Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05194/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05194-0/pdf.json

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

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 1, 2015 Decided October 23, 2015

No. 14-5194

AMIR MESHAL,

APPELLANT

v.

CHRIS HIGGENBOTHAM, FBI SUPERVISING SPECIAL AGENT, IN 

HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:09-cv-02178)

Jonathan Hafetz argued the cause for appellant. With 

him on the briefs were Arthur B. Spitzer and Hina Shamsi.

William J. Aceves was on the brief for amici curiae U.N. 

Special Rapporteurs on Torture in support of appellant.

Jessica Ring Amunson was on the brief for amici curiae 

Law Professors James E. Pfander, Carlos M. Vázquez, and 

Stephen I. Vladeck in support of appellant. 

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James J. Benjamin, Jr. and Christopher M. Egleson were 

on the brief for amicus curiae Donald Borelli in support of 

appellant.

Agnieszka M. Fryszman was on the brief as amicus 

curiae The Constitution Project in support of appellant.

Henry C. Whitaker, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were 

Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney at the time the brief was 

filed, and Matthew M. Collette and Mary H. Mason, 

Attorneys.

Before: BROWN, KAVANAUGH and PILLARD, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge KAVANAUGH.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.

BROWN, Circuit Judge: Amir Meshal filed this Bivens

action, see Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. 

Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), against several 

agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), 

claiming they violated his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights 

when they detained, interrogated, and tortured him over the 

course of four months in three African countries. Meshal 

insists a Bivens remedy in these circumstances is necessary 

and unexceptional. The government condemns the pro-Bivens 

rationale applied extraterritorially as unprecedented. The 

district court found the allegations of federal agents abusing 

an American citizen abroad quite troubling. So do we. Still, 

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the district court dismissed Meshal’s suit, finding a Bivens

action unavailable.

Faced with a shifting paradigm in which counterterrorism 

and criminal investigation merge, we rely on a familiar 

framework in an unconventional context. No court has 

countenanced a Bivens action in a case involving the national 

security and foreign policy context. And, while Bivens 

remedies for ill-executed criminal investigations are common, 

extraterritorial application is virtually unknown. We hold that 

in this particular new setting—where the agents’ actions took 

place during a terrorism investigation and those actions 

occurred overseas—special factors counsel hesitation in 

recognizing a Bivens action for money damages.

I

Meshal, a United States citizen and New Jersey resident, 

traveled to Mogadishu, Somalia in 2006 to “broaden his 

understanding of Islam after the country’s volatile political 

situation had largely stabilized.”1 J.A. 15. While he was 

visiting the country, violence erupted, forcing Meshal to flee 

to Kenya along with other civilians. 

In January 2007, Meshal was apprehended by Kenyan 

authorities, in a joint U.S.-Kenyan-Ethiopian operation, and 

transported to Nairobi. A member of Kenya’s Criminal 

Investigation Department (“CID”) told Meshal that authorities 

needed to determine “what the United States wanted to do 

 1 When reviewing whether the district court properly granted a 

motion to dismiss, we assume the truth of all well-pleaded factual 

allegations in the complaint. Doe v. Rumsfeld, 683 F.3d 390, 391 

(D.C. Cir. 2012) (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678–79 

(2009)).

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with him” before sending him “back to the United States.” 

J.A. 31.

Sometime between January 27 and February 3, 2007, 

U.S. officials learned about Meshal’s detention in Kenya and 

thus began a lengthy, multi-jurisdictional interrogation in 

which Defendants Chris Higgenbotham, Steve Hersem, John 

Doe 1, and John Doe 2 (collectively “Defendants”) had 

significant roles. Meshal claims Defendants followed the 

procedures detailing how the FBI should “conduct 

investigations abroad, participate with foreign officials in 

investigations abroad, or otherwise conduct activities outside 

the United States with the written [acquiescence or approval] 

of the Director of Central Intelligence and the Attorney 

General or their designees.” J.A. 32 (citing THE ATTORNEY 

GENERAL’S GUIDELINES FOR FBI NATIONAL SECURITY 

INVESTIGATIONS AND FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION 17 

(Oct. 31, 2003) (declassified Aug. 2, 2007)). 

For the next four months, Meshal claims Defendants 

detained him in secret, denied him access to counsel and the 

courts, and threatened him with torture and death. He says he 

was threatened with extradition to Israel where the Israelis 

would “make [Meshal] disappear,” J.A. 41; and with rendition 

to Egypt, where they “had ways of making him talk,” J.A. 42. 

Defendant Hersem also intimated that Meshal would suffer 

the same fate as the protagonist in the movie Midnight 

Express2

—a movie where a foreign prisoner is brutally beaten

and confined in horrid conditions in a Turkish prison for 

refusing to cooperate. Hersem said, “You made it so that even 

your grandkids are going to be affected by what you did,” but 

promised that if Meshal confessed his connection to al 

Qaeda, he would be returned to the United States to face 

 2 See MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (Columbia Pictures 1978).

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civilian courts instead of being returned to Somalia. J.A. 41. 

Meshal believes the agents hoped to extract a confession to 

terrorist activity as a prelude to prosecution. The alleged 

threats had an effect; Meshal’s cellmate observed that Meshal 

was “extremely distressed and crying” after returning to his 

cell from one of the interrogations. J.A. 41.

Meshal also alleges he was transferred between three 

African countries without legal process: from Kenya to 

Somalia, where he was detained in handcuffs in an 

underground room, with no windows or toilets, a place 

referred to as “the cave,” J.A. 48–49; then flown blindfolded 

to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he was detained in a military 

barracks. Over the next three months, Ethiopian officials 

regularly transported Meshal and other prisoners to a villa for 

interrogation where Does 1 and 2 repeatedly refused Meshal’s 

requests to speak to a lawyer. When he was not being 

interrogated, Meshal was handcuffed in his prison cell, and 

spent several days in solitary confinement. 

Eventually, the FBI released Meshal, and he returned to 

the United States. During the four months he was detained 

abroad, he lost approximately eighty pounds. He was never 

charged with a crime. 

Meshal filed a Bivens action specifically alleging 

detention without a hearing for four months violated his 

Fourth Amendment rights and that the threats of torture and 

disappearance violated his due process rights. In deciding 

Defendants’ motion to dismiss, the district court found 

Meshal had properly stated Fourth and Fifth Amendment 

claims.

3 Yet the court dismissed the case, concluding a Bivens

 3 Meshal pled additional Fifth Amendment claims that the district 

court did not address. Those claims related to his “prolonged 

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action was unavailable to Meshal because both this court, and 

several other circuits, had “expressly rejected a Bivens

remedy for [U.S.] citizens who allege they have been 

mistreated, and even tortured, by [American officials] in the 

name of intelligence gathering, national security, or military 

affairs.” Meshal v. Higgenbotham, 47 F. Supp. 3d 115, 116–

17 (D.D.C. 2014).

II

A

Federal tort causes of action are ordinarily created by 

Congress, not by the courts. Congress has created numerous 

tort causes of action allowing plaintiffs to recover for tortious 

acts by federal officers. See, e.g., Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 

U.S.C. §§ 2671 et seq.; Torture Victim Protection Act, 28 

U.S.C. § 1350 Note. But Congress has not created a tort cause 

of action that applies to this case. The Federal Tort Claims 

Act, for example, explicitly exempts claims against federal 

officers for acts occurring in a foreign country. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2680(k). The Torture Victim Protection Act provides a 

cause of action only against foreign officials, not U.S. 

officials. See 28 U.S.C. § 1350 Note, § 2(a). Having no 

statutory cause of action, Meshal has sued directly under the 

Constitution, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in 

Bivens.

 

extrajudicial detention and his forcible rendition to two dangerous 

situations.” Br. of Appellant at 20 n.4, Meshal v. Higgenbotham, 

No. 14-5194 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 15, 2014). We need not discuss these 

additional claims, which were raised only in a footnote in Meshal’s 

initial brief. See Hutchins v. District of Columbia, 188 F.3d 531,

539 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1999). 

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In 1971, the Supreme Court recognized an implied 

private action, directly under the Constitution, for damages 

against federal officials alleged to have violated a citizen’s 

Fourth Amendment rights. Bivens, 403 U.S. 388. The case 

began when Webster Bivens sued Bureau of Narcotics Agents 

in federal court, alleging facts the Court “fairly read” as 

claiming Bivens’ “arrest was made without probable cause.” 

Id. at 389. Because the alleged constitutional violation had 

already occurred, Justice Harlan noted that, “[f]or people in 

Bivens’ shoes, it [was] damages or nothing.” Id. at 410 

(Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). 

The Court recognized a federal damages remedy apart 

from the availability of state common law remedies. See id. at 

394–95. Noting Congress had not specifically provided a 

remedy for violations of constitutional rights and that “the 

Fourth Amendment does not in so many words provide for its 

enforcement by an award of money damages for the 

consequences of its violation,” id. at 396–97, the Court 

nevertheless relied on the rule that “where legal rights have 

been invaded . . . federal courts may use any available remedy 

to make good the wrong done.” Id. at 396. Importantly, 

although no federal statute provided Bivens a right to sue for 

the invasion of his Fourth Amendment rights, the Court 

recognized a cause of action because it found “no special 

factors [counselled] hesitation in the absence of affirmative 

action by Congress.” Id. 

Since Bivens, the Supreme Court has proceeded 

cautiously in implying additional federal causes of action for 

money damages. In the decade immediately following the 

ruling, the Court extended Bivens’ reach to claims involving 

employment discrimination in violation of the Due Process 

Clause, Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 243–45 (1979), and 

cruel and unusual punishment by prison officials in violation 

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of the Eighth Amendment, Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 

19–23 (1980). But over time, the Court gradually retreated 

from Bivens, rejecting any “automatic entitlement” to the 

remedy, and noting that “any freestanding damages remedy 

for a claimed constitutional violation has to represent a 

judgment about the best way to implement a constitutional 

guarantee . . . .” Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S. 537, 550 (2007). 

The best way to implement a particular constitutional 

guarantee, the Court decided, was to let Congress determine

whether it warranted a cause of action. See id. at 562. Finding 

either that Congress had provided an alternative remedy or 

that special factors counseled hesitation, the Court declined to 

recognize a Bivens action for: 1) a federal employee’s claim 

that his federal employer demoted him in violation of the First 

Amendment, Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 368–69 (1983); 2) 

a claim by military personnel that military superiors violated 

various constitutional provisions, Chappell v. Wallace, 462 

U.S. 296, 298–300 (1983); 3) a claim by Social Security 

disability benefits recipients that benefits had been denied in 

violation of the Fifth Amendment, Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 

U.S. 412, 414 (1988); 4) a former bank employee’s suit 

against a federal agency, claiming he lost his job due to 

agency action violating due process, FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 

471, 484–86 (1994); 5) a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment-based 

suit against a private corporation managing a federal prison, 

Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 73–74 (2001); 6) 

landowners’ claims that government officials 

unconstitutionally interfered with their property rights, Wilkie, 

551 U.S. 554–61; and 7) a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment 

claim against private prison employees, Minneci v. Pollard, 

132 S. Ct. 617, 623–26 (2012).

We, too, have tread carefully before recognizing Bivens

causes of action when plaintiffs have invoked them in new 

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contexts, especially in cases within the national security 

arena. In Wilson v. Libby, 535 F.3d 697 (D.C. Cir. 2008), we 

declined to recognize a Bivens action for a Central 

Intelligence Agency operative and her husband to recover 

damages for injuries they allegedly suffered when her covert 

status was disclosed. We held that the Privacy Act’s 

comprehensive remedial scheme was a “special factor” 

counseling hesitation before creating a Bivens remedy. Id. at 

706–07. We also noted that, “if we were to create a Bivens

remedy, the litigation . . . would inevitably require judicial 

intrusion into matters of national security and sensitive 

intelligence information.” Id. at 710. In Ali v. Rumsfeld, 649 

F.3d 762 (D.C. Cir. 2011), we were asked to recognize a 

Bivens action by noncitizen plaintiffs suing the former 

Secretary of Defense and three high-ranking Army officers 

for formulating and implementing policies that allegedly 

caused the torture and degrading treatment of plaintiffs. We 

disavowed the availability of Bivens because special factors, 

such as the “danger of obstructing U.S. national security 

policy,” counseled hesitation. Id. at 773 (quoting Rasul v. 

Myers, 563 F.3d 527, 532 n.5 (D.C. Cir. 2009)). In Doe, we 

refused to create a Bivens action for a contractor, a U.S. 

citizen, who claimed the U.S. military wrongfully detained 

him in Iraq. We noted that recognizing a Bivens cause of 

action “is not something to be undertaken lightly,” and we 

again found national security was a special factor counseling

serious hesitation. 683 F.3d at 394.

Other circuits have also refrained from recognizing

Bivens causes of action in the national security context. The 

Second Circuit, sitting en banc, concluded a dual citizen of 

Canada and Syria could not bring a Bivens action for a claim 

that the United States transferred him to Syria in order to 

subject him to torture and interrogation. See Arar v. Ashcroft, 

585 F.3d 559 (2d Cir. 2009). The Fourth Circuit refused to 

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recognize a Bivens action for plaintiff Jose Padilla, who sued 

former high-level policy-makers in the Department of 

Defense based on his status as an enemy combatant. See 

Lebron v. Rumsfeld, 670 F.3d 540 (4th Cir. 2012). And the 

Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, rejected the availability of 

Bivens for American citizen plaintiffs claiming they had been 

subjected to interrogation and mistreatment while in military 

detention. See Vance v. Rumsfeld, 701 F.3d 193 (7th Cir. 

2012). In each of these decisions, courts recognized that cases 

involving national security and the military counseled 

hesitation in recognizing a Bivens cause of action where 

Congress has not done so. See id. at 199–200; Lebron, 670 

F.3d at 548–49; Arar, 585 F.3d at 575–76. 

B

Meshal asks us to paddle upstream against this deep 

current of authority. He contends his suit involves only core 

Bivens claims—Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims made 

against particular law enforcement officers for actions taken 

during a criminal investigation—so there is nothing new here. 

Conversely, the government contends this case implicates a 

new Bivens context for two reasons: (i) Meshal’s claims 

involve alleged conduct undertaken as part of the FBI’s 

counterterrorism responsibilities involving a national security 

investigation of terrorist activity: and (ii) the alleged acts of 

the federal officers occurred abroad. 

We begin with some caveats. As we understand it, the 

Supreme Court has taken a case-by-case approach in 

determining whether to recognize a Bivens cause of action. 

See Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550, 554; Anya Bernstein, 

Congressional Will and the Role of the Executive in Bivens

Actions: What Is Special About Special Factors?, 45 IND. L.

REV. 719, 720 (2012). We therefore need not decide,

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categorically, whether a Bivens action can lie against federal 

law enforcement officials conducting non-terrorism criminal 

investigations against American citizens abroad. Nor do we 

decide whether a Bivens action is available for plaintiffs 

claiming wrongdoing committed by federal law enforcement 

officers during a terrorism investigation occurring within the 

United States. Our holding is context specific.4

Because of the procedural posture, we must reject the 

government’s characterization that this case involved only a 

national security investigation, as distinct from an 

investigation that was both a national security and criminal 

investigation. In reviewing the grant of a motion to dismiss, 

we assume the truth of all well-pleaded factual allegations and 

construe reasonable inferences from those allegations in the 

plaintiff’s favor. See Doe, 683 F.3d at 391. The complaint 

alleges that Defendants Hersem and Higgenbotham were 

members of the FBI “jump team” or “fly team,” the terms for 

those agents sent to Africa in 2007 “to conduct law 

enforcement investigations.” J.A. 33. On the first day of 

Meshal’s interrogation in Kenya and Ethiopia, Doe 1 

presented Meshal with a document and asked him to sign it, 

“telling [Meshal] the document notified him that he could 

refuse to answer any questions without a lawyer present.” J.A. 

37, 60. The presence of Miranda-like waiver forms usually 

 4 Nor do we question whether constitutional protections generally

apply to American citizens outside the United States when dealing 

with their government. See Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 6–10 (1957) 

(applying Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to U.S. citizens facing 

military trial for murder overseas); Al Bahlul v. United States, 767 

F.3d 1, 65 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in part) 

(“As a general matter, the U.S. Constitution applies to U.S. citizens 

worldwide[.]”). 

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signifies a criminal prosecution.5 Meshal’s experience was 

not unique. Kenyan authorities also arrested Daniel 

Maldonado, and FBI agents interrogated him in Kenya around 

the same time they held and interrogated Meshal. After 

Maldonado confessed, he pled guilty in federal district court 

to involvement in terrorist activities. J.A. 35–36; see Partial 

Tr. Prelim./Detention Hr’g, United States v. Maldonado, No. 

4:07-mj-00125-1, 34–35 (S.D. Tex. 2007) (Dkt. No. 17). 

Drawing the inferences from the complaint in Meshal’s favor, 

the agents’ actions suggest a criminal investigation for

terrorism, not purely intelligence-gathering. Even so, a 

criminal investigation into potential terrorism implicates some 

of the same special factor concerns as national security policy.

C

This case requires us to examine whether allowing a 

Bivens action to proceed would extend the remedy to a new 

context. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 675; Malesko, 534 U.S. at 68; 

Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 575 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in part and 

dissenting in part); see also Arar, 585 F.3d at 572 (“‘Context’ 

is not defined in the case law.”). The Supreme Court has 

never defined what constitutes a new “context” for Bivens

purposes, but in reviewing the case law, some patterns 

emerge. First, the Court considers a Bivens claim “new” when 

a plaintiff invokes a constitutional amendment outside the 

 5 See FeiFei Jiang, Dancing the Two-Step Abroad: Finding A Place 

for Clean Team Evidence in Article III Courts, 47 COLUM. J.L. &

SOC. PROBS. 453, 453 (2014) (“Federal agents often employ a twostep interview process for suspects in extraterritorial terrorism 

investigations. Agents conduct the first interview without Miranda

warnings for the purpose of intelligence-gathering. Separate ‘clean 

team’ agents then give the suspect Miranda warnings prior to the 

second stage of the interview, which they conduct for law 

enforcement purposes.”).

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three amendments previously approved. Compare Bivens, 403 

U.S. 388 (recognizing remedy for Fourth Amendment 

claims), with Bush, 462 U.S. 367 (refusing to recognize a 

Bivens remedy for a First Amendment violation). But even if 

the plaintiff alleges the same type of constitutional violation, 

it does not automatically invoke the same context for Bivens

purposes. Compare Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (recognizing a 

Bivens remedy where plaintiff alleges employment 

discrimination under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process

Clause), with Schweiker, 487 U.S. 412 (rejecting the 

availability of a Bivens remedy for social security claimants

alleging a violation of due process under the Fifth 

Amendment). In addition, the Court considers a Bivens claim 

“new” when it involves a new category of defendants. See 

Minneci, 132 S. Ct. 617 (private prison employee); Malesko, 

534 U.S. 61 (private prison corporation); Meyer, 510 U.S. 471 

(federal agency); Chappell, 462 U.S. 296 (military 

defendants). 

Meshal is correct that the claims here do not involve a 

different constitutional amendment or a new category of 

defendants. See Engel v. Buchan, 710 F.3d 698, 708 (7th Cir. 

2013) (noting the case involved an FBI agent “accused of 

violating the constitutional rights of a person targeted for a 

criminal investigation and prosecution,” and noting those 

facts “parallel[ ] Bivens itself”). And Meshal correctly notes

that Bivens remedies typically are available when based on

actions taken by law enforcement officers during criminal

proceedings. See Sutton v. United States, 819 F.2d 1289, 1293 

(5th Cir. 1987) (acknowledging “the classic Bivens-style tort, 

in which a federal law enforcement officer uses excessive 

force, contrary to the Constitution or agency guidelines”). Yet 

viewed “[a]t a sufficiently high level of generality, any claim 

can be analogized to some other claim for which a Bivens

action is afforded, just as at a sufficiently high level of 

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particularity, every case has points of distinction.” Arar, 585 

F.3d at 572. Like the Second Circuit in Arar, we construe 

“context” as it is commonly used in law: “to reflect a 

potentially recurring scenario that has similar legal and factual 

components.” Id.

The context of this case is a potential damages remedy

for alleged actions occurring in a terrorism investigation 

conducted overseas by federal law enforcement officers. Not 

only does Meshal’s claim involve new circumstances—a 

criminal terrorism investigation conducted abroad—it also 

involves different legal components—the extraterritorial 

application of constitutional protections. Such a different 

context requires us to think anew. To our knowledge, no court 

has previously extended Bivens to cases involving either the

extraterritorial application of constitutional protections6 or in 

 6 We considered a Bivens claim involving actions occurring 

overseas in In re Sealed Case, 494 F.3d 139 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

There, a Drug Enforcement Agency officer stationed in Burma 

alleged a State Department official violated his Fourth Amendment 

rights when the official sent a classified cable transcribing a 

telephone call plaintiff had made to a subordinate. Id. at 141. In 

response, the government invoked the state secrets doctrine, which, 

when the district court applied the doctrine, essentially barred 

plaintiff’s Bivens claim. On appeal, we noted the government had 

not challenged the application of the Fourth Amendment to actions 

occurring overseas, and we assumed, without analysis, Bivens 

applied. Id. at 143 (“The district court ruled that it was settled, 

indisputable law that the Fourth Amendment protects American 

citizens abroad, . . . and the United States does not challenge that 

ruling on appeal.”). Consequently, In re Sealed Case did not 

establish that Bivens is available for all claims involving incidents 

occurring abroad.

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the national security domain,

7 let alone a case implicating 

both—another signal that this context is a novel one. 

Meshal downplays the extraterritorial aspect of this case. 

But the extraterritorial aspect of the case is critical. After all, 

the presumption against extraterritoriality is a settled principle 

that the Supreme Court applies even in considering statutory 

remedies. See, e.g., Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 133 

S. Ct. 1659, 1664 (2013); Morrison v. National Australia 

Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869, 2877 (2010). If Congress had 

enacted a general tort cause of action applicable to Fourth 

Amendment violations committed by federal officers (a 

statutory Bivens, so to speak), that cause of action would not 

apply to torts committed by federal officers abroad absent 

sufficient indication that Congress meant the statute to apply 

extraterritorially. See Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2877. Whether 

the reason for reticence is concern for our sovereignty or 

respect for other states, extraterritoriality dictates constraint in 

the absence of clear congressional action.

 7 Neither Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), nor Ashcroft v. 

al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074 (2011), help Meshal’s cause. Although 

both cases involved Bivens claims in the national security context, 

in neither case did the Court explicitly consider whether to imply a 

Bivens cause of action. The Court instead, as has become its 

practice in some Bivens cases, seemed to assume without deciding 

that the claims were actionable under Bivens. See, e.g., Wood v. 

Moss, 134 S. Ct. 2056, 2066 (2014) (assuming without deciding 

Bivens applied to a First Amendment viewpoint discrimination 

claim); Reichle v. Howards, 132 S. Ct. 2088, 2093 n.4 (2012) (same 

for First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim); Iqbal, 556 U.S. at

675 (same for First Amendment free exercise claim). Moreover, 

neither case involved extraterritoriality. 

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D

Once we identify a new context, the decision whether to 

recognize a Bivens remedy requires us to first consider 

whether an alternative remedial scheme is available and next

determine whether special factors counsel hesitation in 

creating a Bivens remedy. See Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550.

Meshal has no alternative remedy; the government does

not claim otherwise. See Meshal, 47 F. Supp. 3d at 122 (“The 

parties agree that Mr. Meshal has no alternative remedy for 

his constitutional claims.”). Meshal, backed by a number of 

law professors appearing as amici curiae, argues that, when 

the choice is between damages or nothing, a Bivens cause of 

action must lie. The Supreme Court, however, has repeatedly 

held that “even in the absence of an alternative” remedy, 

courts should not afford Bivens remedies if “any special 

factors counsel[ ] hesitation.” Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550; see 

also Schweiker, 487 U.S. at 421–22. Cf. Wilson, 535 F.3d at 

708–09. Put differently, even if the choice is between Bivens

or nothing, if special factors counsel hesitation, the answer 

may be nothing. See Andrew Kent, Are Damages Different?: 

Bivens and National Security, 87 S. CAL. L. REV. 1123, 1151 

(2014) (“Kent”) (noting “the Court’s Bivens doctrine has long 

tolerated denying Bivens even when there is no other effective 

remedy”). 

The “special factors” counseling hesitation in recognizing 

a common law damages action “relate not to the merits of the 

particular remedy, but to the question of who should decide 

whether such a remedy should be provided.” SanchezEspinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202, 208 (D.C. Cir. 1985) 

(Scalia, J.). Where an issue “involves a host of considerations 

that must be weighed and appraised,” its resolution 

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“is more appropriately for those who write the laws, rather 

than for those who interpret them.” Bush, 462 U.S. at 380.

Two special factors are present in this case. We do not 

here decide whether either factor alone would preclude a 

Bivens remedy, but both factors together do so. First, special 

factors counseling hesitation have foreclosed Bivens remedies

in cases “involving the military, national security, or 

intelligence.” Doe, 683 F.3d at 394. Second, the Supreme 

Court has never “created or even favorably mentioned a nonstatutory right of action for damages on account of conduct 

that occurred outside the borders of the United States.” Vance, 

701 F.3d at 198–99. 

Adding to the general reticence of courts in cases 

involving national security and foreign policy, the 

government offers a laundry list of sensitive issues they say

would be implicated by a Bivens remedy. Further litigation, 

the government claims, would involve judicial inquiry into 

“national security threats in the Horn of Africa region,” the 

“substance and sources of intelligence,” and whether 

procedures relating to counterterrorism investigations abroad 

“were correctly applied.” Br. for the Appellees at 25–26, 

Meshal v. Higgenbotham, No. 14-5194 (D.C. Cir. Feb. 13, 

2015). The government also alleges Bivens litigation would 

require discovery “from both foreign counterterrorism 

officials, and U.S. intelligence officials up and down the chain 

of command, as well as evidence concerning the conditions at 

alleged detention locations in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya.” 

Id. at 26.

Unlike other cases where a plaintiff challenges U.S. 

policy, the plaintiff here challenges only the individual 

actions of federal law enforcement officers. At oral argument, 

the government had few concrete answers concerning what 

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1579545 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 17 of 59
18

sensitive information might be revealed if the litigation 

continued. Oral Arg. Recording 28:00–28:22; 29:52–29:59; 

36:47–37:10. Why would an inquiry into whether the 

Defendants threatened Meshal with torture or death require 

discovery from U.S. intelligence officials up and down the 

chain of command? Why would an inquiry into Meshal’s 

allegedly unlawful detention without a judicial hearing reveal 

the substance or source of intelligence gathered in the Horn of 

Africa? What would make it necessary for the government to 

identify other national security threats? Neither party knows 

exactly what discovery will entail because no similar Bivens

claim has survived the motion to dismiss stage. Still, to some 

extent, the unknown itself is reason for caution in areas 

involving national security and foreign policy—where courts 

have traditionally been loath to create a Bivens remedy.

At the end of the day, we find the absence of any Bivens

remedy in similar circumstances highly probative. Matters 

touching on national security and foreign policy fall within an 

area of executive action where courts hesitate to intrude 

absent congressional authorization. See Dep’t of Navy v. 

Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 530 (1988). Thus, if there is to be a 

judicial inquiry—in the absence of congressional 

authorization—in a case involving both the national security 

and foreign policy arenas, “it will raise concerns for the 

separation of powers in trenching on matters committed to the 

other branches.” Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 417 

(2002). The weight of authority against expanding Bivens,

8

 8 Even one of Meshal’s amici suggests that our prior decisions 

saying no to Bivens in cases involving national security prevents the

panel from creating a Bivens action here. See Steve Vladeck, 

Meshal: The Last, Best Hope for National Security Bivens Claims?, 

JUST SECURITY (June. 17, 2014, 4:09 PM), http://justsecurity.org-

/11784/meshal (“Of course, that these three circuit-level decisions 

(especially the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Doe) compel the result in 

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19

combined with our recognition that tort remedies in cases 

involving matters of national security and foreign policy are 

generally left to the political branches, counsels serious 

hesitation before recognizing a common law remedy in these 

circumstances.

There are also practical factors counseling hesitation. 

One of the questions raised by Meshal’s suit is the extent to 

which Defendants orchestrated his detention in foreign 

countries. The Judiciary is generally not suited to “secondguess” executive officials operating in “foreign justice 

systems.” Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674, 702 (2008). And 

judicial intrusion into those decisions could have diplomatic 

consequences. See Br. for the Appellees at 26 (allowing 

Bivens here would expose “the substance of diplomatic and 

confidential communications between the United States and 

foreign governments” regarding joint terrorism 

investigations). Moreover, allowing Bivens suits involving 

both national security and foreign policy areas will “subject 

the government to litigation and potential law declaration it 

will be unable to moot by conceding individual relief, and 

force courts to make difficult determinations about whether 

and how constitutional rights should apply abroad and outside 

the ordinary peacetime contexts for which they were 

developed.” Kent, at 1173. Even if the expansion of Bivens 

would not impose “the sovereign will of the United States 

onto conduct by foreign officials in a foreign land,” Dissent at 

18, the actual repercussions are impossible to parse. We 

cannot forecast how the spectre of litigation and the potential 

discovery of sensitive information might affect the 

enthusiasm of foreign states to cooperate in joint actions or 

the government’s ability to keep foreign policy commitments 

 

the district court in Meshal says nothing about whether the en banc 

D.C. Circuit or Supreme Court would necessarily agree.”).

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20

or protect intelligence. Just as the special needs of the military 

requires courts to leave the creation of damage remedies 

against military officers to Congress, so the special needs of 

foreign affairs combined with national security “must stay our

hand in the creation of damage remedies.” Sanchez-Espinoza, 

770 F.2d at 208–09.

III

A

Meshal claims his U.S. citizenship outweighs the national 

security and foreign policy sensitivities implicated by 

permitting a Bivens claim. We are not unsympathetic. 

American citizenship has inherent value. See Tuaua v. United 

States, No. 13-5272, slip op. at 14 (D.C. Cir. June 5, 2015) 

(citing Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 160 

(1963)). Even so, the “source of hesitation” in the Bivens

special factor analysis “is the nature of the suit and the 

consequences flowing from it, not just the identity of the 

plaintiff.” Lebron, 670 F.3d at 554; see also Vance, 701 F.3d 

at 203. At no point has the Supreme Court intimated that 

citizenship trumps other special factors counseling hesitation 

in creating a Bivens remedy. 

B

Meshal, and several law professors as amici, claim two 

congressional actions amounted to statutory ratification of 

Bivens. They further claim courts have consistently 

misinterpreted these legislative actions, and, consequently, 

have taken an unduly narrow view of Bivens.

In 1973, Congress rejected a Department of Justice 

proposal to substitute the federal government as the defendant 

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21

in all intentional tort suits against federal officers, including 

those raising constitutional claims, as part of the Federal Tort 

Claims Act. See James E. Pfander & David Baltmanis, 

Rethinking Bivens: Legitimacy and Constitutional 

Adjudication, 98 GEO. L. J. 117, 131 & n.79 (2009) (“Pfander 

& Baltmanis”); see also S. REP. NO. 93–588, at 3 (1973). In 

1988 Congress again rejected a DOJ proposal to funnel all 

liability into claims brought against the government rather 

than individual federal officers. See Pfander & Baltmanis, at 

135 n.100; Carlos M. Vázquez & Stephen I. Vladeck, State 

Law, the Westfall Act, and the Nature of the Bivens Question, 

161 U. PA. L. REV. 509, 566–70 (2013) (“Vázquez & 

Vladeck”). Congress instead passed the Westfall Act, 

providing that the FTCA would be the exclusive remedy for 

federal officials sued for “scope-of-employment” torts. 

Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation 

Act of 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-694, § 5, 102 Stat. 4563, 4564 

(codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2679(b)). In addition to creating 

detailed procedures for converting state torts claims against 

individual officers into FTCA claims against the United 

States, the Westfall Act provided an exception to the 

exclusive-remedy provision, stating it would not “extend or

apply to a civil action . . . which is brought for a violation of 

the Constitution of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 

2679(b)(2)(A). Thus, Congress expressly granted an 

exemption from the FTCA for Bivens suits. See Hui v. 

Castaneda, 559 U.S. 799, 807 (2010) (“Notably, Congress 

also provided an exception for constitutional violations.”);

H.R. Rep. 100-700, at 6, 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5945, 5950

(“Since the Supreme Court’s decision in [Bivens], the courts 

have identified [a constitutional] tort as a more serious

intrusion of the rights of an individual that merits special 

attention. Consequently, [the Westfall Act] would not affect 

the ability of victims of constitutional torts to seek personal 

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22

redress from Federal employees who allegedly violate their 

Constitutional rights.”). 

But whether Congress, in rejecting Justice Department 

proposals and providing a FTCA exemption, meant to ratify 

Bivens is open to doubt. Congress may have viewed Bivens

and federal tort claims as “parallel, complementary causes of 

action,” Carlson, 446 U.S. at 20, and intended, through the 

Westfall Act, to “solidify the Bivens remedy,” Pfander & 

Baltmanis, at 121–22. Or Congress could have thought 

“Bivens was a constitutionally required decision,” Carlson, 

446 at 33 n.2 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting), thus believing it 

could not legislate away Bivens remedies. We normally 

presume Congress legislates consistently with constitutional 

commands, see United States v. X–Citement Video, Inc., 513 

U.S. 64, 73 (1994), so mere congressional acquiescence to 

Bivens may not be the same as congressional ratification. And 

even if Congress did somehow ratify Bivens,

9 we would be 

left with yet another question: Did Congress intend to ratify 

Bivens’ scope as it was in 1988 or more broadly? See

Vázquez & Vladeck, at 579. If Congress intended to ratify 

Bivens only as it existed in 1988 then this would be an easy 

case. 

There are no definitive answers to these competing 

visions of congressional action. We are not foreclosing either 

interpretation, but in a case where the thumb is heavy on the 

scale against recognizing a Bivens remedy, uncertain 

 9 If Congress really desired a ratification of Bivens, its actions were 

not a model of clarity. Congress did not place Bivens causes of 

action in a separate statutory provision as it did for federal 

questions and constitutional violations committed by state actors.

See 28 U.S.C. § 1331; 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Instead, it merely created

an exception to FTCA immunity for constitutional violations. See

28 U.S.C. § 2679(b)(2)(A).

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23

interpretations of what Congress did in 1973 and 1988 cannot 

overcome the weight of authority against expanding Bivens. 

In any event, if the courts, as amici argue, have radically 

misunderstood the nature and scope of Bivens remedies, a 

course correction must come from the Supreme Court, which 

has repeatedly rejected calls for a broad application of Bivens. 

See supra, at Part IIC. Because we follow its lead, we will 

ship our oars until that Court decides the scope of the remedy 

it created. 

If people like Meshal are to have recourse to damages for 

alleged constitutional violations committed during a terrorism 

investigation occurring abroad, either Congress or the 

Supreme Court must specify the scope of the remedy. 

IV

Because Meshal has not stated a valid cause of action, the 

judgment of dismissal is

Affirmed.

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1579545 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 23 of 59
KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge, concurring: The United 

States is at war against al Qaeda and other radical Islamic 

terrorist organizations. Shortly after al Qaeda’s attacks on the 

United States on September 11, 2001, Congress authorized 

this war. President Bush and President Obama have 

aggressively commanded the U.S. war effort. 

The terrorists’ stated goals are, among other things, to 

destroy the State of Israel, to drive the United States from its

posts in the Middle East, to replace more moderate Islamic 

leadership in nations such as Saudi Arabia, and to usher in

radical Islamic control throughout the Greater Middle East. 

In pursuing their objectives, the terrorists have repeatedly 

attacked U.S. persons and property, both in foreign countries

and in the U.S homeland. 

The war continues. No end is in sight. 

In waging this war, the United States has wielded a wide 

array of federal assets, including the military, the CIA, the 

FBI, and other U.S. intelligence and law enforcement 

agencies. The traditional walls dividing military, intelligence,

and law enforcement operations have given way to a more 

integrated war effort. As President Bush and President 

Obama have explained, the United States employs military, 

intelligence, and law enforcement personnel in an often

unified effort to detect, surveil, capture, kill, detain, 

interrogate, and prosecute the enemy.

In this case, U.S. law enforcement officers detained and 

interrogated Meshal in a foreign country. They suspected that 

Meshal might be an al Qaeda terrorist. Meshal alleges that he 

was mistakenly detained and then abused. He has brought a 

tort suit against the individual officers under Bivens, and he 

seeks damages presumably in the hundreds of thousands of

dollars from those officers in their individual capacities. 

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2

The Bivens doctrine allows parties to maintain certain 

constitutional tort suits against federal officers in their 

individual capacities, even in the absence of an express 

congressionally created cause of action. The classic Bivens

case entails a suit alleging an unreasonable search or seizure

by a federal officer in violation of the Fourth Amendment. 

See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau 

of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). Since Bivens, however, 

the Supreme Court has been reluctant to extend the implied 

Bivens cause of action to new contexts. The Court has 

emphasized that it is ordinarily Congress’s role, not the 

Judiciary’s, to create and define the scope of federal tort 

remedies. As the Court has explained, Bivens carved out only

a narrow exception to that bedrock separation of powers 

principle.

Here, Meshal proceeded under Bivens because Congress 

has not created a cause of action for his alleged injury. As the 

Court today spells out, Congress has enacted a number of 

related tort causes of action. For example, the Federal Tort 

Claims Act provides a cause of action for torts committed by 

federal officials. But that law exempts torts committed in a 

foreign country. So it does not help Meshal. The Torture 

Victim Protection Act provides a cause of action for torture

committed by foreign officials. But the statute exempts U.S. 

officials, a point that President George H.W. Bush stressed 

when signing the legislation in 1992. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671 

et seq.; id. § 1350 Note; see also Statement on Signing the 

Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, 1 Pub. Papers 437-38 

(Mar. 12, 1992). So that law likewise does not help Meshal. 

The bottom line is that neither of those statutes, nor any other, 

creates a cause of action against U.S. officials for torts 

committed abroad in these circumstances. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2680(k); id. § 1350 Note, § 2(a). 

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3

Lacking any statutory cause of action, Meshal has sued 

under Bivens. The Department of Justice, speaking ultimately 

as the representative of President Obama, has vigorously 

argued that the implied Bivens cause of action cannot be 

stretched to cover Meshal’s case. According to the 

Department of Justice, Bivens does not apply here because the 

alleged conduct occurred during a national security 

investigation in a foreign country, a setting different in 

multiple important respects from the heartland Bivens case. 

Faithfully following existing Supreme Court precedent, Judge 

Emmet Sullivan agreed with the Department of Justice and 

dismissed Meshal’s suit. The Court today affirms, and I fully 

join its thorough and well-reasoned opinion. 

I add this concurrence to underscore a few points in 

response to the dissent. 

The fundamental divide between the majority opinion 

and the dissent arises over a seemingly simple question: Who 

Decides? In particular, who decides whether to recognize a 

cause of action against U.S. officials for torts they allegedly

committed abroad in connection with the war against al 

Qaeda and other radical Islamic terrorist organizations? In 

my view, the answer is Congress, not the Judiciary. 

In confining the coverage of statutes such as the Federal 

Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act, 

Congress has deliberately decided not to fashion a cause of 

action for tort cases like Meshal’s. Given the absence of an 

express cause of action, the dissent seizes upon Bivens. How 

does the dissent deal with the Supreme Court’s oft-repeated 

caution against extending Bivens to new contexts? The 

dissent argues that this case does not present a new context. 

On that point, I respectfully but strongly disagree with 

the dissent. Most importantly, the alleged conduct in this case

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4

occurred abroad. So far as the parties have been able to 

uncover, never before has a federal court recognized a Bivens

action for conduct by U.S. officials abroad. Never. In 

statutory cases, we employ a presumption against 

extraterritoriality. There is no persuasive reason to adopt a 

laxer extraterritoriality rule in Bivens cases. It would be 

grossly anomalous, in my view, to apply Bivens

extraterritorially when we would not apply an identical 

statutory cause of action for constitutional torts

extraterritorially. Cf. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.,

133 S. Ct. 1659, 1664 (2013); Morrison v. National Australia 

Bank Limited, 561 U.S. 247, 255 (2010). 

This case is far from the Bivens heartland for another 

reason as well. It involves a national security investigation

during a congressionally authorized war, not a simple arrest 

for securities fraud, drug trafficking, or the like. Other courts 

of appeals have refused to recognize Bivens actions for 

alleged conduct that occurred during national security 

investigations, even for conduct that occurred in U.S. 

territory. See Lebron v. Rumsfeld, 670 F.3d 540 (4th Cir. 

2012); Arar v. Ashcroft, 585 F.3d 559 (2d Cir. 2009); see also 

Vance v. Rumsfeld, 701 F.3d 193 (7th Cir. 2012). We should 

do the same in this case, especially because the conduct here 

occurred in a foreign country. The dissent responds that the 

Government has not demonstrated that this case is nationalsecurity-related. But U.S. officials were attempting to seize 

and interrogate suspected al Qaeda terrorists in a foreign 

country during wartime. If this case is not national-securityrelated, it is hard to see what is. The dissent counters that the 

U.S. had not designated Meshal as an enemy combatant. But 

that misses the key point: The U.S. was conducting an 

investigation to determine whether Meshal was an enemy 

combatant. In this war, the U.S. seeks to proactively confront 

terrorist threats before they fully materialize. Close calls may 

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1579545 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 27 of 59
5

arise in labeling an investigation as national-security-related. 

Not here. 

The confluence of those two factors – extraterritoriality 

and national security – renders this an especially inappropriate 

case for a court to supplant Congress and the President by 

erecting new limits on the U.S. war effort. Make no mistake. 

If we were to recognize a Bivens action in this case, U.S. 

officials undoubtedly would be more hesitant in investigating 

and interrogating suspected al Qaeda members abroad. Of 

course, some might argue that would be a good thing. Maybe 

so, maybe not. Either way, it is not our decision to make. 

Congress and the President possess the authority to restrict the 

actions of U.S. officials during wartime, including by 

approving new tort causes of action. And in this war, they 

have done so by enacting new statutes such as the Detainee 

Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act. But they 

have not created a tort cause of action for this kind of case. In 

my view, we would disrespect Congress and the President, 

and disregard our proper role as judges, if we were to 

recognize a Bivens cause of action here. 

* * *

 In justiciable cases, courts should not hesitate to enforce 

constitutional and statutory constraints on wartime activities. 

See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579

(1952); Hamdan v. United States, 696 F.3d 1238 (D.C. Cir. 

2012) (Kavanaugh, J.). But courts should not – under the 

guise of Bivens – unilaterally recognize new limits that 

restrict U.S. officers’ wartime activities. As Justice Jackson 

stated in his canonical concurrence in Youngstown, courts 

“should indulge the widest latitude of interpretation to 

sustain” the President’s command of “the instruments of 

national force, at least when turned against the outside world 

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6

for the security of our society.” 343 U.S. at 645 (Jackson, J., 

concurring). If I were a Member of Congress, I might vote to 

enact a new tort cause of action to cover a case like Meshal’s. 

But as judges, we do not get to make that decision. For those 

reasons, I respectfully disagree with the dissent and fully join 

the Court’s opinion.

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PILLARD, Circuit Judge, dissenting: 

As the majority observes, the allegations in this case are 

deeply troubling. See Maj. Op. at 2. For purposes of this 

decision, we must assume the truth of the facts Meshal 

alleges. The defendant FBI officers arbitrarily detained 

Meshal in secret in three different countries for four months

without charges, denied him access to counsel and the courts,

coercively interrogated him, and threatened him with 

disappearance and death. Id. at 3-5. They did so to “coerce 

him to confess to wrongdoing in which he had not engaged 

and to associations he did not have.” J.A. 16 (Complaint ¶ 3). 

Neither the United States nor any other government ever 

charged Meshal with a crime. Maj. Op. at 4-5. Our 

concurring colleague asserts that “U.S. officials were 

indisputably attempting to seize and interrogate suspected al 

Qaeda terrorists in a foreign country during wartime,” Conc. 

Op. at 4, but there is zero basis here on which we could 

conclude that these defendants had grounds for treating this 

plaintiff as a suspected al Qaeda terrorist, or that they acted 

pursuant to the President’s war powers. To the contrary, the 

government never designated Meshal an enemy combatant, 

and it eventually released him and returned him to the United 

States. Maj. Op. at 5. Neither defendants nor this panel 

doubts that Meshal properly stated Fourth and Fifth 

Amendment claims. See J.A. 14; Maj. Op. at 5-6. The only 

issue is whether, if the allegations were true, they would have 

consequences.

Had Meshal suffered these injuries in the United States, 

there is no dispute that he could have sought redress under 

Bivens. If Meshal’s tormentors had been foreign officials, he 

could have sought a remedy under the Torture Victim 

Protection Act. Yet the majority holds that because of 

unspecified national security and foreign policy concerns, a 

United States citizen who was arbitrarily detained, tortured,

and threatened with disappearance by United States law 

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2

enforcement agents in Africa must be denied any remedy 

whatsoever.

I would reverse the judgment dismissing Meshal’s case 

and remand for further proceedings for the following two 

reasons: 

First, congressional action supports a constitutional 

damages claim where, as here, it would not intrude on the 

unique disciplinary structure of the military and where there is 

no comprehensive regulation or alternative remedy in place; 

and

Second, where FBI agents arbitrarily detain a United 

States citizen overseas and threaten him with disappearance 

and death during months of detention without charges, those 

agents’ mere recitation of foreign policy and national security 

interests does not foreclose a constitutional damages remedy. 

I am unpersuaded that adjudicating Meshal’s 

constitutional damages claim would necessarily pose 

unacceptable risks to the national security and foreign policy 

of the United States. The government has submitted no 

certification or declaration of any authoritative diplomatic or 

national security officer to substantiate defendants’ sweeping 

national security and diplomatic relations claims. Defendants 

instead rely on generalized assertions that any litigation of

Meshal’s Bivens claim would involve unacceptable risks. 

Such assertions do not, in my view, constitute the kind of 

“special factors” that justify eliminating the Bivens remedy in 

a case like this one.

Courts have no power to make national security policy or 

conduct foreign affairs and, in fulfilling our own 

constitutional duty, the Article III courts must not imperil the 

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1579545 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 31 of 59
3

foreign relations or national security of the United States. But 

no less today than when the Supreme Court decided Bivens, 

“the judiciary has a particular responsibility to assure the 

vindication of constitutional interests such as those embraced 

by the Fourth Amendment.” Bivens v. Six Unknown Named 

Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 407 (1971) 

(Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). Government is most 

tempted to disregard individual rights during times of 

exigency. Judicial scrutiny becomes particularly important 

when executive officials assert that individual rights must 

yield to national security and foreign policy imperatives. 

Presented with cases involving assertions of paramount 

national interests in apparent tension with individual liberty, 

the federal courts have proved competent to adjudicate. 

Removing all consequence for violation of the Constitution 

treats it as a merely precatory document. See Davis v. 

Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 242 (1979). We should not do so 

without more justification than was presented here. 

Our responsibility in cases pitting claims of individual 

constitutional liberties against national security is to discern 

how the judiciary can meet its responsibility without either 

second-guessing the sound judgments of the political 

branches, or rubber-stamping every invocation of the 

capacious and malleable concept of “national security” at the 

expense of the liberty of the people. The fundamental 

character of our separation of powers prevents us from simply 

ceding to executive prerogatives: “[I]t would turn our system 

of checks and balances on its head to suggest that a citizen 

could not make his way to court with a challenge to the 

factual basis for his detention by his Government, simply 

because the Executive opposes making available such a 

challenge.” Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 536-37 (2004). 

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4

To meet that responsibility, courts have demanded that 

governmental assertions of national security interests be 

authoritative and specific. We have used special procedures 

and mechanisms to consider those interests and accord them 

appropriate respect without abdicating our constitutional 

duties to adjudicate claims of violation of individual 

constitutional rights. Measures such as courts’ inspection of 

evidence under seal or even in camera, coding to anonymize 

valuable and sensitive information, security clearances of 

counsel and court personnel, and other special 

accommodations have helped to preserve courts’ ability to 

adjudicate in the face of countervailing executive imperatives. 

Courts developed the state secrets privilege to safeguard 

against damaging litigation disclosures of national security 

information. That doctrine’s requirements are designed to 

ensure that it not be lightly invoked, and to tailor its impact on 

countervailing rights. Defendants here contend that they need 

not submit to any such controls. Rather, they would have us 

categorically turn away claims that ostensibly touch on 

national security and foreign policy. No precedent of the 

Supreme Court, this court, or any other United States court 

requires that result. 

The United States government itself elsewhere cites the 

availability of Bivens claims as fulfilling our treaty 

obligations to provide remedies for arbitrary detention and 

torture wherever it may occur, in peace or conflict. See infra

pp. 14-15. Yet defendants would deny that promise, leaving 

Meshal with no remedy whatsoever—whether under state or 

federal law, constitutional, administrative, or otherwise. 

Their position is that an American citizen who ventures 

beyond our borders has no legal remedy against arbitrary and 

prolonged detention and mistreatment at the hands of FBI 

agents—so long as those agents were sent overseas to protect 

United States interests. 

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5

Because I cannot conclude that either the Supreme Court 

or our court has ever read the Constitution and laws of the 

United States to support that result, and I am not persuaded 

that defendants have provided us with grounds to do so here, I 

respectfully dissent.

I.

Meshal’s case is unlike those in which the Supreme Court 

or this court has declined to recognize a Bivens remedy. 

Here, as the majority acknowledges, Meshal is suing the 

typical Bivens defendant. Maj. Op. at 13. When FBI agents 

violate a suspect’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights by 

detaining him without charges and threatening him with 

torture, disappearance, and death, a Bivens remedy is 

ordinarily available. See id. 

Defendants are not among the types of nongovernmental 

or organizational actors beyond the reach of Bivens: they are 

not a private corporation, cf. Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 

534 U.S. 61, 73-74 (2000), its employees, cf. Minneci v. 

Pollard, 132 S. Ct. 617, 623-26 (2012), or a federal 

governmental agency, cf. FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 484-

86 (1994). See Maj. Op. at 8, 13. 

These claims, if allowed to proceed under Bivens, would 

not sidestep any comprehensive scheme or alternative remedy 

addressing the conduct at issue. Maj. Op. at 8; cf. Wilkie v. 

Robbins, 551 U.S. 537, 553-62 (2007); Schweiker v. Chilicky, 

487 U.S. 412, 414, 424-29 (1988); Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 

367, 388 (1983); Wilson v. Libby, 535 F.3d 697, 706-08 (D.C. 

Cir. 2008). 

Meshal’s claims also do not implicate the unique 

demands of military discipline. He is not a service member or 

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6

military contractor, his claims did not arise in the theater of 

war, nor are the defendant’s asserted security interests those 

of the military, its chain of command, or alternate disciplinary 

structure. Cf. United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 683-84 

(1987); Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 303-06 (1983);

Doe v. Rumsfeld, 683 F.3d 390, 394-96 (D.C. Cir. 2012); 

Lebron v. Rumsfeld, 679 F.3d 540, 549-51, 553 (4th Cir. 

2012); Vance v. Rumsfeld, 701 F.3d 193, 199-203 (7th Cir. 

2012) (en banc). 

The foreign affairs implications that arise when an alien 

sues United States officials are absent here. Meshal is an 

American citizen, born and raised in New Jersey, to whom the 

constitutional protections asserted here apply both at home 

and when he goes overseas as a civilian tourist. Reid v. 

Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 5-10 (1957) (plurality) (rejecting “the idea 

that when the United States acts against citizens abroad it can 

do so free of the Bill of Rights”); Maj. Op. at 11 n.4; Oral 

Arg. Tr. at 19 (defendants’ counsel acknowledging 

constitutional rights of United States citizens abroad).

Conflict within Somalia displaced Meshal and other civilians, 

but Meshal does not allege he was arrested or detained in any 

zone in which the United States was engaged in war or 

military hostilities. J.A. 13. 

Precedent does not permit us categorically to rule out any 

civil remedy for these alleged wrongs. In my view, 

defendants’ national security and foreign policy “special 

factors” are overstated and under-explained. I do not read the 

Supreme Court’s cases to hold that “the thumb is heavy on the 

scale against recognizing a Bivens remedy” in a situation such 

as this one. Maj Op. at 22. To the contrary, the Supreme 

Court’s holding in Bivens that damages are an appropriate 

remedy for a Fourth Amendment violation remains the law of 

the land. And no one disputes that a Fifth Amendment claim 

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for arbitrary detention and coercive interrogation under 

threats of disappearance and death would be cognizable under 

Bivens if it occurred in the United States. See Wilkins v. May, 

872 F.2d 190, 194 (7th Cir. 1989) (Posner, J.) (recognizing 

Bivens Fifth Amendment due process claim in “a case in 

which a person who had been arrested but not charged or 

convicted was brutalized while in custody”), cert. denied, 493 

U.S. 1026 (1990); see also Hernandez v. United States, 757 

F.3d 249, 271, 277 (5th Cir. 2014) (recognizing Bivens Fifth 

Amendment claim extraterritorially for “conscience-shocking 

conduct”).

Defendants assert that any judicial consideration of 

Meshal’s claims would interfere with foreign policy and

national security, but they have failed to make the case. In the 

district court, defendants’ counsel said “I don’t know how the 

foreign government is alleged to have been involved in this 

particular operation.” J.A. 14. At oral argument in our court, 

as the majority notes, counsel for defendants “had few 

concrete answers concerning what sensitive information 

might be revealed if the litigation continued.” Maj. Op. at 17.

The only authority defendants cite for any threat to 

national security is the district court’s recapitulation of 

defendants’ own contentions in their lower-court briefs that 

litigation of Meshal’s claims “implicate national security 

threats in the Horn of Africa region” and “substance and 

sources of intelligence.” See Appellee Br. 11, 13, 24-27, 36-

37; Br. in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss at 13-14. They assert that 

adjudication would require the public release of sensitive 

national security information, but they provide no basis for us 

to evaluate that assertion. Defendants also have done nothing 

to explain why the more targeted tools available to courts to 

protect such information, such as confidential or in camera

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processes or the state secrets privilege, would be inadequate 

here.

II. 

I explain my conclusion by following the “familiar 

sequence” the Supreme Court employs to consider whether 

any “alternative, existing processes,” or “special factors”

justify denying Meshal’s Bivens claim. Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 

550. 

A.

Precedent directs us to consider first “whether any 

alternative, existing process for protecting the 

[constitutionally recognized] interest amounts to a convincing 

reason for the Judicial Branch to refrain” from superimposing 

a Bivens remedy on that process. Minneci, 132 S. Ct. at 621 

(quoting Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550) (brackets in original). 

Nobody contends that there is any “alternative, existing 

process” for protecting Meshal’s constitutional rights. See

Maj. Op. at 15-16; Conc. Op. at 2-3. The parties and the court 

agree that, in these circumstances, it is Bivens or nothing. See 

Davis 442 U.S. at 246. Unlike plaintiffs in the cases in which 

the Supreme Court has held that Bivens is unavailable, Meshal 

has no alternative state tort remedy, cf. Minneci, 132 S. Ct. at 

623, 626 (state tort remedy for alleged Eighth Amendment 

claims against private prison employees); Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 

551 (state tort remedy for alleged unconstitutional 

interference with property rights); Malesko, 534 U.S. at 73-74 

(state tort remedy for alleged Eighth Amendment claims 

against private prison corporation), and Congress has not 

provided any other remedy or comprehensive scheme to 

displace Bivens here, cf., e.g., Schweiker, 487 U.S. at 424-27

(Social Security Act); Bush, 462 U.S. at 380-81, 388 

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(comprehensive federal civil service regulation); Wilson, 535 

F.3d at 705-08 (Privacy Act); Chappell, 462 U.S. at 304 

(recognizing “unique disciplinary structure of the military 

establishment” as “special factor”). 

The majority acknowledges that Congress at various 

times has acted in ways that appear to have ratified Bivens, 

but ultimately concludes that congressional acquiescence is 

“open to doubt,” and so treats the congressional activity in the 

area as a draw. Maj. Op. at 20-22. The basis of the 

majority’s doubt is unpersuasive: my colleagues wonder 

whether Congress has preserved Bivens for almost half a 

century only because it thought it had to. Id. at 21-22. But 

the Supreme Court from Bivens onward has emphasized that 

Congress may displace the constitutional common-law 

remedy. In the face of that invitation to legislate, Congress 

has consistently preserved a place for judicially recognized

Bivens claims. 

In particular, as the majority acknowledges, even as 

Congress periodically amended the Federal Tort Claims Act 

(FTCA), which provides an exclusive federal statutory 

remedy against the government for state common-law torts by 

United States officials, Congress purposely left intact the 

judicially fashioned Bivens remedy for constitutional torts by 

those same officials. Congress in the 1974 amendments to the 

FTCA “made it crystal clear that Congress views FTCA and 

Bivens as parallel, complementary causes of action.” Carlson 

v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 19-20 (1980) (citing 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2680(h)). And again, in 1988 when the Westfall Act 

amended the FTCA to immunize federal officials from

personal liability for common law torts committed within the 

scope of their employment and substitute the United States as 

the sole defendant to those claims, Congress specified that 

such substitution-and-immunity does not apply to claims

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“brought for a violation of the Constitution of the United 

States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2679(b)(2)(A). Congress designed the 

Westfall Act so as “not to affect the ability of victims of 

constitutional torts to seek personal redress from Federal 

employees who allegedly violate their Constitutional 

rights”—a type of violation that is “a more serious intrusion 

on the rights of an individual that merits special attention.” 

H.R. Rep. No. 100-700, at 6 (1988), reprinted in 1988 

U.S.C.C.A.N. 5945, 5949-50. Congress has preserved 

constitutional damages claims even where they are parallel to 

and thus sometimes overlap with FTCA claims that provide a 

limited federal statutory vehicle for enforcing the substantive 

protections of state tort law; there is no basis to read that 

longstanding acceptance of Bivens as signaling congressional 

intent to eliminate constitutional damages claims when no 

overlapping or substitute claim exists.

The majority recognizes all of that, Maj. Op. at 20-21, 

but wonders whether Congress may have preserved Bivens

only out of concern that the remedy is constitutionally 

compelled, id. at 21-22. There is no basis for any such 

conclusion. The concurrence finds compelling that Congress 

has not codified any alternative remedy for Meshal’s harms. 

Conc. Op. at 3. But congressional restraint cuts the other 

way. As noted above, when Congress was making the 

relevant amendments to the FTCA, the Supreme Court had 

already repeatedly reiterated its own understanding that the 

judicially recognized remedy could be displaced by a 

congressional substitute. See, e.g., Bush, 462 U.S. at 378-79; 

Carlson, 446 U.S. at 18-20; Davis, 442 U.S. at 245-47; 

Bivens, 403 U.S. at 397. Despite addressing many other

related types of claims, Congress has enacted no alternative 

that would displace a claim like Meshal’s. Against that 

backdrop, Congress’s acquiescence cannot be read as

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misguided submission to, let alone rejection of, Bivens in 

these circumstances.

Defendants point out that the FTCA explicitly affords no 

tort remedy for injuries “arising in a foreign country.” 28 

U.S.C. § 2680(k). They contend the exception shows 

Congress’s intention to deny a constitutional tort remedy to 

individuals injured abroad by United States agents. But the 

reason Congress excluded extraterritorial claims from the 

FTCA was not to deny all damages liability for tort-like 

harms inflicted by United States agents overseas. That 

exclusion is specific to the FTCA, under which liability is 

determined “in accordance with the [tort] law of the place 

where the act or omission occurred,” 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1), 

i.e. by the common law of the various states. Congress “was 

unwilling to subject the United States to liabilities depending 

upon the laws of a foreign power.” United States v. Spelar, 

338 U.S. 217, 221 (1949). The exemption shows only that the 

FTCA aimed to incorporate the tort law of Texas or Illinois 

but not of Kenya or Ethiopia. The concerns animating the 

FTCA’s extraterritorial carve-out are inapplicable where the 

United States Constitution, not any foreign country’s law, 

supplies the rule of decision. 

The majority also asserts that “if Congress really desired 

a ratification of Bivens,” it would have “place[d] Bivens

causes of actions in a separate statutory provision,” such as 28 

U.S.C. § 1331 or 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Maj. Op. at 22 n.9. But 

Congress did not need to do that. Section 1331 provides 

general federal question jurisdiction. It is the very provision 

upon which Webster Bivens’s claim proceeded. Bivens, 403 

U.S. at 398 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). As Justice 

Harlan noted, Section 1331 “is sufficient to empower a 

federal court to grant a traditional remedy at law” for a Fourth 

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Amendment violation. Id. at 405.1 Demanding a showing 

that Congress created an analogue to Section 1983 for claims 

against federal officials also goes too far; had Congress done 

so, there would be no need for Bivens. See Lebron, 670 F.3d 

at 548 (acknowledging that “[w]e do not require 

congressional action before recognizing a Bivens claim, as 

that would be contrary to Bivens itself”). And once the Court 

decided Bivens, there was no need for a Section 1983-like 

statutory vehicle. Defendants point to other statutes providing 

remedies to detainees abused at the hands of government 

officials to argue that Congress could have created a cause of 

action for plaintiffs in Meshal’s position, but chose not to do 

so. They contend that congressional action “in this field” that 

creates no damages remedy for Meshal is a “special factor[]

that counsel[s] hesitation.” Appellee Br. 39. The majority 

correctly places no reliance on that argument. The additional 

congressional action defendants identify is wholly consistent 

with Congress’s acquiescence to Bivens for claims like 

Meshal’s.

The Military Claims Act and Foreign Claims Act provide 

an administrative compensation system for individuals

harmed by military officials or contractors at home or abroad. 

See 10 U.S.C. § 2733 (Military Claims Act); id. § 2734

(Foreign Claims Act). Defendants do not contend that any 

such claims process is available to a civilian harmed by 

 1 Damages are the traditional remedy at law, Bivens, 403 U.S. at 

395, and are less intrusive and thus more readily reconciled with 

national security prerogatives than an injunction disrupting ongoing 

official activities. Cf. Women Prisoners of D.C. Dep’t of Corr. v. 

District of Columbia, 93 F.3d 910, 921-22 (D.C. Cir. 1996) 

(injunctive relief “was never regarded as relief of first resort” 

because, “in tort actions, the standard formulation of the common 

law . . . is that equitable relief, such as an injunction, will be 

granted only when plaintiff’s legal remedies are inadequate”). 

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nonmilitary United States agents overseas, so it is unclear 

how those statutes could imply any congressional 

disinclination toward Meshal’s Bivens claim. Indeed, the fact 

that Congress provided a remedy to persons in special-factors 

military cases excluded from Bivens’ reach suggests 

congressional solicitude for persons who would otherwise 

lack compensation. See Vance, 701 F.3d at 200-01 

(enumerating statutes governing the treatment of military 

detainees to conclude that “[u]nlike Webster Bivens, they are 

not without recourse”); Doe, 683 F.3d at 396-97.

The same can be said of defendants’ invocation of the

Torture Victim Protection Act, which authorizes United States 

residents to sue foreign officials for abusive treatment under 

color of foreign law. 28 U.S.C. § 1350 Note. Defendants and 

the concurrence, Conc. Op. at 3-4, assert that the Torture 

Victim Protection Act’s damages remedy for United States 

residents harmed by foreign officials implies that Congress 

considered and eschewed a parallel remedy for the same 

harms inflicted by United States agents. But that statute may 

well reflect Congress’s awareness that, against United States 

agents, a remedy already exists under Bivens.

2

 Neither 

defendants nor my concurring colleague offer any reason why 

we should infer that Congress’s creation of a new remedy 

against foreign officials communicates its disapproval of the 

sole available remedy for torture of a United States citizen at 

the hands of United States nonmilitary agents. Their position 

 2 In the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, Congress enacted a 

limited, good-faith immunity provision shielding United States 

agents from damages liability in lawsuits brought by alien 

detainees. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000dd-1(a). Such immunity further 

hints that Congress contemplated that United States agents would 

face some kind of liability in United States courts when they 

mistreat their own citizens. See Vance, 701 F.3d at 219-20 

(Hamilton, J., dissenting).

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appears to be that if Kenyan or Ethiopian officials had worked 

alongside United States agents to torture Meshal, Congress 

would have wanted him to have a remedy in United States 

courts against the foreign agents under the Torture Victim 

Protection Act, but to have no chance of any parallel relief 

against the Americans inflicting the same torture. That 

inference is counterintuitive, to say the least.

The executive branch in fact publicly insists that victims 

of arbitrary detention or torture, both of which Meshal 

alleges, do have a remedy under our law. The remedy the

government touts is Bivens litigation in federal court. The 

Convention Against Torture and other treaties prohibit the 

United States from engaging in torture, forced 

disappearances, and arbitrary detentions.3

 As the State 

Department acknowledged in 2014, the United States is 

bound by the terms of the Convention Against Torture for 

actions committed either domestically or abroad, whether 

 3 See Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or 

Degrading Treatment or Punishment, art. 2(1), Dec. 10, 1984, S. 

Treaty Doc. 100-20 (1988), 1465 U.N.T.S. 85 (“Each State Party 

shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other 

measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its 

jurisdiction.”); Comm. against Torture, General Comment No. 2 on 

Implementation of Article 2 by States Parties, U.N. Doc. 

CAT/C/GC/2, at ¶ 16 (Jan. 24, 2008) (construing “any territory” 

language in Convention Against Torture to include “other areas 

over which a State exercises factual or effective control”); 

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 7, Dec. 16, 

1966, S. Exec. Doc. C, D, E, F, 95-2 (1978), 999 U.N.T.S. 171 

(“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or 

degrading treatment or punishment.”); Geneva Convention Relative 

to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, arts. 3, 32, 

147, Aug. 12, 1949, 75 U.N.T.S. 287 (prohibiting cruel and 

inhuman treatment and torture).

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during a time of conflict or peace.

4

 Both the Convention 

Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and 

Political Rights (ICCPR) obligate the United States to provide 

remedies, including “compensation,” for violations of their 

respective guarantees.

5 In 2006, the State Department assured 

the United Nations Committee Against Torture that victims of 

torture can sue United States officials for damages under the 

Constitution and cited Bivens to support that point. See 

United States Written Responses to Questions Asked by the 

United Nations Committee Against Torture, ¶ 5 (Apr. 28, 

2006), available at http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/68554.htm; 

see also Vance, 701 F.3d at 208-09 (Wood, J., concurring in 

judgment); id. at 219 (Hamilton, J., dissenting); Arar v. 

Ashcroft, 585 F.3d 559, 619 (2d Cir. 2009) (en banc) (Parker, 

J., dissenting).

Denying Meshal the recourse that the United States has 

asserted he has—the ability to bring a Bivens action—leads to 

an inexplicable result: civil remedies are available to most 

victims of torture, except a United States citizen tortured by 

United States agents abroad. An American subjected to 

 4 Comm. Against Torture, Concluding Observations on the Third to 

Fifth Periodic Reports of United States of America, U.N. Doc. 

CAT/C/USA/CO/3-5 (Nov. 20, 2014), at ¶¶ 5, 10, 14 (noting 

United States official policy that “U.S. personnel are legally 

prohibited” under Convention “from engaging in torture or cruel, 

inhuman” treatment “at all times, and in all places”); see also CAT, 

art. 2(1); ICCPR, art. 7; Legal Consequences of the Construction of 

a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2004 I.C.J. 136, 

¶ 109 (2004); Human Rights Comm., General Comment No. 31 on 

the Nature of the General Legal Obligation Imposed on State 

Parties to the Covenant, U.N. Doc CCPR/C/21/Rev. 1/Add. 13, 

¶ 10 (May 26, 2004).

5 Convention Against Torture, art. 14(1); ICCPR, arts. 2(3), 9(5), 

14(6).

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arbitrary arrest and coercive interrogation by federal officials 

within the United States would typically have a civil remedy 

under Bivens. See Maj. Op. at 13. The majority leaves open 

whether a United States citizen abused by federal agents

abroad as part of an investigation not implicating national 

security would be able to bring a Bivens action and offers no 

reason why such a suit would be barred. See Maj. Op. at 3, 

16. A United States citizen tortured by foreign officials could 

file suit under the Torture Victim Protection Act. See 28 

U.S.C. § 1350 Note. A foreign citizen tortured by United 

States officials within the United States could file suit under 

the Federal Tort Claims Act and the Alien Tort Statute. See

28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1); id. § 1350. And a foreign citizen 

tortured by American agents acting abroad could seek redress 

under the Alien Tort Statute or in his nation’s courts. Yet, 

under defendants’ view, a United States citizen tortured by 

American agents acting abroad has no recourse in his own 

nation’s courts. It makes no sense that Congress would have 

selectively denied to Americans abused abroad by United 

States agents the remedies it has extended to all others. The 

far more tenable conclusion is that Congress recognized that 

citizens already had a remedy under Bivens for such wrongs.

The Constitution includes a Bill of Rights because the 

Framers ultimately recognized that a Congress responsive to 

the will of the majority would not always adequately protect 

individual rights that might be unpopular with majorities. 

Bivens, 403 U.S. at 407 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment) 

(“[I]t must also be recognized that the Bill of Rights is 

particularly intended to vindicate the interests of the 

individual in the face of the popular will as expressed in 

legislative majorities.”). Adjudication of claims of individual 

rights has always been the distinctive province of the Article 

III courts. The genius of Bivens is precisely that it fulfilled a 

rights-protective function that the Framers knew was 

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unrealistic to leave only with a majoritarian Congress, even 

while the Court acknowledged Congress’s power to displace 

Bivens by crafting an alternative remedy or “comprehensive 

statutory scheme” in its stead. See Schweiker, 487 U.S. at 

424-27; Bush, 462 U.S. at 388. Because Congress has not 

done so here, it has provided no ground for dismissing 

Meshal’s Bivens claims.

B.

Our second task in considering whether Meshal may 

proceed with his Bivens claim is to “make the kind of 

remedial determination that is appropriate for a common-law 

tribunal, paying particular heed, however, to any special 

factors counselling hesitation before authorizing a new kind 

of federal litigation,” Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550 (internal 

quotation marks omitted), in “the absence of affirmative 

action by Congress,” Carlson, 446 U.S. at 18 (quoting Bivens, 

403 U.S. at 396). The majority concludes that two factors 

counsel decisively against recognizing a remedy here: foreign 

policy and national security concerns. Maj. Op. at 16-18. 

Defendants have not persuasively shown that either of those 

factors precludes a Bivens action in the circumstances alleged 

here. Moreover, there is no reason to conclude that a federal 

district court could not resolve whatever national security 

concerns might arise.

1.

The fact that the conduct Meshal complains of occurred 

abroad should not vitiate all remedy here. Defendants point 

to allegations that they harmed Meshal during an investigation 

“allegedly undertaken jointly with foreign government 

officials, and while plaintiff was detained by foreign 

governments.” Appellee Br. 21. It is not clear why those 

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facts, although potentially relevant to how his lawsuit would 

need to be litigated and managed, see infra Part II.B.4, should 

foreclose the suit. United States law enforcement cooperation 

with foreign governments around the world has become 

commonplace. Defendants have not explained how litigation 

of Meshal’s claim would pose foreign policy difficulties. See

J.A. 13-14; Oral Arg. Tr. at 30 (defendants’ counsel referring 

generally to “our relationship with foreign governments” as 

the sensitive national security issue raised by Meshal’s 

claims).

Our government’s power is defined and limited by the 

Constitution. “It can only act in accordance with all the 

limitations imposed by the Constitution. When the 

Government reaches out to punish a citizen who is abroad, the 

shield which the Bill of Rights and other parts of the 

Constitution provide to protect his life and liberty should not 

be stripped away just because he happens to be in another 

land. This is not a novel concept. To the contrary, it is as old 

as government.” Reid, 354 U.S. at 6. Fidelity to the 

Constitution should have prevented the FBI’s alleged 

mistreatment of Meshal in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. 

Judicial recognition of a claim against those nonmilitary law 

enforcement officers for having acted in ways long known to 

be contrary to the Constitution cannot fairly be condemned as 

“courts . . . unilaterally recogniz[ing] new limits that restrict 

officers’ wartime activities.” Cf. Conc. Op. at 5 (emphasis in 

original). 

In denying Meshal a remedy under Bivens, the majority 

contends that the fact that Meshal’s mistreatment occurred 

outside the United States is a “special factor” counseling 

against a constitutional damages claim. See Maj. Op. at 3, 15-

17; Conc. Op. at 3-4 (describing the foreign location of the 

alleged abuse as the “[m]ost important[]” factor). The court

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relies for support on the presumption against extraterritorial 

application of statutes. See Maj. Op. at 15-16 (citing Kiobel 

v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 133 S. Ct. 1659, 1664 (2013); 

Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247, 255 

(2010)). It is well established that Congress has the power to 

regulate actions of United States citizens outside the territory 

of the United States and, given the proliferation of 

transnational conduct, it increasingly does so. The 

presumption sets only a default rule of statutory construction 

to aid courts in determining whether Congress intended to 

legislate with respect to foreign occurrences. See Kiobel, 133 

S. Ct. at 1665; Morrison, 561 U.S. at 255. However, that 

presumption has no relevance to Meshal’s Bivens claims to 

enforce constitutional provisions that all agree apply abroad, 

especially given that the very genesis of Bivens lies in the 

acknowledged inactivity of Congress.

Even if we were to assume an analogue to the 

presumption against statutory extraterritoriality for Bivens

claims, it would be inapposite here because the factors that 

animate such a presumption are absent. Entertaining 

Meshal’s suit poses no risk of “impos[ing] the sovereign will 

of the United States” onto conduct by foreign officials in a 

foreign land. Kiobel, 133 S.Ct. at 1667. Application of the 

United States Constitution to govern interactions between 

Americans would not control the subjects of an independent 

sovereign or clash with its law, sending the controversial 

message that United States law “rule[s] the world.” Cf. id. at 

1664 (quoting Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 

454 (2007)). This case involves pursuit of purely 

retrospective relief by our citizen under our Constitution 

against our government’s criminal investigators. The 

Supreme Court in Kiobel—a case by aliens against foreign 

defendants to enforce international norms—noted the 

inapplicability of the presumption against extraterritoriality 

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20

when overseas conduct touches and concerns the United 

States with sufficient force. See id. at 1669; see also 

Morrison, 561 U.S. at 264-65. Meshal’s claims powerfully 

touch and concern the United States. Defendants have failed 

to show that any other nation has any conflicting interest in 

this case or that our foreign relations would be affected were 

it to proceed. 

Defendants relatedly assert that adjudicating Meshal’s 

allegations that defendants at times worked together with 

foreign agents to detain and transport Meshal requires federal 

courts to intrude on foreign justice systems and would upset 

diplomatic relations. Appellee Br. at 21, 24-26; see Maj. Op. 

at 18-19. But we have rejected the position that the 

cooperation of foreign law enforcement with United States 

agents renders a claim too sensitive to adjudicate: 

“[T]eaming up with foreign agents cannot exculpate officials 

of the United States from liability to United States citizens for 

the United States officials’ unlawful acts.” Ramirez de 

Arellano v. Weinberger, 745 F.2d 1500, 1542-43 (D.C. Cir. 

1984) (en banc), rev’d on other grounds, 471 U.S. 1113 

(1985); cf. also Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 795 

(1950) (Black, J., dissenting) (“The Court is fashioning 

wholly indefensible doctrine if it permits the executive 

branch, by deciding where its prisoners will be tried and 

imprisoned, to deprive all federal courts of their power to 

protect against a federal executive’s illegal incarcerations.”);

Abu Ali v. Ashcroft, 350 F.Supp.2d 28, 50, 54 (D.D.C. 2004) 

(circumstances in which “a citizen is allegedly being detained 

at the direction of the United States in another country 

without any opportunity at all to vindicate his rights” amount 

to “an exceptional situation that demands particular attention 

to the rights of the citizen”). Many of the Guantanamo 

detainees were captured by foreign governments and handed 

over to the United States, yet courts regularly review the facts 

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and circumstances of the detainees’ capture and detention 

when they adjudicate habeas claims. See Rasul v. Bush, 542 

U.S. 466, 470-72, 483-84 (2004); see, e.g., Anam v. Obama, 

696 F. Supp. 2d 1, 5-7 (D.D.C. 2010).

Our court has identified foreign policy implications as 

potential “special factors” in cases involving foreign plaintiffs 

but has specified that such concerns are removed when the 

plaintiff is a United States citizen. In Doe, we acknowledged 

that the plaintiff’s “United States citizenship does remove 

concerns . . . about the effects that allowing a Bivens action 

would have on foreign affairs” even as we declined on other 

grounds to recognize a Bivens claim against the Secretary of 

Defense by a United States-citizen military contractor in Iraq. 

683 F.3d at 396; cf. Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 

202, 208-09 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (noting, in special-factors 

analysis of Nicaraguans’ Bivens challenge to United States’ 

support of the Nicaraguan Contras, the “danger of foreign 

citizens using the courts . . . to obstruct the foreign policy of 

our government”). 

The majority cites Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674, 702 

(2008), for the broad proposition that United States courts 

may not “second guess executive officials operating in foreign 

justice systems,” Maj. Op. at 19, but that case does not 

support defendants’ foreign-policy objection to Meshal’s 

Bivens claims. The Court in Munaf unanimously held that 

United States citizens held by multinational forces have a 

right to seek habeas corpus relief in United States courts, 553 

U.S. at 686-88, notwithstanding that the participation of 

cooperating foreigners in the circumstances of confinement 

might be exposed. Munaf also concerned a contest over 

which of two sovereigns should prosecute criminal suspects 

of interest to both—a contest absent here, where no 

prosecution occurred and no other sovereign has claimed an 

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interest in Meshal’s civil case. See id. at 697-98. The 

Supreme Court’s conclusion—that the United States 

government’s decision not to “shelter [American] fugitives 

from the criminal justice system of the sovereign with 

authority to prosecute them” was beyond judicial review, id. 

at 705—has no relevance here. It fails to provide even 

indirect support for defendants’ much broader contention that 

a “foreign policy” factor weighs against any adjudication of 

rights abuses arising from investigations involving 

international cooperation.

2.

Defendants also have not shown how the “special factor” 

of national security prevents recognition of a Bivens claim 

here. See Oral Arg. Tr. at 23 (defendants’ counsel claiming 

that it “is the mere prospect of [national security related] 

litigation inquiry that raises” national security sensitivities). 

The executive and legislative branches have primary authority 

over national security matters, but their authority is not 

entirely insulated from the courts, which play a vital role in 

protecting constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has long 

“made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the 

President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s 

citizens,” and underscored that, “[w]hatever power the United 

States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its 

exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in 

times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all 

three branches when individual liberties are at stake.” Hamdi, 

542 U.S. at 536. Because “[n]ational security tasks . . . are 

carried out in secret . . . , it is far more likely that actual 

abuses will go uncovered than that fancied abuses will give 

rise to unfounded and burdensome litigation.” Mitchell v. 

Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 522 (1985). Courts must take care in 

accepting assertions of necessity based on national security, 

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because, as the Supreme Court has observed, “the label of 

‘national security’ may cover a multitude of sins.” Id. at 524. 

The law enforcement investigations in Turkmen v. Hasty, 

789 F.3d 218 (2d Cir. 2015), were at least as related to the 

investigation of suspected terrorism as the investigation at 

issue here, but the Second Circuit found no bar to Bivens

claims. See id. at 233-37. The Turkmen plaintiffs were 

detained in the wake of the September 11th attacks and held 

until the government could clear them of any involvement 

with terrorism. Id. at 226-27. The fact that the investigation 

concerned terrorism did not preclude the court from 

recognizing a Bivens remedy. The court acknowledged that 

“[i]t might well be that national security concerns motivated 

the Defendants to take action, but that is of little solace to 

those who felt the brunt of that decision. The suffering 

endured by those who were imprisoned merely because they 

were caught up in the hysteria of the days immediately 

following 9/11 is not without a remedy.” Id. at 264. The

national security character of the investigation was not 

dispositive there, nor should it be here.

I appreciate the majority’s efforts to cabin its holding to 

cases touching on national security and arising abroad. See

Maj. Op. at 3, 16-17; see also Oral Arg. Tr. at 28, 30 

(government disclaiming any rule barring all Bivens claims 

involving counter-terrorism investigations, or all claims based 

on overseas conduct). But I fear that relying on general 

national security concerns unconnected to military operations 

goes too far toward eliminating Bivens altogether. On its 

own, national security is a malleable concept. According to 

one scholar who exhaustively canvassed the field, “[d]espite

its appearance throughout history and its use in relation to 

statutory authorities . . . ‘national security’ is rarely defined,” 

and when Congress and the executive branch define it, they 

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do so broadly; the Supreme Court, for its part, “has 

acknowledged that the term is frustratingly broad, [and that it 

gives] rise to important constitutional concerns.” Laura K. 

Donohue, The Limits of National Security, 48 AM. CRIM. L.

REV. 1573, 1579-84 (2011). Defendants provide no principle 

limiting their proffered “national security” rationale for 

defeating Bivens liability and shielding federal agents from

constitutional accountability. The boundlessness of their 

position is particularly problematic when “[n]o end is in 

sight” to the war against terrorism. Conc. Op. at 1. 

Defendants’ open-ended invocation of “national security” to 

defeat Bivens is unprecedented. 

All of the cases defendants cite as dismissing Bivens

claims for national security reasons are readily distinguishable

from this one as involving the military. See Doe, 683 F.3d 

390; Vance, 701 F.3d 193; Lebron, 670 F.3d 540. Both Doe

and Vance concerned abuses allegedly committed by military 

officials and challenged military decisions about operations in 

the theater of war. Doe, 683 F.3d at 392; Vance, 701 F.3d at 

195-96, 199. Those decisions hinged, in part, on the fact that 

the plaintiffs were the functional equivalent of members of 

the armed services. For example, plaintiff Doe was a defense 

contractor detailed to a Marine unit on the Iraqi-Syrian border 

who was detained by the military and determined by a 

Detainee Status Board to be a threat to the Multi-National 

Forces in Iraq. See Doe, 683 F.3d at 391-92. Although Doe 

was “a contractor and not an actual member of the military,” 

we saw “no way in which this affects the special factors 

analysis” of Stanley and Chappell, which was based on the 

exclusive system of military justice and discipline. See Doe, 

683 F.3d at 393-94. Notably, in Doe, we referred collectively 

to the “military, intelligence, and national security” aspect of 

the case, never invoking “national security” alone or as it 

might relate to a criminal investigation. Id. at 394. Vance, 

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too, involved claims of military contractors “performing much 

the same role as soldiers.” 701 F.3d at 198-99. They were 

detained by military personnel in a combat zone on suspicion 

of supplying weapons to groups opposed to the United States.

The Seventh Circuit refused to recognize a Bivens remedy for 

their claims, reasoning that “[t]he Supreme Court’s principal 

point was that civilian courts should not interfere with the 

military chain of command.” Id. at 199. 

In Lebron, plaintiff Jose Padilla was “convicted of 

conspiring with others within the United States to support al 

Qaeda’s global campaign of terror” before he sued military 

policymakers and military officers for his prior military 

detention as an enemy combatant. 670 F.3d at 544. Although 

Padilla was neither a service member nor a contractor 

functioning as one, the defect in his suit, as in Doe and Vance, 

was that he sued the military and his claims threatened to 

“interfere[] with military and intelligence operations on a 

wide scale.” Id. at 553. 

Meshal’s suit does not arise out of or seek to scrutinize 

military service or military activity—he is not a service 

member or military contractor nor is he challenging any 

conduct of military officials. He was detained by FBI agents 

during the course of a national-security related law 

enforcement operation. Unlike its treatment of Bivens claims 

arising from and challenging military actions, the Supreme 

Court has never hesitated to recognize the viability of a 

damages suit against federal agents engaged in law 

enforcement activities or responsible for supervising 

prisoners. Compare Chappell, 462 U.S. at 300, with Bivens, 

403 U.S. 397-98, and Carlson, 446 U.S. at 17-19.

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3.

Even accepting that the intersection of foreign policy and 

national security concerns might sometimes amount to 

“special factors” counseling decisively against a Bivens claim, 

defendants have failed utterly to explain why those factors 

should be dispositive here. Defendants’ contention that 

litigating Meshal’s claims could jeopardize national security 

has been made in a cursory fashion, and only in legal briefing.

Defendants repeatedly assert, for example, that Meshal’s suit 

would “enmesh the judiciary in the evaluation of national 

security threats in the Horn of Africa region” and compromise 

“the substance and sources of intelligence.” Appellee Br. 13, 

24, 25, 37. That is insufficient. The scope or urgency of the 

national security threat in the Horn of Africa has not been 

shown to be incompatible with remedying violations of 

Americans’ Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.

The government’s assertion of national security interests 

here is quite different from the assertion that persuaded the 

Fourth Circuit in Lebron to decline to recognize a Bivens

claim. There, the court noted that Congress and the executive 

had acted in concert in support of the power over military 

affairs that constituted a “special factor.” Lebron, 670 F.3d at 

549. Congress enacted the Authorization for the Use of 

Military Force, and the President formally designated Padilla 

as an enemy combatant pursuant to that authorization. Id.

Here, no designation was made, and no military power 

asserted. The concurrence characterizes FBI activities in 

foreign countries as part of an “integrated war effort” under 

the national security umbrella of the President’s war power, 

and suggests that defendants were privileged to act as they did 

because they “suspected that Meshal was an al Qaeda 

terrorist.” Conc. Op. at 1. But defendants do not claim that 

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they acted pursuant to presidential war powers, nor have they 

provided any grounds for treating Meshal as a terrorist.

If Article III judges must sometimes cede our rightsprotective role in deference to the political branches on 

matters of national security, we should do so only with a 

responsible official’s authoritative and specific assurance of 

the imperative of doing so. “[H]istory and common sense 

teach us that an unchecked system of detention carries the 

potential to become a means for oppression and abuse . . . .”

Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 530. Not every Justice Department 

lawyer assigned to represent individual defendants sued under 

Bivens, see 28 C.F.R. § 50.15, has the authority to invoke the 

prerogatives of the Commander in Chief.

Before declining to recognize a cause of action because 

of national security concerns, the court should require the 

government to provide a concrete, plausible, and authoritative 

explanation as to why the suit implicates national security 

concerns. That judges cannot “forecast” on our own whether 

or how this suit might affect national security, see Maj. Op. at 

19, only underscores why we must require that the 

government take responsibility for invoking any such 

rationale. If this case indeed raises national security concerns, 

our law provides the United States with the opportunity to 

advance them, and gives courts more nuanced and focused 

ways to address such concerns. 

In order to invoke the state secrets evidentiary privilege, 

for example, the head of the department with control over a 

matter must personally consider the issue and make a formal 

claim of privilege. United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 7-8 

(1953). Courts give careful scrutiny to such assertions. See, 

e.g., Al-Haramain Islamic Found., Inc. v. Bush, 507 F.3d 

1190, 1203 (9th Cir. 2007) (“Simply saying ‘military secret,’ 

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‘national security’ or ‘terrorist threat’ or invoking an ethereal 

fear that disclosure will threaten our nation is insufficient to 

support the privilege. Sufficient detail must be—and has 

been—provided for us to make a meaningful examination.”). 

Here, by contrast, defendants have provided no affidavit or 

certification from a high-level government official explaining 

how Meshal’s suit would implicate national security. 

Defendants’ broad claim that this case implicates national 

security is entirely unsupported and conjectural. It does not 

justify refusing to recognize a Bivens claim here. 

4.

If Meshal were permitted to press his claim, it is entirely 

possible that during the proceedings a national-security 

related issue would arise, and that such an issue might prove 

to be an obstacle to the suit. But that is no reason to halt his 

suit at the threshold. As the majority notes, Maj. Op. at 17, 

defendants’ counsel at argument was unable to explain how 

litigating Meshal’s claim might reveal national security 

information or be insusceptible of management through the 

many other doctrines designed to enable litigation consistent 

with national security interests. See Oral Arg. Tr. at 23, 25.

Federal courts frequently decide cases raising national 

security issues and are well equipped to handle them. Among 

the responsibilities of Article III courts is the duty to evaluate 

the factual and legal bases of the government’s detention of 

United States citizens designated as enemy combatants, 

Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 509, 536, to adjudicate habeas petitions 

brought by enemy combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay, 

Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 732 (2008), and to decide

whether federal agents were engaged in a “joint venture” with 

foreign law enforcement officials to circumvent Miranda

warnings, United States v. Abu Ali, 528 F.3d 210, 226-28 (4th 

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Cir. 2008). The judiciary has a wide range of tools to address 

national security concerns as they arise during the course of a 

lawsuit. In light of those tools, defendants have failed to 

show that there is a reason to deny categorically Meshal’s 

constitutional tort claims.

Under the state-secrets privilege, for example, the 

government can withhold information from discovery if 

disclosure of that information would imperil national security 

or foreign policy. See, e.g., Reynolds, 345 U.S. at 7-8; Halkin 

v. Helms, 690 F.2d 977, 990 (D.C. Cir. 1982). Once the 

government properly invokes the privilege, a plaintiff cannot 

defeat it even if his suit would fail without the privileged 

material. See, e.g., Reynolds, 345 U.S. at 11; Halkin, 690 

F.2d at 990. The state-secrets privilege is designed precisely 

to prevent disclosure of information that would impair the 

nation’s defense capabilities or diplomatic interests. 

Courts have developed a variety of additional procedures 

for managing cases that implicate sensitive issues. See

Federal Judicial Center, National Security Case Studies: 

Special Case-Management Challenges (June 25, 2013) 

(hereinafter “FJC”). Courts are equipped to evaluate 

classified and sensitive evidence while maintaining secrecy. 

Classified or secret evidence is often submitted to courts 

under seal, and courts can issue opinions without disclosing 

that evidence. See, e.g., Nat’l Council of Resistance of Iran v. 

Dep’t of State, 251 F.3d 192, 202 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (“We 

acknowledge that in reviewing the whole record, we have 

included the classified material. As we noted above . . . we 

will not and cannot disclose the contents of the record.”); U.S. 

Info. Agency v. Krc, 989 F.2d 1211, 1220 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1993) 

(“[Secret] information has been submitted to the court under 

seal and cannot be discussed in this opinion.”). Court 

personnel and non-government attorneys may be eligible for 

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security clearances that permit them to view and use classified 

documents and materials for purposes of litigating claims 

touching on national security. See, e.g., In re Nat’l Sec. 

Agency Telecomms. Records Litig., 595 F. Supp. 2d 1077, 

1089 (N.D. Cal. 2009); see also United States v. Moussaoui, 

591 F.3d 263, 267 (4th Cir. 2010); FJC at 416, 422 (collecting 

examples). Courts can assign codes or aliases in a case to 

enable witnesses to testify about secret matters in a way in 

which the judge, jury, and attorneys will understand, but the 

public will not. See FJC at 407-08. Secure video connections 

can enable depositions and recorded testimony from witnesses 

living abroad. FJC at 64, 130-31, 187. Defendants have 

given no reason to believe that the tools available to courts to 

respond to such concerns would be inadequate in Meshal’s 

case.

* * *

Constitutional damages remedies hold out hope of redress

to survivors of what is sometimes truly horrific abuse at the 

hands of government agents. Witness this case. Such claims 

are rarely brought and, due to legal and factual complexities, 

they almost never succeed. Yet their existence has enormous 

value. As Judge Easterbrook observed for the en banc

Seventh Circuit in Vance, “[p]eople able to exert domination 

over others often abuse that power; it is a part of human 

nature that is very difficult to control.” 701 F.3d at 205. The 

Supreme Court recognized constitutional torts to deter that 

kind of abuse of power. United States law enforcement is 

more active internationally today than ever before, increasing 

the relevance of Bivens’ remedial and deterrent functions in 

cases like this one. Because I do not believe that precedent 

supports eliminating Meshal’s suit or that defendants made a 

showing that any congressional action or special factors 

should preclude it, I respectfully dissent.

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