

Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1089. But in certain “exceptional 

cases,” the secret information may be “impossible to isolate 

and even efforts to define a boundary between privileged and 

unprivileged evidence would risk disclosure by 

implication.” Id. In those cases, a court may “restrict the 

parties’ access not only to evidence which itself risks the 

disclosure of a state secret, but also those pieces of evidence 

or areas of questioning which press so closely upon highly 

sensitive material that they create a high risk of inadvertent 

or indirect disclosures.” Id. at 1082 (quoting Bareford v. 

Gen. Dynamics Corp., 973 F.2d 1138, 1143–44 (5th Cir.

1992)). In the rare instance in which the risk of disclosure 

cannot be averted through the protective measures routinely 

used by courts, the case must be dismissed, leaving the 

plaintiff without a remedy for a possibly meritorious claim.

The government here has not at this stage established “either 

a certainty or an unacceptable risk” that proceeding with 

litigation will reveal state secrets. Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 

1087–88 n.12. 

Fazaga’s core allegation is that the defendants 

improperly targeted Fazaga and other Muslims because of 

their religion. The government argues that “[t]here is no way 

to litigate that core allegation without examining state 

secrets: the government’s actual reasons for conducting the 

FBI counterterrorism investigations at issue here and the 

nature and scope of those investigations.” But, in the unique 

posture of this case, it is, for several reasons, not apparent at 

the pleading stage that “the facts underlying plaintiffs’ 

claims are so infused with these secrets” that this litigation 

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cannot proceed with appropriate protective measures in 

place. See Jeppesen, 614 F.3d at 1088.

First, the district court did not consider all of the 

potential protective measures or explain why they would not 

be sufficient to protect the privileged information if litigation 

were to proceed. The district court referred generally to 

“protective procedures available to the [c]ourt,” specifically 

mentioning only “protective orders or restrictions on 

testimony.” But district courts have other tools to handle 

sensitive information. Moreover, even those two 

mechanisms are broad categories, and the district court did 

not disaggregate them.

Various procedures that could allow this case to proceed 

further have been proposed during the course of this 

litigation. One isthe possibility of the ex parte and in camera

proceeding described above in which the government would 

furnish privileged source material, and the district court 

could then determine whether the government has a valid 

defense based on its review of the underlying information.

There are other options, too. Federal courts have long 

used in camera review, protective orders, and other 

procedures to enable judges to review sensitive information. 

Congress has codified some of these procedures for specific 

circumstances. For example, FISA contemplates in camera, 

ex parte review of extremely sensitive information, along 

with the use of protective orders to bind nongovernment 

parties. 50 U.S.C. § 1806(f). The Classified Information 

Procedures Act allows courts to permit “statement[s] 

admitting relevant facts that the specific classified 

information would tend to prove” or “a summary of the 

specific classified information” to substitute for classified 

information. 18 U.S.C. App. § 6(c)(1). The district court 

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might also consider appointing a special master with a 

security clearance to examine the assertedly privileged

material. That master could (i) curate for the court a 

representative sample of the classified documents and 

(ii) summarize specific legal arguments each party could 

make based on the classified information, especially possible 

defenses. See In re U.S. Dep’t of Def., 848 F.2d 232, 234, 

236 (D.C. Cir. 1988); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 

53(a)(1)(B)(i).18 Alternatively, the government (or a neutral 

third party) could reformat the most sensitive privileged 

material—for example by providing the court classified 

documents with targeted redactions.19

Second, the unusual circumstances of this case 

particularly counsel against early dismissal. Those 

circumstances are these: The government revealed 

Monteilh’s role as a confidential informant in an unrelated 

criminal case. It also recognizes that there is substantial

relevant nonprivileged evidence that could be (and to a 

degree has been) disclosed in this litigation. Monteilh has 

provided extensive nonclassified declarations discussing his 

role in Operation Flex and his interactions with Fazaga and 

others, and some of the recordings from Monteilh’s 

18 A special master with a security clearance may be an efficient way to 

review a large body of classified material, given the logistical difficulties 

of clearing term judicial law clerks. See In re Dep’t of Def., 848 F.2d at 

236, 238–39.

19 If the dismissal issue arises again in this case, the district court should 

consider these alternatives, and others that may be suggested, to 

determine after a careful, detailed inquiry whether there is a real and 

unmitigable risk that privileged information could be revealed if the case 

proceeds.

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informant work are now public.20 The government has 

informed us that it “expects that, on remand, it will be able 

to . . . make the substantial majority of the audio and video 

[collected by Monteilh] available for further proceedings, 

subject to an appropriate Privacy Act protective order” and 

redactions. The government’s recognition that 

circumstances have changed to some degree suggests that 

the district court’s generalized assessment should be 

replaced by individualized consideration of the need for 

specific pieces of defensive evidence after Fazaga has the 

chance to present an evidence-based prima facie case and 

sharpen the issues that remain.

Further, Fazaga emphasized that he does not “need any 

discovery into the secret evidence” and “disclaim[ed] any 

need for it.” As noted, Fazaga maintains that he can build a 

prima facie case based on nonprivileged evidence about 

Monteilh’s activities and without any discovery. See supra 

p. 40 and note 16. The government defendants may be able 

to defend against those claims without relying on privileged 

information—by, for example, demonstrating on the 

evidence Fazaga presents that there was a compelling reason 

for investigating these individuals and no less restrictive 

alternative, or that the challenged conduct falls within the 

FTCA’s discretionary function exception. 

20 The government informed the court in a letter after oral argument that 

the FBI has reviewed the audio and video collected by Mr. Monteilh and, 

as the FBI previously expected, the FBI has determined that the 

substantial majority of the audio and video will be available for further 

proceedings in this case. The FBI has made preliminary redactions and 

expects that, on remand, it will be able to make the substantial majority 

of the audio and video at issue available, subject to an appropriate 

Privacy Act protective order.

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Third, the government’s assertion that any further 

litigation poses an unacceptable risk of disclosure is 

undercut by the detailed classified disclosures it has already 

presented to the district court, our court, and the Supreme 

Court. This case has proceeded for more than a decade 

without any classified or privileged information being made 

public. We therefore hesitate to credit vague fears that 

unspecified classified information could be revealed if the 

case goes forward, rather than allowing this case to proceed 

to the point where it is possible to focus on the need to 

protect specific pieces of information. To justify dismissal, 

the government would have to specify why, even though 

state secrets have so far in this case been communicated ex 

parte and in camera to three levels of court without issue, 

there remains a danger that particular privileged information

will be disclosed if proceedings continue.

We emphasize that if the case is to proceed, discovery, if 

any, will need to be extremely limited and closely monitored 

to avoid disclosing privileged information. The government 

appears to have acknowledged earlier in the case that, with 

such monitoring, further proceedings are possible. In its 

motion to dismiss, the government suggested that, “[t]o the 

extent that the Court wishes to assess the impact of the 

privilege assertion as to claims against the Government 

Defendants, it should require plaintiffs to proffer in 

proceedings under Rules 16 and 26 precisely what discovery 

it intends to seek against the Government” and allow the 

government to assert the privilege at that point. The 

government has not heretofore shown that such protective 

measures would not sufficiently reduce the risk of disclosing 

secret information in the future.

The “broad sweep” of the state secrets privilege 

“requires that the privilege not be used to shield any material 

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FAZAGA V. FBI 47

not strictly necessary to prevent injury to national security 

and counsels that whenever possible, sensitive information 

must be disentangled from nonsensitive information to allow 

for the release of the latter.” In re United States, 872 F.2d 

472, 476 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (internal citations and quotation 

marks omitted). We are not convinced that the significant 

amount of nonprivileged information in this case, including 

information that will be newly available on remand, cannot 

be disentangled from privileged national security secrets. If 

it does become clear that the court cannot disentangle 

nonprivileged information that is necessary for its case from 

privileged information, the government will remain free to 

seek dismissal; the district court will then evaluate the 

government’s request based on the specific information then 

available.

We conclude that the dismissal was not appropriate at 

this stage. The district court can determine on remand what 

safeguards are required to protect privileged information as 

the case goes forward; and, if asked to do so, reconsider a 

dismissal request based on new developments in the case.

IV.

We close our state secrets privilege discussion with two 

observations and some further reflections.

First, more than thirteen years have passed since the 

government first asserted the state secrets privilege in this 

case. Since then, new revelations have informed the public 

about increasingly bygone government actions. Ten 

additional people have served as Attorney General. It is far 

from certain that every piece of information over which the 

government asserted the state secrets privilege in 2011 need 

remain secret today. And pieces of information that remain 

privileged may now be easier to disentangle from non-secret 

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48 FAZAGA V. FBI

information. The government has made clear that its 

approach to classification is, commendably, dynamic. The 

upshot is that much more information might now be made 

available either to Fazaga or, if necessary, in camera to the 

court, without endangering national security.

Second, we are convinced that there are concrete 

possibilities for proceeding in this case. We remand with the 

expectation that the district court will consider the viability 

of procedures that will enable this litigation to move forward 

and facilitate some degree of interaction with the underlying 

source material, perhaps with the benefit of additional 

briefing by the parties as to such means. Again, any 

discovery will need to be closely monitored. But as we have 

said, we are not convinced that the full panoply of measures 

that could protect secret information has yet been exhausted. 

We leave it to the district court to employ the appropriate 

tools both to evaluate particularized invocations of state 

secrecy under Reynolds and to ensure that privileged 

information is appropriately handled.

The national security concerns in this case are serious. If 

it becomes evident that this case cannot be litigated without 

endangering national security, Fazaga’s private interest will 

have to yield. We emphasize that nothing in this opinion 

forecloses the government from asserting the privilege over 

specific pieces of evidence that become pertinent in the 

course of litigation, as the government did in Reynolds and 

Zubaydah and as it suggests it intends to do here, or from 

seeking dismissal because specific privileged evidence is 

essential to an articulated defense and cannot feasibly and 

safely be presented only in camera. But we emphasize as 

well that we should not cross that bridge until we have no 

choice but to do so. The record and disclosures before us at 

this early stage of litigation demonstrate that dismissal of 

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Fazaga’s claims at this juncture prematurely barred the 

courthouse door without assurance that there is no

alternative to doing so.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we DISMISS the remaining 

Bivens claims. Because the grounds specified by the district 

court do not warrant dismissal of the religion claims at this 

juncture, we REVERSE and REMAND those claims to the 

district court, along with the FISA claims and the Fourth 

Amendment claims for injunctive relief that we held 

cognizable in our prior opinion, for further proceedings in 

accord with this opinion and, to the degree still applicable, 

the earlier one.

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