06-4216-cv

Arar v. Ashcroft

1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

2

3 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

4

5 August Term, 2008

6

7

8 In Banc Rehearing: December 9, 2008 Decided: November 2, 2009

9

10 Docket No. 06-4216-cv

11

12 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x

13

14 MAHER ARAR,

15

16 Plaintiff-Appellant,

17

18 - v.-

19

20 JOHN ASHCROFT, Attorney General of the 

21 United States, LARRY D. THOMPSON,

22 formerly Acting Deputy Attorney General, 

23 TOM RIDGE, Secretary of Homeland Security,

24 J. SCOTT BLACKMAN, formerly Regional

25 Director of the Regional Office of 

26 Immigration and Naturalization Services, 

27 PAULA CORRIGAN, Regional Director of

28 Immigration and Customs Enforcement,

29 EDWARD J. MCELROY, formerly District

30 Director of Immigration and Naturalization

31 Services for New York District, and now

32 Customs Enforcement, ROBERT MUELLER,

33 Director of the Federal Bureau of

34 Investigation, John Doe 1-10, Federal 

35 Bureau of Investigation and/or Immigration

36 and Naturalization Service Agents, and JAMES 

37 W. ZIGLAR, formerly Commissioner for

38 Immigration and Naturalization Services, 

39 United States,

40

41 Defendants-Appellees.

42

43 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
 Senior Circuit Judge McLaughlin was a member of the

*

initial three-judge panel that heard this appeal and is

therefore eligible to participate in in banc rehearing. See

28 U.S.C. § 46(c)(1).

 Senior Circuit Judges Calabresi, Sack, and Parker, **

who assumed senior status during the course of in banc

proceedings, are entitled to participate pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 46(c)(2).

 The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, who was originally a

***

member of the in banc panel and who participated in oral

argument, was elevated to the Supreme Court on August 8,

2009.

2

Before: JACOBS, Chief Judge, McLAUGHLIN, CALABRESI, * ** 1

2 CABRANES, POOLER, SACK, SOTOMAYOR, ** ***

3 PARKER, RAGGI, WESLEY, HALL, and LIVINGSTON, ** 

4 Circuit Judges. KATZMANN, Circuit Judge, took

5 no part in the consideration or decision of

6 the case.

7

8 JACOBS, C.J., filed the majority opinion in which

9 MCLAUGHLIN, CABRANES, RAGGI, WESLEY, HALL, and LIVINGSTON,

10 JJ., joined.

11

12 CALABRESI, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which POOLER,

13 SACK, and PARKER, JJ., joined.

14

15 POOLER, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which CALABRESI,

16 SACK, and PARKER, JJ., joined.

17

18 SACK, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which CALABRESI,

19 POOLER, and PARKER, JJ., joined.

20

21 PARKER, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which CALABRESI,

22 POOLER, and SACK, JJ., joined.

23

24

25 Appeal from a judgment of the United States District

26 Court for the Eastern District of New York (Trager, J.)
3

1 dismissing Plaintiff-Appellant Maher Arar’s complaint

2 against John Ashcroft, the Attorney General of the United

3 States; Tom Ridge, the Secretary of Homeland Security;

4 Robert Mueller, the Director of the Federal Bureau of

5 Investigation; and others. Arar v. Ashcroft, 414 F. Supp.

6 2d 250 (E.D.N.Y. 2006). Arar alleges that he was detained

7 while changing planes at Kennedy Airport in New York (based

8 on a warning from Canadian authorities that he was a member

9 of Al Qaeda), mistreated for twelve days while in United

10 States custody, and then removed to Syria via Jordan

11 pursuant to an inter-governmental understanding that he

12 would be detained and interrogated under torture by Syrian

13 officials. 

14 Arar’s complaint alleges violations of the Torture

15 Victim Protection Act (“TVPA”) and the Fifth Amendment. The

16 District Court dismissed the complaint. Id. at 287-88. A

17 three-judge panel of this Court unanimously held that: (1)

18 the District Court had personal jurisdiction over Thompson,

19 Ashcroft, and Mueller; (2) Arar failed to state a claim

20 under the TVPA; and (3) Arar failed to establish subject

21 matter jurisdiction over his request for a declaratory

22 judgment. Arar v. Ashcroft, 532 F.3d 157 (2d Cir. 2008). A
4

1 majority of the panel also dismissed Arar’s Bivens claims,

2 with one member of the panel dissenting. Id. After in banc

3 rehearing, the panel opinion is vacated and the judgment of

4 the district court is affirmed. 

5 DAVID COLE (Maria Couri LaHood,

6 Jules Lobel, Katherine

7 Gallagher, on the brief), Center

8 for Constitutional Rights, New

9 York, NY; Joshua S. Sohn (on the

10 brief), DLA Piper US LLP, New

11 York, NY, for Plaintiff12 Appellant.

13

14 JONATHAN F. COHN, Deputy

15 Assistant Attorney General

16 (Gregory G. Katsas, Assistant

17 Attorney General; Benton J.

18 Campbell, United States

19 Attorney; Larry Lee Gregg, R.

20 Joseph Sher, Dennis C. Barghaan,

21 Assistant United States

22 Attorneys; Mary Hampton Mason,

23 Jeremy S. Brumbelow, U.S.

24 Department of Justice, Civil

25 Division, Torts Branch; Barbara

26 L. Herwig, Robert M. Loeb,

27 Michael Abate, U.S. Department

28 of Justice, Civil Division,

29 Appellate Staff, on the brief),

30 for Defendant-Appellee John

31 Ashcroft, the official capacity

32 Defendants-Appellees, and the

33 United States. 

34

35 JEREMY A. LAMKEN (John J.

36 Cassidy, Jamie S. Kilberg, Paul

37 J. Nathanson, on the brief),

38 Baker Botts L.L.P., Washington

39 D.C.; Stephen L. Braga (on the

40 brief), Ropes & Gray L.L.P.,
5

1 Washington D.C.,

2 for Defendant-Appellee Larry D.

3 Thompson. 45 Robin L. Goldfaden, American 6 Civil Liberties Union 7 Foundation, Immigrants’ Rights 8 Project, San Francisco, CA, fo

r

9 Amici Curiae American Civil

10 Liberties Union and New York

11 Civil Liberties Union in support

12 of Plaintiff-Appellant.

13

14 Burt Neuborne, New York, NY, for

15 Amici Curiae Norman Dorsen,

16 Helen Hershkoff, Frank

17 Michelman, Burt Neuborne, and

18 David L. Shapiro, in support of

19 Plaintiff-Appellant.

20

21 Michael B. De Leeuw, Dale E. Ho, 

22 Jonathan J. Smith, Fried, Frank,

23 Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP,

24 New York, NY, for Amicus Curiae

25 NAACP Legal Defense &

26 Educational Fund, Inc. in

27 support of Plaintiff-Appellant.

28

29 Sidney S. Rosdeitcher, Paul, 

30 Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &

31 Garrison LLP, New York, NY, for

32 Amici Curiae Retired Federal

33 Judges in support of Plaintiff-

34 Appellant.

35

36 Nancy Morawetz, New York

37 University School of Law, New

38 York, NY, for Amici Curiae Law

39 Professors in support of

40 Plaintiff-Appellant.

41

42 Alexander Yanos, Freshfields 

43 Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP, New

44 York, NY, for Amicus Curiae
6

1 Redress Trust in support of

2 Plaintiff-Appellant.

3

4

5

6 DENNIS JACOBS, Chief Judge:

7

8 Maher Arar appeals from a judgment of the United States

9 District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Trager,

10 J.) dismissing his complaint against the Attorney General of

11 the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the

12 Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others,

13 including senior immigration officials. Arar alleges that

14 he was detained while changing planes at Kennedy Airport in

15 New York (based on a warning from Canadian authorities that

16 he was a member of Al Qaeda), mistreated for twelve days

17 while in United States custody, and then removed to Syria

18 via Jordan pursuant to an inter-governmental understanding

19 that he would be detained and interrogated under torture by

20 Syrian officials. The complaint alleges a violation of the

21 Torture Victim Protection Act (“TVPA”) and of his Fifth

22 Amendment substantive due process rights arising from the

23 conditions of his detention in the United States, the denial

24 of his access to counsel and to the courts while in the

25 United States, and his detention and torture in Syria. 

26 The district court dismissed the complaint (with leave
7

1 to re-plead only as to the conditions of detention in the

2 United States and his access to counsel and the courts

3 during that period) and Arar timely appealed (without

4 undertaking to amend). Arar v. Ashcroft, 414 F. Supp. 2d

5 250 (E.D.N.Y. 2006). A three-judge panel of this Court

6 unanimously held that: (1) the District Court had personal

7 jurisdiction over Thompson, Ashcroft, and Mueller; (2) Arar

8 failed to state a claim under the TVPA; and (3) Arar failed

9 to establish subject matter jurisdiction over his request

10 for a declaratory judgment. Arar v. Ashcroft, 532 F.3d 157

11 (2d Cir. 2008). A majority of the panel also dismissed

12 Arar’s Bivens claims, with one member of the panel

13 dissenting. Id. The Court voted to rehear the appeal in

14 banc. We now affirm.

15 We have no trouble affirming the district court’s

16 conclusions that Arar sufficiently alleged personal

17 jurisdiction over the defendants who challenged it, and that

18 Arar lacks standing to seek declaratory relief. We do not

19 reach issues of qualified immunity or the state secrets

20 privilege. As to the TVPA, we agree with the unanimous

21 position of the panel that Arar insufficiently pleaded that

22 the alleged conduct of United States officials was done
8

1 under color of foreign law. We agree with the district

2 court that Arar insufficiently pleaded his claim regarding

3 detention in the United States, a ruling that has been

4 reinforced by the subsequent authority of Bell Atlantic

5 Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). Our attention

6 is therefore focused on whether Arar’s claims for detention

7 and torture in Syria can be asserted under Bivens v. Six

8 Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403

9 U.S. 388 (1971) (“Bivens”).

10 To decide the Bivens issue, we must determine whether

11 Arar’s claims invoke Bivens in a new context; and, if so,

12 whether an alternative remedial scheme was available to

13 Arar, or whether (in the absence of affirmative action by

14 Congress) “‘special factors counsel[] hesitation.’” See

15 Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S. 537, 550 (2007) (quoting Bush v.

16 Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 378 (1983)). This opinion holds that

17 “extraordinary rendition” is a context new to Bivens claims,

18 but avoids any categorical ruling on alternative remedies--

19 because the dominant holding of this opinion is that, in the

20 context of extraordinary rendition, hesitation is warranted

21 by special factors. We therefore affirm. (The term

22 “rendition” and its related usages are defined and discussed
 The term “rendition” refers to the transfer of a 1

fugitive from one state to another or from one country to

another. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1410 (9th ed. 2004)

(defining “rendition” as “[t]he return of a fugitive from

one state to the state where the fugitive is accused or was

convicted of a crime”); see also Wayne R. LaFave, Search and

Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 1.9(c)

(“[I]nterstate rendition[ ] is specifically provided for in

the United States Constitution. In order to implement the

rendition clause, Congress enacted the Federal Rendition

Act, which requires that the demanding state produce ‘a copy

of an indictment found or an affidavit made before a

magistrate of any State or Territory, charging the person

demanded with having committed treason, felony, or other

crime, certified as authentic by the governor.’” (footnotes

omitted)). In the international context, “extradition” is a

“distinct form of rendition” in which “one [country]

surrenders a person within its territorial jurisdiction to a

requesting [country] via a formal legal process, typically

established by treaty between the countries.” Cong. 

Research Serv., Renditions: Constraints Imposed by Laws on

Torture 1 (2009); see also 1 Oppenheim’s International Law

§§ 415-16 (9th ed. 1996). Although most international

renditions occur under a formal extradition treaty,

renditions also occur outside the scope of extradition

treaties, often as a matter of international comity. See 1

Oppenheim, supra, § 416; Cong. Research Serv., supra, at 1;

see also 18 U.S.C. § 3181(b) (permitting, “in the exercise

of comity, the surrender of persons, other than citizens,

nationals, or permanent residents of the United States, who

have committed crimes of violence against nationals of the

United States in foreign countries without regard to the

existence of any treaty of extradition with such foreign

government”). The terms “‘irregular rendition’ and

‘extraordinary rendition’ have been used to refer to the

extrajudicial transfer of a person from one [country] to

another.” Cong. Research Serv., supra, at 1; see also

Black’s Law Dictionary 1410 (9th ed. 2009) (defining

“extraordinary rendition” as “[t]he transfer, without formal

charges, trial, or court approval, of a person suspected of

being a terrorist or supporter of a terrorist group to a

9

1 in the margin. )

1
foreign nation for imprisonment and interrogation on behalf

of the transferring nation”). As we understand and use the

term here, “extraordinary rendition” does not, by itself,

imply that a subject of extraordinary rendition will be

treated as Arar alleges he was treated during and after the

rendition alleged in this action.

The United States Department of State records that,

between 1993 and 2001, “rendition” provided the means for

obtaining custody of ten suspected terrorists and

“extradition” applied to another four suspects. See U.S.

Dep’t of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001, App. D:

Extraditions and Renditions of Terrorists to the United

States. Accordingly, the rendition of suspected terrorists

outside the mechanisms established by extradition treaties--

so-called extraordinary rendition--had been employed as a

means of combating terrorists for nearly a decade prior to

the events giving rise to this litigation. See John B.

Bellinger III, Legal Adviser, U.S. Dep’t of State, Letter to

the Editor, Wall St. J., July 5, 2006, at A25 (discussing

the renditions of suspected terrorists Ramzi Yousef and Mir

Aimal Kansi to the United States and the rendition of Illich

Ramirez Sanchez, also known as “Carlos the Jackal,” by

French authorities from the Sudan to France, “which was

subsequently upheld by the European Commission on Human

Rights”), reprinted in Digest of United States Practice in

International Law 162-63 (Sally J. Cummings ed., 2006); see

also Remarks of Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Sec’y of State (Dec.

5, 2005) (“For decades, the United States and other

countries have used ‘renditions’ to transport terrorist

suspects from the country where they were captured to their

home country or to other countries where they can be

questioned, held, or brought to justice.”), in Digest of

United States Practice in International Law 100, 102 (Sally

J. Cummings ed., 2005).

10

1 Our ruling does not preclude judicial review and

2 oversight in this context. But if a civil remedy in damages

3 is to be created for harms suffered in the context of

4 extraordinary rendition, it must be created by Congress,
11

1 which alone has the institutional competence to set

2 parameters, delineate safe harbors, and specify relief. If

3 Congress chooses to legislate on this subject, then judicial

4 review of such legislation would be available.

5

6

7

8 [lines 5-13 intentionally left blank]

9

10

11

12

13

14 Applying our understanding of Supreme Court precedent,

15 we decline to create, on our own, a new cause of action

16 against officers and employees of the federal government.

17 Rather, we conclude that, when a case presents the

18 intractable “special factors” apparent here, see supra at

19 36-37, it is for the Executive in the first instance to

20 decide how to implement extraordinary rendition, and for the

21 elected members of Congress--and not for us as judges--to

22 decide whether an individual may seek compensation from
12

1 government officers and employees directly, or from the

2 government, for a constitutional violation. Administrations

3 past and present have reserved the right to employ

4 rendition, see David Johnston, U.S. Says Rendition to

5 Continue, but with More Oversight, N.Y. Times, Aug. 24,

6 2009, and not withstanding prolonged public debate, Congress

7 has not prohibited the practice, imposed limits on its use,

8 or created a cause of action for those who allege they have

9 suffered constitutional injury as a consequence.

10

11 I

12 Arar’s complaint sets forth the following factual

13 allegations. 

14 Arar is a dual citizen of Syria, where he was born and

15 raised, and of Canada, to which his family immigrated when

16 he was 17. 

17 While on vacation in Tunisia in September 2002, Arar

18 was called back to work in Montreal. His itinerary called

19 for stops in Zurich and New York. 

20 Arar landed at Kennedy Airport around noon on September

21 26. Between planes, Arar presented his Canadian passport to

22 an immigration official who, after checking Arar’s
13

1 credentials, asked Arar to wait nearby. About two hours

2 later, Arar was fingerprinted and his bags searched. 

3 Between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., Arar was interviewed by an agent

4 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), who asked

5 (inter alia) about his relationships with certain

6 individuals who were suspected of terrorist ties. Arar

7 admitted knowing at least one of them, but denied being a

8 member of a terrorist group. Following the FBI interview,

9 Arar was questioned by an official from the Immigration and

10 Nationalization Service (“INS”) for three more hours; he

11 continued to deny terrorist affiliations. 

12 Arar spent the night alone in a room at the airport. 

13 The next morning (September 27) he was questioned by FBI

14 agents from approximately 9 a.m. until 2 p.m.; the agents

15 asked him about Osama Bin Laden, Iraq, Palestine, and other

16 things. That evening, Arar was given an opportunity to

17 return voluntarily to Syria. He refused, citing a fear of

18 torture, and asked instead to go to Canada or Switzerland. 

19 Later that evening, he was transferred to the Metropolitan

20 Detention Center (“MDC”) in Brooklyn, where he remained

21 until October 8.

22 On October 1, the INS initiated removal proceedings,
14

1 and served Arar with a document stating that he was

2 inadmissible because he belonged to a terrorist

3 organization. Later that day, he called his mother-in-law

4 in Ottawa--his prior requests to place calls and speak to a

5 lawyer having been denied or ignored. His family retained a

6 lawyer to represent him and contacted the Canadian Consulate

7 in New York. 

8 A Canadian consular official visited Arar on October 3. 

9 The next day, immigration officers asked Arar to designate

10 in writing the country to which he would want to be removed. 

11 He designated Canada. On the evening of October 5, Arar met

12 with his attorney. The following evening, a Sunday, Arar

13 was again questioned by INS officials. The INS District

14 Director in New York left a voicemail message on the office

15 phone of Arar’s attorney that the interview would take

16 place, but the attorney did not receive the message in time

17 to attend. Arar was told that she chose not to attend. In

18 days following, the attorney was given false information

19 about Arar’s whereabouts.

20 On October 8, 2002, Arar learned that the INS had: (1)

21 ordered his removal to Syria, (2) made a (required) finding

22 that such removal would be consistent with Article 3 of the
 Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture 2

“prohibits any state party to the Convention from expelling,

returning or extraditing any person to another State where

there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be

in danger of being subjected to torture, and provides that

the determination of whether such grounds exist [must take]

into account all relevant considerations including, where

applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a

consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of

human rights.” Tun v. INS, 445 F.3d 554, 566 (2d Cir. 2006)

(internal quotation marks, brackets, and ellipsis omitted). 

15

1 Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), and (3) barred him from 2

2 re-entering the United States for five years. He was found

3 inadmissible to the United States on the basis of 8 U.S.C. 

4 § 1182(a)(3)(B)(i)(V), which provides that any alien who “is

5 a member of a terrorist organization” is inadmissible to the

6 United States. The finding was based on Arar’s association

7 with a suspected terrorist and other (classified)

8 information. Thereafter, Defendant J. Scott Blackman, an

9 INS Regional Director, made a determination that Arar was

10 clearly and unequivocally a member of Al Qaeda and

11 inadmissible to the United States. A “Final Notice of

12 Inadmissibility,” dated October 8, and signed by Defendant

13 Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, stated that Arar’s

14 removal to Syria would be consistent with the CAT,

15 notwithstanding Arar’s articulated fear of torture.

16 Later that day, Arar was taken to New Jersey, whence he
16

1 flew in a small jet to Washington, D.C., and then to Amman,

2 Jordan. When he arrived in Amman on October 9, he was

3 handed over to Jordanian authorities who treated him roughly

4 and then delivered him to the custody of Syrian officials,

5 who detained him at a Syrian Military Intelligence facility.

6 Arar was in Syria for a year, the first ten months in

7 an underground cell six feet by three, and seven feet high. 

8 He was interrogated for twelve days on his arrival in Syria,

9 and in that period was beaten on his palms, hips, and lower

10 back with a two-inch-thick electric cable and with bare

11 hands. Arar alleges that United States officials conspired

12 to send him to Syria for the purpose of interrogation under

13 torture, and directed the interrogations from abroad by

14 providing Syria with Arar’s dossier, dictating questions for

15 the Syrians to ask him, and receiving intelligence learned

16 from the interviews. 

17 On October 20, 2002, Canadian Embassy officials

18 inquired of Syria as to Arar’s whereabouts. The next day,

19 Syria confirmed to Canada that Arar was in its custody; that

20 same day, interrogation ceased. Arar remained in Syria,

21 however, receiving visits from Canadian consular officials. 

22 On August 14, 2003, Arar defied his captors by telling
17

1 the Canadians that he had been tortured and was confined to

2 a small underground cell. Five days later, after signing a

3 confession that he had trained as a terrorist in

4 Afghanistan, Arar was moved to various locations. On

5 October 5, 2003, Arar was released to the custody of a

6 Canadian embassy official in Damascus, and was flown to

7 Ottawa the next day. 

8

9 II

10 On January 22, 2004, Arar filed a four-count complaint

11 in the Eastern District of New York seeking damages from

12 federal officials for harms suffered as a result of his

13 detention and confinement in the United States and his

14 detention and interrogation in Syria. Count One of Arar's

15 complaint seeks relief under the Torture Victim Protection

16 Act (“TVPA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note (a)(1) (the “TVPA

17 claim”). Counts Two and Three seek relief under the Fifth

18 Amendment for Arar's alleged torture in Syria (Count Two)

19 and his detention there (Count Three). Count Four seeks

20 relief under the Fifth Amendment for Arar’s detention in the

21 United States prior to his removal to Syria. Arar also

22 seeks a declaratory judgment that defendants’ conduct
18

1 violated his “constitutional, civil, and human rights.” 

2 Defendants-Appellees moved to dismiss the complaint

3 pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b),

4 challenging personal jurisdiction over Defendants Ashcroft,

5 Thompson, and Mueller and challenging subject-matter

6 jurisdiction as to the claims alleging confinement and

7 torture in Syria on the ground that they arise from an order

8 of removal and are therefore subject to the jurisdictional

9 bar of the Immigration and Nationality Act (see infra Part

10 VI). It was also argued that Arar lacked standing to seek a

11 declaratory judgment.

12 On February 16, 2006, the district court dismissed

13 Counts One, Two, and Three with prejudice, and Count Four

14 without prejudice. Arar v. Ashcroft, 414 F. Supp. 2d 250,

15 287-88 (E.D.N.Y. 2006). The district court also concluded

16 that Arar lacked standing to bring a claim for declaratory

17 relief. Id. at 258-59. 

18 Arar elected not to re-plead Count Four, and on August

19 17, 2006, the district court entered judgment dismissing all

20 of Arar’s claims. Arar timely appealed. A divided three21 judge panel of this Court affirmed on June 30, 2008. Arar

22 v. Ashcroft, 532 F.3d 157 (2d Cir. 2008). The Court voted
19

1 to rehear the case in banc, and oral argument was heard on

2 December 9, 2008.

3

4 III

5 We review de novo the district court’s decision to

6 grant a motion to dismiss. In re NYSE Specialists Sec.

7 Litig., 503 F.3d 89, 95 (2d Cir. 2007). In so doing, we

8 accept as true the factual allegations of the complaint, and

9 construe all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from

10 the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. 

11 Roth v. Jennings, 489 F.3d 499, 501 (2d Cir. 2007); see also

12 Conyers v. Rossides, 558 F.3d 137, 143 (2d Cir. 2009).

13 At the outset, we conclude (as the panel concluded

14 unanimously) that Arar: (1) sufficiently alleged personal

15 jurisdiction over the defendants, and (2) has no standing to

16 seek declaratory relief; in addition, because we dismiss the

17 action for the reasons set forth below, we need not (and do

18 not) reach the issues of qualified immunity or the state

19 secrets privilege.

20 This opinion owes a debt to the panel opinions.

21

22
20

1 IV

2 The TVPA creates a cause of action for damages against

3 any “individual who, under actual or apparent authority, or

4 color of law, of any foreign nation . . . subjects an

5 individual to torture.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note (a)(1).

6 Count One of Arar’s complaint alleges that the defendants

7 conspired with Jordanian and Syrian officials to have Arar

8 tortured in direct violation of the TVPA. 

9 Any allegation arising under the TVPA requires a

10 demonstration that the defendants acted under color of

11 foreign law, or under its authority. Kadic v. Karadzic, 70

12 F.3d 232, 245 (2d Cir. 1995). “In construing the term[] . .

13 . ‘color of law,’ courts are instructed to look . . . to

14 jurisprudence under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . . . .” Id. (citing

15 H.R. Rep. No. 367, 102d Cong., 2d Sess., at 5 (1991)

16 reprinted in 1992 U.S.C.C.A.N. 84, 87). Under section 1983,

17 “[t]he traditional definition of acting under color of state

18 law requires that the defendant . . . have exercised power

19 ‘possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only

20 because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state

21 law.’” West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 49 (1988) (quoting

22 United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 326 (1941)). The
21

1 determination as to whether a non-state party acts under

2 color of state law requires an intensely fact-specific

3 judgment unaided by rigid criteria as to whether particular

4 conduct may be fairly attributed to the state. See

5 Brentwood Acad. v. Tenn. Secondary Sch. Athletic Ass’n, 531

6 U.S. 288, 295 (2001). A federal officer who conspires with

7 a state officer may act under color of state law, see

8 Beechwood Restorative Care Ctr. v. Leeds, 436 F.3d 147, 154

9 (2d Cir. 2006); but since “federal officials typically act

10 under color of federal law,” they are rarely deemed to have

11 acted under color of state law. Strickland ex rel.

12 Strickland v. Shalala, 123 F.3d 863, 866 (6th Cir. 1997)

13 (emphasis in original).

14 Accordingly, to state a claim under the TVPA, Arar must

15 adequately allege that the defendants possessed power under

16 Syrian law, and that the offending actions (i.e., Arar’s

17 removal to Syria and subsequent torture) derived from an

18 exercise of that power, or that defendants could not have

19 undertaken their culpable actions absent such power. The

20 complaint contains no such allegation. Arar has argued that

21 his allegation of conspiracy cures any deficiency under the

22 TVPA. But the conspiracy allegation is that United States
 Judge POOLER relies on a line of section 1983 cases 3

explaining when and how private conduct can constitute state

action, and then reasons by analogy to deem the defendants’

conduct in this case to have arisen under foreign (Syrian)

law. See Dissent of Judge Pooler at 8-9. Under this

theory, Judge POOLER would allow a person tortured abroad to

sue an official of the United States government, who in the

performance of her official duties, “encourage[d],”

“facilitat[ed],” or “solicit[ed]” the mistreatment. Id. at

22

1 officials encouraged and facilitated the exercise of power

2 by Syrians in Syria, not that the United States officials

3 had or exercised power or authority under Syrian law. The

4 defendants are alleged to have acted under color of federal,

5 not Syrian, law, and to have acted in accordance with

6 alleged federal policies and in pursuit of the aims of the

7 federal government in the international context. At most,

8 it is alleged that the defendants encouraged or solicited

9 certain conduct by foreign officials. Such conduct is

10 insufficient to establish that the defendants were in some

11 way clothed with the authority of Syrian law or that their

12 conduct may otherwise be fairly attributable to Syria. See,

13 e.g., Harbury v. Hayden, 444 F. Supp. 2d 19, 42-43 (D.D.C.

14 2006), aff’d on other grounds, 522 F.3d 413 (D.C. Cir.

15 2008). We therefore agree with the unanimous holding of the

16 panel and affirm the District Court’s dismissal of the TVPA

17 claim.3
10. Notably, she cites no authority for this remarkable

proposition, which would render a U.S. official an official

of a foreign government when she deals with that foreign

state on matters involving intelligence, military, and

diplomatic affairs. At least one commentator has proposed a

legislative amendment to bring the law into line with what

Judge POOLER thinks it is, or should be. See Richard Henry

Seamon, U.S. Torture as a Tort, 37 Rutgers L.J. 715, 802,

804 (2006) (“Under current law, U.S. officials can seldom be

held civilly liable for torture . . . . Congress could amend

the TVPA to extend the cause of action to the victims of

torture inflicted under color of federal law.”). 

23

1 V

2 Count Four of the complaint alleges that the conditions

3 of confinement in the United States (prior to Arar’s removal

4 to Syria), and the denial of access to courts during that

5 detention, violated Arar’s substantive due process rights

6 under the Fifth Amendment. The District Court dismissed

7 this claim--without prejudice--as insufficiently pleaded,

8 and invited Arar to re-plead the claim in order to

9 “articulate more precisely the judicial relief he was

10 denied” and to “name those defendants that were personally

11 involved in the alleged unconstitutional treatment.” Arar,

12 414 F. Supp. 2d at 286, 287. Arar elected (in his counsel’s

13 words) to “stand on the allegations of his original

14 complaint.” 

15 On a motion to dismiss, courts require “enough facts to
24

1 state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” 

2 Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570; see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.

3 Ct. 1937, 1949-50 (2009). “Factual allegations must be

4 enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative

5 level . . . .” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. Broad allegations

6 of conspiracy are insufficient; the plaintiff “must provide

7 some factual basis supporting a meeting of the minds, such

8 that defendants entered into an agreement, express or tacit,

9 to achieve the unlawful end.” Webb v. Goord, 340 F.3d 105,

10 110 (2d Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted)

11 (addressing conspiracy claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1985).

12 Furthermore, a plaintiff in a Bivens action is required to

13 allege facts indicating that the defendants were personally

14 involved in the claimed constitutional violation. See Ellis

15 v. Blum, 643 F.2d 68, 85 (2d Cir. 1981); see also Thomas v.

16 Ashcroft, 470 F.3d 491, 496 (2d Cir. 2006).

17 Arar alleges that “Defendants”--undifferentiated--

18 “denied Mr. Arar effective access to consular assistance,

19 the courts, his lawyers, and family members” in order to

20 effectuate his removal to Syria. But he fails to specify

21 any culpable action taken by any single defendant, and does

22 not allege the “meeting of the minds” that a plausible
 We need not, therefore, consider the panel’s holding 4

that Arar failed “to establish that he possessed any

entitlement to a pre-removal hearing” or “to the assistance

of counsel.” Arar, 532 F.3d at 187-88.

25

1 conspiracy claim requires. He alleges (in passive voice)

2 that his requests to make phone calls “were ignored,” and

3 that “he was told” that he was not entitled to a lawyer, but

4 he fails to link these denials to any defendant, named or

5 unnamed. Given this omission, and in view of Arar’s

6 rejection of an opportunity to re-plead, we agree with the

7 District Court and the panel majority that this Count of the

8 complaint must be dismissed. 

9 We express no view as to the sufficiency of the

10 pleading otherwise, that is, whether the conduct alleged (if

11 plausibly attributable to defendants) would violate a

12 constitutionally protected interest. To the extent that 4

13 this claim may be deemed to be a Bivens-type action, it may

14 raise some of the special factors considered later in this

15 opinion. 

16

17 VI

18 Arar’s remaining claims seek relief on the basis of

19 torture and detention in Syria, and are cast as violations
 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(9) provides that “[j]udicial 5

review of all questions of law and fact, including

interpretation and application of constitutional and

statutory provisions, arising from any action taken or

proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United States

26

1 of substantive due process. At the outset, Defendants argue

2 that the jurisdictional bar of the INA deprived the District

3 Court of subject-matter jurisdiction over these counts

4 because Arar’s removal was conducted pursuant to a decision

5 that was “at the discretion” of the Attorney General. 

6 “[A]ny policy toward aliens is vitally and intricately

7 interwoven with contemporaneous policies in regard to the

8 conduct of foreign relations, the war power, and the

9 maintenance of a republican form of government. Such

10 matters are so exclusively entrusted to the political

11 branches of government as to be largely immune from judicial

12 inquiry or interference.” Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342

13 U.S. 580, 588-89 (1952). Accordingly, the INA requires an

14 alien to seek relief only through judicial review of a

15 removal order in the appropriate court of appeals; it

16 entirely forecloses judicial review of decisions of the

17 Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security

18 specified by the INA to be within the discretion of those

19 officers. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252. 

5
. . . shall be available only in judicial review of a final

order.” Subsection 1252(a)(5), in turn, states that “a

petition for review filed with an appropriate court of

appeals . . . shall be the sole and exclusive means for

judicial review of an order of removal.” Finally, pursuant

to § 1252 (a)(2)(B): 

[N]o court shall have jurisdiction to review . . .

(ii) any . . . decision or action of the Attorney

General or the Secretary of Homeland Security the

authority for which is specified . . . to be in

the discretion of the Attorney General or the

Secretary of Homeland Security, other than the

granting of [asylum]. 

27

1 However, the application of the INA’s jurisdictional

2 bar is problematic in this case because the proceedings

3 under the INA are alleged to have been irregular in several

4 respects. 

5 First, the complaint alleges that the government took

6 the following actions that impaired Arar’s timely ability to

7 seek the judicial review normally afforded under the INA and

8 to receive any meaningful relief: denying his requests to

9 contact an attorney or his family; misleading his lawyer

10 (after one was retained for him) as to his location and

11 status, thereby frustrating any advocacy on his behalf; and

12 serving the removal order on Arar en route to Amman, when he

13 no longer had access to his attorney and could not make use
28

1 of the review process. The complaint also alleges that the

2 government undertook extraordinary rendition in clear

3 violation of the protections afforded aliens by the INA,

4 suggesting that the government itself might not have viewed

5 the INA as the real source of its removal authority in this

6 context. However, mere allegations of obstruction generally

7 do not circumvent a congressionally mandated remedial

8 scheme. Otherwise, limitations on the jurisdiction of the

9 district courts could easily be evaded and thwarted. 

10 Second, although the INA governs the status of aliens

11 in transit at United States airports, and clearly has a role

12 in such circumstances, see 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(4)(C), this is

13 not a typical immigration case according to the complaint:

14 Arar took no step to enter or stay in this country; he was

15 changing planes to go elsewhere, repeatedly expressed his

16 desire to return to Canada, and was ticketed to Montreal.

17 Even though this case does not present the familiar fact

18 pattern of an alien trying to enter or remain in the United

19 States, our immigration laws apply with equal force to

20 aliens who seek admission to our country and to aliens whom

21 the government seeks to keep out of our country.

22 In short, it is not clear that the INA’s judicial
29

1 review provisions govern circumstances of involuntary

2 rendition such as those alleged here. Indeed, rendition may

3 take place in circumstances that in no way implicate United

4 States immigration laws, such as when a person is detained

5 abroad and rendered to some third country.

6 Finally, even if the INA’s jurisdictional bar is

7 surmounted and review not foreclosed, Arar has alleged

8 circumstances that would have prevented him from obtaining

9 review. If, as he alleges, he was served with the removal

10 order while he was already en route to Amman, the INA could

11 have afforded him no relief then (and can afford him no

12 affirmative relief at this time in this case). 

13 In any event, we need not decide the vexed question of

14 whether the INA bar defeats jurisdiction of Arar’s

15 substantive due process claims, because we conclude below

16 that the case must be dismissed at the threshold for other

17 reasons. 

18

19 VII

20 In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau

21 of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court

22 “recognized for the first time an implied private action for
30

1 damages against federal officers alleged to have violated a

2 citizen’s constitutional rights.” Corr. Servs. Corp. v.

3 Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 66 (2001). The plaintiff in Bivens

4 had been subjected to an unlawful, warrantless search which

5 resulted in his arrest. Bivens, 403 U.S. at 389-90. The

6 Supreme Court allowed him to state a cause of action for

7 money damages directly under the Fourth Amendment, thereby

8 giving rise to a judicially-created remedy stemming directly

9 from the Constitution itself. Id. at 397. 

10 The purpose of the Bivens remedy “is to deter

11 individual federal officers from committing constitutional

12 violations.” Malesko, 534 U.S. at 70. So a Bivens action

13 is brought against individuals, and any damages are payable

14 by the offending officers. Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14,

15 21 (1980). Notwithstanding the potential breadth of claims

16 that would serve that objective, the Supreme Court has

17 warned that the Bivens remedy is an extraordinary thing that

18 should rarely if ever be applied in “new contexts.” See

19 Malesko, 534 U.S. at 69 (internal quotation marks omitted);

20 Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U.S. 412, 421 (1988); see also

21 Dotson v. Griesa, 398 F.3d 156, 166 (2d Cir. 2005) (“Because

22 a Bivens action is a judicially created remedy . . . courts
31

1 proceed cautiously in extending such implied relief 

2 . . . .”). In the 38 years since Bivens, the Supreme Court

3 has extended it twice only: in the context of an employment

4 discrimination claim in violation of the Due Process Clause,

5 Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979); and in the context of

6 an Eighth Amendment violation by prison officials, Carlson,

7 446 U.S. 14; see also Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S. 537, 550

8 (2007) (“[I]n most instances we have found a Bivens remedy

9 unjustified.”); Malesko, 534 U.S. at 68 (“[W]e have

10 consistently refused to extend Bivens liability to any new

11 context or new category of defendants.”). Since Carlson in

12 1980, the Supreme Court has declined to extend the

13 Bivens remedy in any new direction at all. Among the

14 rejected contexts are: violations of federal employees’

15 First Amendment rights by their employers, Bush v. Lucas,

16 462 U.S. 367 (1983); harms suffered incident to military

17 service, United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669 (1987);

18 Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296 (1983); denials of Social

19 Security benefits, Schweiker, 487 U.S. at 412; claims

20 against federal agencies, FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471

21 (1994); claims against private corporations operating under

22 federal contracts, Malesko, 534 U.S. 61 (2001); and claims
32

1 of retaliation by federal officials against private

2 landowners, Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 562. 

3 This case requires us to examine whether allowing this

4 Bivens action to proceed would extend Bivens to a new

5 “context,” and if so, whether such an extension is

6 advisable. 

7 “Context” is not defined in the case law. At a

8 sufficiently high level of generality, any claim can be

9 analogized to some other claim for which a Bivens action is

10 afforded, just as at a sufficiently high level of

11 particularity, every case has points of distinction. We

12 construe the word “context” as it is commonly used in law:

13 to reflect a potentially recurring scenario that has similar

14 legal and factual components. 

15 The context of this case is international rendition,

16 specifically, “extraordinary rendition.” Extraordinary

17 rendition is treated as a distinct phenomenon in

18 international law. See supra note 1. Indeed, law review

19 articles that affirmatively advocate the creation of a

20 remedy in cases like Arar’s recognize “extraordinary

21 rendition” as the context. See, e.g., Peter Johnston, Note,

22 Leaving the Invisible Universe: Why All Victims of
33

1 Extraordinary Rendition Need a Cause of Action Against the

2 United States, 16 J.L. & Pol’y 357, 363 (2007). More

3 particularly, the context of extraordinary rendition in

4 Arar’s case is the complicity or cooperation of United

5 States government officials in the delivery of a non-citizen

6 to a foreign country for torture (or with the expectation

7 that torture will take place). This is a “new context”: no

8 court has previously afforded a Bivens remedy for

9 extraordinary rendition.

10 Once we have identified the context as “new,” we must

11 decide whether to recognize a Bivens remedy in that

12 environment of fact and law. The Supreme Court tells us

13 that this is a two-part inquiry. In order to determine

14 whether to recognize a Bivens remedy in a new context, we

15 must consider: whether there is an alternative remedial

16 scheme available to the plaintiff; and whether “‘special

17 factors counsel[] hesitation’” in creating a Bivens remedy.

18 Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550 (quoting Bush, 462 U.S. at 378).

19

20 VIII

21 There are several possible alternative remedial schemes

22 here. Congress has established a substantial,
34

1 comprehensive, and intricate remedial scheme in the context

2 of immigration. The INA provides for review of final orders

3 of removal, including review of the government’s designation

4 of a particular destination country and many (albeit not

5 all) decisions of the Attorney General and the Secretary of

6 Homeland Security. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252; Mendis v. Filip,

7 554 F.3d 335, 338 (2d Cir. 2009). Congress has supplemented

8 this general remedial scheme with specific guidance for

9 particular contexts by enacting (i) the Foreign Affairs

10 Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (“FARRA”), 8 U.S.C. 

11 § 1231 note; see also 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c); and (ii) the

12 TVPA, which, as already discussed, provides no remedy to

13 Arar. At the same time, Congress has expressly limited

14 review of the removal of aliens who (like Arar) are

15 removable for reasons related to national security. See 8

16 U.S.C. § 1225(c). Congress has also regularly modified the

17 various review mechanisms to account for perceived

18 difficulties and complications. See, e.g., REAL ID Act of

19 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-13, div. B, 119 Stat. 302; Illegal

20 Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996,

21 Pub. L. No. 104-208, div. C, 110 Stat. 3009-546. In light

22 of the complexity of the remedial scheme Congress has
 Accordingly, we have no occasion to consider the 6

panel’s conclusion that the “review procedures set forth by

the INA provide a convincing reason for us to resist

recognizing a Bivens cause of action for Arar’s claims.” 

Arar, 532 F.3d at 180 (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted).

35

1 created (and frequently amended), we would ordinarily draw a

2 strong inference that Congress intended the judiciary to

3 stay its hand and refrain from creating a Bivens action in

4 this context. See Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 554; Schweiker, 487

5 U.S. at 424-29; Bush, 462 U.S. at 388.

6 We recognize, however, that any reliance on the INA as

7 an alternative remedial scheme presents difficulties for the

8 same reasons discussed in Part VI above. Arar has alleged

9 that he was actively prevented from seeking any meaningful

10 review and relief through the INA processes. In the end, we

11 need not decide whether an alternative remedial scheme was

12 available because, “even in the absence of an alternative

13 [remedial scheme], a Bivens remedy is a subject of judgment

14 . . . [in which] courts must . . . pay particular heed . . .

15 to any special factors counselling hesitation before

16 authorizing a new kind of federal litigation.” Wilkie, 551

17 U.S. at 550 (internal quotation marks omitted). Such 6

18 special factors are clearly present in the new context of
36

1 this case, and they sternly counsel hesitation.

2

3 IX

4 When the Bivens cause of action was created in 1971,

5 the Supreme Court explained that such a remedy could be

6 afforded because that “case involve[d] no special factors

7 counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action

8 by Congress.” Bivens, 403 U.S. at 396. This prudential

9 limitation was expressly weighed by the Court in Davis, 442

10 U.S. at 245-46, and Carlson, 446 U.S. at 18-19, and such

11 hesitation has defeated numerous Bivens initiatives, see,

12 e.g., Stanley, 483 U.S. at 683-84; Chappell, 462 U.S. at

13 304; Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 554-55; Dotson, 398 F.3d at 166-67.

14 Among the “special factors” that have “counsel[ed]

15 hesitation” and thereby foreclosed a Bivens remedy are:

16 military concerns, Stanley, 483 U.S. at 683-84; Chappell,

17 462 U.S. at 304; separation of powers, United States v. City

18 of Philadelphia, 644 F.2d 187, 200 (3d Cir. 1980); the

19 comprehensiveness of available statutory schemes, Dotson,

20 398 F.3d at 166; national security concerns, Beattie v.

21 Boeing Co., 43 F.3d 559, 563 (10th Cir. 1994); and foreign

22 policy considerations, United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez,
 Judge POOLER labels these two principles “dicta,” see 7

Dissent of Judge Pooler at 2, but they are not. They are

integral to the holding in this in banc case, because we do

not take account of countervailing factors and because we

apply the standard we announce.

37

1 494 U.S. 259, 274 (1990).

2 Two principles emerge from this review of case law:

3 • “Special factors” is an embracing category,

4 not easily defined; but it is limited in terms

5 to factors that provoke “hesitation.” While

6 special factors should be substantial enough

7 to justify the absence of a damages remedy for

8 a wrong, no account is taken of countervailing

9 factors that might counsel alacrity or

10 activism, and none has ever been cited by the

11 Supreme Court as a reason for affording a

12 Bivens remedy where it would not otherwise

13 exist. 

14

15 • The only relevant threshold--that a factor

16 “counsels hesitation”--is remarkably low. It

17 is at the opposite end of the continuum from

18 the unflagging duty to exercise jurisdiction.

19 Hesitation is a pause, not a full stop, or an

20 abstention; and to counsel is not to require.

21 “Hesitation” is “counseled” whenever

22 thoughtful discretion would pause even to

23 consider. 

7

24

25 With these principles in mind, we adduce, one by one,

26 special factors that bear upon the recognition of a Bivens

27 remedy for rendition.

28

29 X

30 Although this action is cast in terms of a claim for
38

1 money damages against the defendants in their individual

2 capacities, it operates as a constitutional challenge to

3 policies promulgated by the executive. Our federal system

4 of checks and balances provides means to consider allegedly

5 unconstitutional executive policy, but a private action for

6 money damages against individual policymakers is not one of

7 them. A Bivens action is sometimes analogized to an action

8 pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, but it does not reach so far

9 as to create the federal counterpart to an action under

10 Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658

11 (1978). Here, we need not decide categorically whether a

12 Bivens action can lie against policymakers because in the

13 context of extraordinary rendition, such an action would

14 have the natural tendency to affect diplomacy, foreign

15 policy, and the security of the nation, and that fact

16 counsels hesitation. Our holding need be no broader.

17

18 A. Security and Foreign Policy

19 The Executive has practiced rendition since at least

20 1995. See Extraordinary Rendition in U.S. Counterterrorism

21 Policy: The Impact on Transatlantic Relations: Joint Hearing

22 Before the Subcomm. on International Organizations, Human
 See Press Release and Announcement, Stephen Harper,

8

Prime Minister of Can. (Jan. 26, 2007),

http://pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=1510; Ottawa Reaches $10M

Settlement with Arar, CBC News, Jan. 26, 2007, 

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/25/arar-harper.html. 

39

1 Rights, and Oversight and the Subcomm. on Europe of the H.

2 Comm. on Foreign Affairs, 110th Cong. 15 (2007) (statement

3 of Michael F. Scheuer, Former Chief, Bin Laden Unit, CIA). 

4 Arar gives “the mid-1990s” as the date for the inception of

5 the policy under which he was sent to Syria for torture. 

6 Pl. Maher Arar’s Mem. of Law in Opp’n to Defs.’ Invocation

7 of the State Secrets Privilege, Mar. 14, 2005, at 6. A suit

8 seeking a damages remedy against senior officials who

9 implement such a policy is in critical respects a suit

10 against the government as to which the government has not

11 waived sovereign immunity. Such a suit unavoidably

12 influences government policy, probes government secrets,

13 invades government interests, enmeshes government lawyers,

14 and thereby elicits government funds for settlement. 

15 (Canada has already paid Arar $10 million. ) 8

16 It is a substantial understatement to say that one must

17 hesitate before extending Bivens into such a context. A

18 suit seeking a damages remedy against senior officials who

19 implement an extraordinary rendition policy would enmesh the
40

1 courts ineluctably in an assessment of the validity and

2 rationale of that policy and its implementation in this

3 particular case, matters that directly affect significant

4 diplomatic and national security concerns. It is clear from

5 the face of the complaint that Arar explicitly targets the

6 “policy” of extraordinary rendition; he cites the policy

7 twice in his complaint, and submits documents and media

8 reports concerning the practice. His claim cannot proceed

9 without inquiry into the perceived need for the policy, the

10 threats to which it responds, the substance and sources of

11 the intelligence used to formulate it, and the propriety of

12 adopting specific responses to particular threats in light

13 of apparent geopolitical circumstances and our relations

14 with foreign countries.

15 The Supreme Court has expressly counseled that matters

16 touching upon foreign policy and national security fall

17 within “an area of executive action ‘in which courts have

18 long been hesitant to intrude’” absent congressional

19 authorization. Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U.S. 182, 192 (1993)

20 (emphasis added) (quoting Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505

21 U.S. 788, 819 (1992) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and

22 concurring in the judgment)). It “has recognized ‘the
41

1 generally accepted view that foreign policy was the province

2 and responsibility of the Executive. . . . Thus, unless

3 Congress specifically has provided otherwise, courts

4 traditionally have been reluctant to intrude upon the

5 authority of the Executive in military and national security

6 affairs.” Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 529-30

7 (1988) (emphasis added) (quoting Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280,

8 293-94 (1981)). This “hesita[tion]” and “reluctan[ce]” is

9 counseled by:

10 • the constitutional separation of powers among

11 the branches of government, see United States

12 v. Curtiss-Wright Exp. Co., 299 U.S. 304, 320-

13 22 (1936) (noting the “plenary and exclusive

14 power of the President as the sole organ of

15 the federal government in the field of

16 international relations” and discussing the

17 difficulties presented by congressional--let

18 alone judicial--involvement in such affairs),

19 and

20

21 • the limited institutional competence of the

22 judiciary, see Boumediene v. Bush, 128 S. Ct.

23 2229, 2276-77 (2008) (“Unlike the President

24 and some designated Members of Congress,

25 neither the Members of this Court nor most

26 federal judges begin the day with briefings

27 that may describe new and serious threats to

28 our Nation and its people. The law must accord

29 the Executive substantial authority to

30 apprehend and detain those who pose a real

31 danger to our security.”); see also Munaf v.

32 Geren, 128 S. Ct. 2207, 2226 (2008) (“The

33 Judiciary is not suited to [make]

34 determinations [in the area of foreign

35 affairs] that would . . . undermine the
42

1 Government’s ability to speak with one voice

2 in this area. In contrast, the political

3 branches are well situated to consider

4 sensitive foreign policy issues, such as

5 whether there is a serious prospect of torture

6 at the hands of any ally, and what to do about

7 it if there is.” (citation omitted)).

8

9 True, courts can--with difficulty and resourcefulness--

10 consider state secrets and even reexamine judgments made in

11 the foreign affairs context when they must, that is, when

12 there is an unflagging duty to exercise our jurisdiction.

13 Otherwise: 

14 [T]he special needs of foreign affairs must stay

15 our hand in the creation of damage remedies

16 against military and foreign policy officials for

17 allegedly unconstitutional treatment of foreign

18 subjects causing injury abroad. The foreign

19 affairs implications of suits such as this cannot

20 be ignored--their ability to produce what the

21 Supreme Court has called in another context

22 “embarrassment of our government abroad” through

23 “multifarious pronouncements by various

24 departments on one question.” Whether or not the

25 present litigation is motivated by considerations

26 of geopolitics rather than personal harm, we think

27 that as a general matter the danger of foreign

28 citizens’ using the courts in situations such as

29 this to obstruct the foreign policy of our

30 government is sufficiently acute that we must

31 leave to Congress the judgment whether a damage

32 remedy should exist.

33 Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202, 209 (D.C. Cir.

34 1985) (Scalia, J.) (quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217

35 (1962)). Absent clear congressional authorization, the
43

1 judicial review of extraordinary rendition would offend the

2 separation of powers and inhibit this country’s foreign

3 policy. It does not matter for our purposes whether such

4 consequences would flow from innocent interference or from

5 deliberate manipulation. These concerns must counsel

6 hesitation in creating a new damages remedy that Congress

7 has not seen fit to authorize.

8

9 B. Classified Information

10 The extraordinary rendition context involves exchanges

11 among the ministries and agencies of foreign countries on

12 diplomatic, security, and intelligence issues. The

13 sensitivities of such classified material are “too obvious

14 to call for enlarged discussion.” Dep’t of Navy, 484 U.S.

15 at 529 (internal quotation marks omitted). Even the probing

16 of these matters entails the risk that other countries will

17 become less willing to cooperate with the United States in

18 sharing intelligence resources to counter terrorism. “At

19 its core,” as the panel opinion observed, “this suit arises

20 from the Executive Branch’s alleged determination that (a)

21 Arar was affiliated with Al Qaeda, and therefore a threat to

22 national security, and (b) his removal to Syria was
 See Ottawa Trying to Hold Back Documents from Arar 9

Inquiry, CBC News, Apr. 29, 2004,

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/04/29/arar040429.html.

44

1 appropriate in light of U.S. diplomatic and national

2 security interests.” Arar, 532 F.3d at 181. To determine

3 the basis for Arar’s alleged designation as an Al Qaeda

4 member and his subsequent removal to Syria, the district

5 court would have to consider what was done by the national

6 security apparatus of at least three foreign countries, as

7 well as that of the United States. Indeed, the Canadian

8 government--which appears to have provided the intelligence

9 that United States officials were acting upon when they

10 detained Arar--paid Arar compensation for its role in the

11 events surrounding this lawsuit, but has also asserted the

12 need for Canada itself to maintain the confidentiality of

13 certain classified materials related to Arar’s claims.9

14

15 C. Open Courts

16 Allegations of conspiracy among government agencies

17 that must often work in secret inevitably implicate a lot of

18 classified material that cannot be introduced into the

19 public record. Allowing Arar’s claims to proceed would very

20 likely mean that some documents or information sought by
45

1 Arar would be redacted, reviewed in camera, and otherwise

2 concealed from the public. Concealment does not bespeak

3 wrongdoing: in such matters, it is just as important to

4 conceal what has not been done. Nevertheless, these

5 measures would excite suspicion and speculation as to the

6 true nature and depth of the supposed conspiracy, and as to

7 the scope and depth of judicial oversight. Indeed, after an

8 inquiry at oral argument as to whether classified materials

9 relating to Arar’s claims could be made available for review

10 in camera, Arar objected to the supplementation of the

11 record with material he could not see. See Letter from

12 David Cole, Counsel for Maher Arar (Dec. 23, 2008). After

13 pointing out that such materials are unnecessary to the

14 adjudication of a motion on the pleadings (where the

15 allegations of the complaint must be accepted as true), Arar

16 protested that any materials submitted ex parte and in

17 camera would not be subject to adversarial testing and that

18 consideration of such documents would be “presumptively

19 unconstitutional” since they would result in a decision “on

20 the basis of secret information available to only one side

21 of the dispute.” 

22 The court’s reliance on information that cannot be
46

1 introduced into the public record is likely to be a common

2 feature of any Bivens actions arising in the context of

3 alleged extraordinary rendition. This should provoke

4 hesitation, given the strong preference in the Anglo5 American legal tradition for open court proceedings, a value

6 incorporated into modern First and Sixth Amendment law. See

7 U.S. Const. amend. VI (guaranteeing the right to a “public

8 trial” (emphasis added)); Westmoreland v. Columbia Broad.

9 Sys., Inc., 752 F.2d 16, 23 (2d Cir. 1984) (noting that the

10 First Amendment secures “a right of access to civil

11 proceedings”). The risk of limiting access, of course, is

12 that where a proceeding “has been concealed from public view

13 an unexpected outcome can cause a reaction that the system

14 at best has failed and at worst has been corrupted.” 

15 Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 571

16 (1980). “[T]he appearance of justice can best be provided

17 by allowing people to observe” proceedings. Id. at 572. 

18 “People in an open society do not demand infallibility from

19 their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept

20 what they are prohibited from observing.” Id. This is

21 especially true in the courts, where the guarantee of a

22 public trial “has always been recognized as a safeguard
47

1 against any attempt to employ our courts as instruments of

2 persecution. The knowledge that every criminal trial is

3 subject to contemporaneous review in the forum of public

4 opinion is an effective restraint on possible abuse of

5 judicial power.” In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 270 (1948). 

6 Granted, there are circumstances in which a court may

7 close proceedings to which a public right of access

8 presumptively attaches. See Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39,

9 45 (1984); United States v. Alcantara, 396 F.3d 189, 199-200

10 (2d Cir. 2005); United States v. Doe, 63 F.3d 121, 127-28

11 (2d Cir. 1995). And the problems posed by the need to

12 consider classified material are unavoidable in some

13 criminal prosecutions and in other cases where we have a

14 duty, imposed by Congress, to exercise jurisdiction. But

15 this is not such a circumstance or such a case. The

16 preference for open rather than clandestine court

17 proceedings is a special factor that counsels hesitation in

18 extending Bivens to the extraordinary rendition context. 

19

20 XI

21 A government report states that this case involves

22 assurances received from other governments in connection
 We take judicial notice of the existence of this

10

unclassified report and the scope of its contents, including

the limited discussion of assurances. Notice is taken only

that the report alleges that assurances were received, not

as to the truth of that allegation or the reliability of

those assurances.

48

1 with the determination that Arar’s removal to Syria would be

2 consistent with Article 3 of the CAT. Office of Inspector

3 General, Dep’t of Homeland Sec., (Unclassified) The Removal

4 of a Canadian Citizen to Syria 5, 22, 26-27 (2008). This 10

5 case is not unique in that respect. Cases in the context of

6 extraordinary rendition are very likely to present serious

7 questions relating to private diplomatic assurances from

8 foreign countries received by federal officials, and this

9 feature of such claims opens the door to graymail. 

10

11 A. Assurances

12 The regulations promulgated pursuant to the FARRA

13 explicitly authorize the removal of an alien to a foreign

14 country following receipt from that country of sufficiently

15 reliable assurances that the alien will not be tortured. 

16 See 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(c). Should we decide to extend Bivens

17 into the extraordinary rendition context, resolution of

18 these actions will require us to determine whether any such
 This risk is not necessarily abated by the

11

undertakings of counsel. See, e.g., United States v.

Sattar, 395 F. Supp. 2d 79 (S.D.N.Y. 2005) (denying attorney

Lynne Stewart’s motion for a judgment of acquittal following

her conviction by a jury of, inter alia, conspiring to

defraud the United States, conspiring to provide material

support to carry out murder and kidnap in a foreign country,

and making false statements).

49

1 assurances were received from the country of rendition and

2 whether the relevant defendants relied upon them in good

3 faith in removing the alien at issue.

4 Any analysis of these questions would necessarily

5 involve us in an inquiry into the work of foreign

6 governments and several federal agencies, the nature of

7 certain classified information, and the extent of secret

8 diplomatic relationships. An investigation into the

9 existence and content of such assurances would potentially

10 embarrass our government through inadvertent or deliberate

11 disclosure of information harmful to our own and other

12 states. Given the general allocation of authority over 11

13 foreign relations to the political branches and the

14 decidedly limited experience and knowledge of the federal

15 judiciary regarding such matters, such an investigation

16 would also implicate grave concerns about the separation of

17 powers and our institutional competence. See, e.g., Kiyemba
50

1 v. Obama, 561 F.3d 509, 515 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (“[S]eparation

2 of powers principles . . . preclude the courts from second3 guessing the Executive’s assessment of the likelihood a

4 detainee will be tortured by a foreign sovereign.”). These

5 considerations strongly counsel hesitation in acknowledging

6 a Bivens remedy in this context. 

7

8 B. Graymail

9 As emphasized above, Arar invokes Bivens to challenge

10 policies promulgated and pursued by the executive branch,

11 not simply isolated actions of individual federal employees.

12 Such an extension of Bivens is without precedent and

13 implicates questions of separation of powers as well as

14 sovereign immunity. This, by itself, counsels hesitation;

15 there is further reason to hesitate where, as in this case,

16 the challenged government policies are the subject of

17 classified communications: a possibility that such suits

18 will make the government “vulnerable to ‘graymail,’ i.e.,

19 individual lawsuits brought to induce the [government] to

20 settle a case (or prevent its filing) out of fear that any

21 effort to litigate the action would reveal classified

22 information that may undermine ongoing covert operations,”
51

1 or otherwise compromise foreign policy efforts. Tenet v.

2 Doe, 544 U.S. 1, 11 (2005). We cast no aspersions on Arar,

3 or his lawyers; this dynamic inheres in any case where there

4 is a risk that a defendant might “disclose classified

5 information in the course of a trial.” United States v.

6 Pappas, 94 F.3d 795, 799 (2d Cir. 1996). This is an endemic

7 risk in cases (however few) which involve a claim like

8 Arar’s. 

9 The risk of graymail is itself a special factor which

10 counsels hesitation in creating a Bivens remedy. There

11 would be hesitation enough in an ordinary graymail case,

12 i.e., where the tactic is employed against the government,

13 which can trade settlement cash (or the dismissal of

14 criminal charges) for secrecy. See Tenet, 544 U.S. at 11;

15 Pappas, 94 F.3d at 799. But the graymail risk in a Bivens

16 rendition case is uniquely troublesome. The interest in

17 protecting military, diplomatic, and intelligence secrets is

18 located (as always) in the government; yet a Bivens claim,

19 by definition, is never pleaded against the government. 

20 See, e.g., Malesko, 534 U.S. at 70. So in a Bivens case,

21 there is a dissociation between the holder of the non22 disclosure interest (the government, which cannot be sued
52

1 directly under Bivens) and the person with the incentive to

2 disclose (the defendant, who cannot waive, but will be

3 liable for any damages assessed). In a rendition case, the

4 Bivens plaintiff could in effect pressure the individual

5 defendants until the government cries uncle. Thus any

6 Bivens action involving extraordinary rendition would

7 inevitably suck the government into the case to protect its

8 considerable interests, and--if disclosure is ordered--to

9 appeal, or to suffer the disclosure, or to pay. 

10 This pressure on the government to pay a settlement has

11 (at least) two further perverse effects. First, a payment

12 from the Treasury tends to obviate any payment or

13 contribution by the individual defendants. Yet, “[Bivens]

14 is concerned solely with deterring the unconstitutional acts

15 of individual officers” by extracting payment from

16 individual wrongdoers. Malesko, 534 U.S. at 71. When the

17 government elects to settle a Bivens case which is

18 susceptible to graymail, the individual wrongdoer pays

19 nothing and the deterrent effect is lost. Second, the

20 individual defendant in such a case has no incentive to

21 resist discovery that imperils government interests; rather,

22 discovery induces the government to settle. So in the
 Judge CALABRESI does not discount the risk of 12

graymail; he just minimizes the harm, equating it with

settlement pressures that routinely inhere in section 1983

litigation. However, “graymail” is a term of art,

signifying the use of military or intelligence information

as hostage for payment of money or a plea bargain. The

prospect of graymail does not induce Judge CALABRESI to pause

because he sees graymail as part of the “judicial structures

that facilitate the giving of compensation, at least to

innocent victims . . . .” See Dissent of Judge Calabresi at

15. 

 It is telling that, according to the Deputy 13

Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Arar and his attorney went

to the United States Congress and requested--without

success--that it “clarify the ambiguity [in this area] with

legislation and . . . give [Mr. Arar] reparations.”

Transcript of Arar In banc Oral Argument at 49. Cf. 153

Cong. Rec. D1384-02 (Oct. 18, 2007); Matthew Jaffe, Congress

Hears Testimony in Arar Torture Case, ABC News, Oct. 18,

2007,

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3746371&page=1.

53

1 extraordinary rendition context, there is a risk (or

2 likelihood) that the government effectively becomes the real

3 defendant in interest, and the named defendants become

4 proxies that the government cannot control. Precisely

5 because Bivens has never been approved as a Monell-like

6 vehicle for challenging government policies, this factor

7 also counsels hesitation in extending a private damages

8 action in this context.12

9 In the end, a Bivens action based on rendition is--in

10 all but name--a claim against the government. It is not 13

11 for nothing that Canada (the government, not an individual
54

1 officer of it) paid Arar $10 million dollars.

2

3 XII

4 In the small number of contexts in which courts have

5 implied a Bivens remedy, it has often been easy to identify

6 both the line between constitutional and unconstitutional

7 conduct, and the alternative course which officers should

8 have pursued. The guard who beat a prisoner should not have

9 beaten him; the agent who searched without a warrant should

10 have gotten one; and the immigration officer who subjected

11 an alien to multiple strip searches without cause should

12 have left the alien in his clothes. This distinction may or

13 may not amount to a special factor counseling hesitation in

14 the implication of a Bivens remedy. But it is surely

15 remarkable that the context of extraordinary rendition is so

16 different, involving as it does a complex and rapidly

17 changing legal framework beset with critical legal judgments

18 that have not yet been made, as well as policy choices that

19 are by no means easily reached. 

20 Consider: should the officers here have let Arar go on

21 his way and board his flight to Montreal? Canada was

22 evidently unwilling to receive him; it was, after all,
55

1 Canadian authorities who identified Arar as a terrorist (or

2 did something that led their government to apologize

3 publicly to Arar and pay him $10 million). 

4 Should a person identified as a terrorist by his own

5 country be allowed to board his plane and go on to his

6 destination? Surely, that would raise questions as to what

7 duty is owed to the other passengers and the crew. 

8 Or should a suspected terrorist en route to Canada have

9 been released on the Canadian border--over which he could

10 re-enter the United States virtually at will? Or should he

11 have been sent back whence his plane came, or to some third

12 country? Should those governments be told that Canada

13 thinks he is a terrorist? If so, what country would take

14 him? 

15 Or should the suspected terrorist have been sent to

16 Guantanamo Bay or--if no other country would take him--kept

17 in the United States with the prospect of release into the

18 general population? See Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678,

19 699-700 (2001). 

20 None of this is to say that extraordinary rendition is

21 or should be a favored policy choice. At the same time, the

22 officials required to decide these vexed issues are “subject
56

1 to the pull of competing obligations.” Lombardi v. Whitman,

2 485 F.3d 73, 83 (2d Cir. 2007). Many viable actions they

3 might consider “clash with other equally important

4 governmental responsibilities.” Pena v. DePrisco, 432 F.3d

5 98, 114 (2d Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

6 Given the ample reasons for pause already discussed, we need

7 not and do not rely on this consideration in concluding that

8 it is inappropriate to extend Bivens to this context. 

9 Still, Congress is the appropriate branch of government to

10 decide under what circumstances (if any) these kinds of

11 policy decisions--which are directly related to the security

12 of the population and the foreign affairs of the country--

13 should be subjected to the influence of litigation brought

14 by aliens. 

15

16 XIII

17 All of these special factors notwithstanding, we cannot

18 ignore that, as the panel dissent put it, “there is a long

19 history of judicial review of Executive and Legislative

20 decisions related to the conduct of foreign relations and

21 national security.” Arar, 532 F.3d at 213 (Sack, J.,

22 concurring in part and dissenting in part). Where does that
 Dissents by their nature express views that are not 14

the law. These dissenting opinions contain words and

passages that are emotional and (in our respectful view)

overwrought. Accordingly, there is no need for extended

engagement. A brief survey will suffice.

Judge SACK’s dissent deems “artificial” our

characterization of the new Bivens context in this case as

“entirely one of ‘international rendition, specifically

extraordinary rendition.’” See Dissent of Judge Sack at 34.

We would have thought it would be common ground that the

context of this appeal is extraordinary rendition. Judge

SACK, however, reconceives the context, at some points

characterizing the constitutional tort as encompassing only

57

1 leave us? We recognize our limited competence, authority,

2 and jurisdiction to make rules or set parameters to govern

3 the practice called rendition. By the same token, we can

4 easily locate that competence, expertise, and responsibility

5 elsewhere: in Congress. Congress may be content for the

6 Executive Branch to exercise these powers without judicial

7 check. But if Congress wishes to create a remedy for

8 individuals like Arar, it can enact legislation that

9 includes enumerated eligibility parameters, delineated safe

10 harbors, defined review processes, and specific relief to be

11 afforded. Once Congress has performed this task, then the

12 courts in a proper case will be able to review the statute

13 and provide judicial oversight to the “Executive and

14 Legislative decisions [which have been made with regard] to

15 the conduct of foreign relations and national security.” 

14
those events that occurred within the United States while at

other points requiring that the entire narrative be

considered as a seamless whole, JFK to Syria. Compare id.

at 34 with id. at 36-37. But this case is emphatically and

obviously about extraordinary rendition (and its alleged

abuse), as is elsewhere acknowledged in the opinions of

Judge CALABRESI and Judge PARKER. See Dissent of Judge

Calabresi at 15; Dissent of Judge Parker at 2. 

As to the extraordinary rendition context, Judge SACK

(joined by all dissenters) makes the following constructive

(and telling) concessions: “It is difficult to deny the

existence of ‘special factors counseling hesitation’ in this

case[,]” Dissent of Judge Sack at 47; “It . . . may be that

to the extent actions against ‘policymakers’ can be equated

with lawsuits against policies, they may not survive

Iqbal[,]” id. at 49; and, “We share what we think to be the

majority’s intuition that this case would likely turn

largely, if not entirely, on decisions of national security

and diplomacy . . . [,]” id. at 56.

Judge CALABRESI’s dissent urges that we forgo

considering whether specific factors counsel hesitation

under Bivens so that we could instead remand to see whether

the case might eventually be dismissed as unmanageable under

the state secrets privilege--which Judge CALABRESI seems

equally to disapprove. See Dissent of Judge Calabresi at 13

(state secrets privilege is the subject of “significant

criticism, much of it warranted”). Thus Judge CALABRESI

professes hesitance to “hesitate” with respect to Bivens, as

well as skepticism of the state secrets privilege. In doing

so, he avoids fully endorsing either of the primary

potential resolutions of this appeal, and hardly makes a

choice at all. Even so, the authority cited by Judge

CALABRESI, which suggests deciding whether a claim is stated

before doing Bivens analysis, is inapposite. Judge CALABRESI

fails to consider that application of the state secrets

privilege is often performed witness-by-witness; questionby-question; page-by-page; paragraph-by-paragraph--and can

take years. It is not judicial activism to hesitate before

requiring such an exercise in circumstances in which a

Bivens claim may not lie. In any event, the state secrets

doctrine has roots in separation of powers principles, and

58

1
is not itself devoid of constitutional implications. See

Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 527 (1988) (“The

authority to protect [information related to national

security] falls on the President as head of the Executive

Branch and as Commander in Chief.”); El-Masri v. United

States, 479 F.3d 296, 303 (4th Cir. 2007) (“Although the

state secrets privilege was developed at common law, it

performs a function of constitutional significance, because

it allows the executive branch to protect information whose

secrecy is necessary to its military and foreign-affairs

responsibilities.”).

59

1 Id.

2

3 CONCLUSION

4 For the reasons stated above, the judgment of the

5 District Court is affirmed. The panel opinion is hereby

6 vacated.
1 CALABRESI, POOLER, SACK, and PARKER, Circuit Judges, dissent. Each joins fully in all

2 the dissenting opinions, but each writes separately to emphasize particular aspects of these

3 dissents.
 Judges Straub and Sotomayor voted in the en banc poll but 1

do not participate in deciding the case en banc because Judge

Straub took senior status prior to the en banc hearing and Judge

Sotomayor has been elevated to the Supreme Court. Judge Katzmann

recused himself from both the poll and the en banc hearing. 

Senior Judge McLaughlin, as a member of the original panel, has

participated in the en banc consideration. Judge Calabresi

participated in the en banc hearing, but has taken senior status

since the argument. The author of this opinion has also taken

senior status since the hearing, but was a member of the panel

that heard the appeal and therefore , like Judge McLaughlin,

would have been able to have participated in the en banc hearing

in any event. Judge Lynch, who joined the Court since the

argument, has not participated in these proceedings.

1 Arar v. Ashcroft, No. 06-4216

2 Sack, Circuit Judge, joined by Judges Calabresi, Pooler, and

3 Parker, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

4 -------------------------------------------------------------

5 The opinion of the en banc majority departs from the 1

6 opinion of the panel majority in two important and salutary

7 respects. 

8 First, the Court now explicitly acknowledges that "this

9 is not a typical immigration case." Supra at [24]. We would

10 prefer that the Court concede that this is not an immigration

11 case at all -- it is about the alleged unconstitutional treatment

12 of an alien suspected of terrorism -- but we welcome the

13 resulting decision not to dismiss Arar's claims as

14 jurisdictionally barred by the Immigration and Nationality Act

15 ("INA"), see supra at [23], and not to rely, in the Court's

16 Bivens analysis, upon the INA's remedial scheme and the well nigh

17 unlimited executive power that the INA bestows, see supra at
-2-

1 [31]. Compare Arar v. Ashcroft, 532 F.3d 157, 169-71 & n.10,

2 179-81 (2d Cir. 2008) ("Arar Panel Op."). 

3 In its second departure from the panel decision, the

4 Court declines to hold that if, as Arar alleges, government

5 conduct "denied [him] effective access to consular assistance,

6 the courts, his lawyers, and family members in order to

7 effectuate his removal to Syria," Arar's constitutional rights

8 would not have thereby been violated. Supra at [20] (internal

9 quotation marks omitted); compare Arar Panel Op., 532 F.3d at

10 184-89. We agree with this approach too. Indeed, we think both

11 of these departures are significant enough in themselves to have

12 rendered the unwieldy and often wasteful en banc process

13 worthwhile here.

14 We disagree, however, with the majority's continued

15 insistence that Arar cannot employ a Bivens remedy to seek

16 compensation for his injuries at the hands of government agents. 

17 The majority reaches that conclusion by artificially dividing the

18 complaint into a domestic claim that does not involve torture --

19 viz., "[Arar's] claim regarding detention in the United States,"

20 supra at [6] -- and a foreign claim that does -- viz., "[Arar's]

21 claims for detention and torture in Syria," id. The majority

22 then dismisses the domestic claim as inadequately pleaded and the
-3-

1 foreign claim as one that cannot "be asserted under Bivens" in

2 light of the opinion's "dominant holding" that "in the context of

3 involuntary rendition, hesitation is warranted by special

4 factors." Supra at [6-7]. 

5 In our view, even treating Arar's claim for

6 mistreatment while in United States custody and denial of access

7 to United States counsel and United States courts as, arguendo, a

8 claim that is entirely isolated from the remainder of Arar's

9 allegations, it was adequately pleaded in his highly detailed

10 complaint.

11 As we will explain, however, the complaint's

12 allegations cannot properly be divided into claims for

13 mistreatment in the United States and "claims for detention and

14 torture in Syria." Arar's complaint of mistreatment sweeps more

15 broadly than that, encompassing a chain of events that began with

16 his interception and detention at New York's John F. Kennedy

17 Airport ("JFK") and continued with his being sent abroad in

18 shackles by government agents with the knowledge that he would

19 likely be tortured as a result. Viewed in this light, we

20 conclude that Arar's allegations do not present a "new context"

21 for a Bivens action.
-4-

1 And even were it a new context, we disagree with what

2 appears to be the en banc majority's test for whether a new

3 Bivens action should be made available: the existence vel non of

4 "special factors counselling hesitation." First, we think

5 heeding "special factors" relating to secrecy and security is a

6 form of double counting inasmuch as those interests are fully

7 protected by the state-secrets privilege. Second, in our view

8 the applicable test is not whether "special factors" exist, but

9 whether after "paying particular heed to" them, a Bivens remedy

10 should be recognized with respect to at least some allegations in

11 the complaint. Applying that test, we think a Bivens remedy is

12 available.

13 We hasten to add that under the proper formulation of

14 the test, we might well agree with the en banc majority that a

15 Bivens action is not available in the context of an alien's

16 "claims for detention and torture in Syria." But, as we will

17 explain, Arar's allegations are not so limited.

18 Our overriding concern, however, is with the majority's

19 apparent determination to go to whatever length necessary to

20 reach what it calls its "dominant holding": that a Bivens remedy

21 is unavailable. Such a holding is unnecessary inasmuch as the

22 government assures us that this case could likely be resolved
 See, e.g., Arar Panel Op., 532 F.3d at 193 et seq. (Sack, 2

J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("Arar partial

panel dissent").

 We do not dissent from the majority's conclusions as to 3

personal jurisdiction. The author of this opinion, as a member

of the panel that originally heard this appeal, concurred in the

panel opinion's conclusion that relief under the Torture Victim

Protection Act is unavailable to Arar. Having reviewed the

arguments to the contrary stated in Judge Pooler's partial

dissent, infra, for the reasons stated in it, he now agrees that

the relief under the Act is available to Arar. Inasmuch as the

en banc Court now holds that it is not available, however, this

opinion accepts its unavailability as a matter of law for the

purposes of the Bivens analysis that follows.

-5-

1 quickly and expeditiously in the district court by application of

2 the state-secrets privilege. 

3 What is at stake on this appeal is not whether Arar

4 will, through this litigation, obtain compensation for the injury

5 he suffered as a result of the malfeasance of employees of the

6 United States. In light of the many hurdles he would have to

7 surmount, he would be extremely unlikely to do so. Rather, the 2

8 question for the Court is, and has from the outset been, the

9 manner by which that likely result will (or will not) be reached. 

10 We fear that the majority is so bound and determined to declare

11 categorically that there is no Bivens action in the present

12 "context," that it unnecessarily makes dubious law.

13 For those reasons, we respectfully dissent.3

14 I. Arar's Allegations
 Citations to the district court opinion appear in 4

parentheses. The footnotes and subheadings are ours. 

-6-

1 The majority's recitation of the facts, see supra [8-

2 13], is generally accurate, but anodyne. A complete assessment

3 of the majority opinion and the implications of the Court's

4 decision is not possible without a fuller account of the

5 troubling allegations contained in Arar's complaint. 

6 "Because this is an appeal from a dismissal of a

7 complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), we view the allegations

8 of the complaint in the light most favorable to appellant." 

9 Paycom Billing Servs. v. MasterCard Int'l, Inc., 467 F.3d 283,

10 285 (2d Cir. 2006). The district court's opinion carefully and

11 fully sets forth Arar's allegations. See Arar v. Ashcroft, 414

12 F. Supp. 2d 250, 252-57 (E.D.N.Y. 2006). We adhere to that

13 account nearly verbatim.4

14 A. Arar's Apprehension, Detention, and Forcible 

15 Transportation to Syria

16

17 Arar, who is in his thirties, is a native of Syria. He

18 immigrated to Canada with his family when he was a teenager. He

19 is a dual citizen of Syria and Canada. He resides in Ottawa. 

20 (Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 252.)
 Arar was employed by a privately held Massachusetts-based 5

developer and supplier of software for technical computing. See

Compl. ¶ 12.

 That is, changes of plane. 6

 According to the complaint, on that day, Arar was 7

questioned first by an FBI agent for five hours, Compl. ¶ 29,

then by an immigration officer for three hours, id. ¶ 31.

-7-

1 In September 2002, while vacationing with his family in

2 Tunisia, he was called back to work by his employer to consult 5

3 with a prospective client. He purchased a return ticket to

4 Montreal with stops in Zurich and New York. He left Tunisia on 6

5 September 25, 2002. (Id.)

6 On September 26, 2002, Arar arrived from Switzerland at

7 JFK to catch a connecting flight to Montreal. Upon presenting

8 his passport to an immigration inspector, he was identified as

9 "the subject of a . . . lookout as being a member of a known

10 terrorist organization." Compl. Ex. D (Decision of J. Scott

11 Blackman, Regional Director) at 2. He was interrogated by

12 various officials for approximately eight hours. The officials 7

13 asked Arar if he had contacts with terrorist groups, which he

14 categorically denied. Arar was then transported to another site

15 at JFK, where he was placed in solitary confinement. He alleges

16 that he was transported in chains and shackles and was left in a
 This is the same federal prison in which, less than a 8

year earlier, Javaid Iqbal was allegedly mistreated. Iqbal, a

Muslim inmate accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States

and fraud with identification and held post-9/11 in the MDC,

allegedly suffered "unconstitutional actions against him in

-8-

1 room with no bed and with lights on throughout the night. (Arar,

2 414 F. Supp. 2d at 253.)

3 The following day, starting at approximately 9:00 a.m.,

4 two FBI agents interrogated Arar for about five hours, asking him

5 questions about Osama bin Laden, Iraq, and Palestine. Arar

6 alleges that the agents yelled and swore at him throughout the

7 interrogation. They ignored his repeated requests to make a

8 telephone call and see a lawyer. At 2:00 p.m. that day, Arar was

9 taken back to his cell, chained and shackled, and provided a cold

10 McDonald's meal -- his first food in nearly two days. (Id.)

11 That evening, Arar was given an opportunity to

12 voluntarily return to Syria, but refused, citing a fear of being

13 tortured if returned there and insisting that he be sent to

14 Canada or returned to Switzerland. An immigration officer told

15 Arar that the United States had a "special interest" in his case

16 and then asked him to sign a form, the contents of which he was

17 not allowed to read. That evening, Arar was transferred, in

18 chains and shackles, to the Metropolitan Detention Center ("MDC")

19 in Brooklyn, New York, where he was strip-searched and placed in 8
connection with his confinement under harsh conditions . . .

after separation from the general prison population." Iqbal v.

Hasty, 490 F.3d 143, 147, 148 n.1 (2d Cir. 2007). We held, with

respect to Iqbal's subsequent Bivens action, that such treatment

was not protected, as a matter of law, by the doctrine of

qualified immunity. Id. at 177-78. The Supreme Court

subsequently reversed that judgment and remanded, holding that

the complaint was insufficiently pleaded as to two high-ranking

official defendants. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937,

1952 (2009). On September 29, 2009, the remaining parties in

Iqbal filed a document in this Court stipulating that the appeal

was to be "withdrawn from active consideration before the

Court . . . because a settlement has been reached in principle

between Javaid Iqbal and defendant United States." Iqbal v.

Hasty, No. 05-5768-cv (2d Cir. Sept. 30, 2009), "Stipulation

Withdrawing Appeal from Active Consideration" dated September 29,

2009.

 I.e., five days after Arar's arrival in the United 9

States.

-9-

1 solitary confinement. During his initial three days at MDC,

2 Arar's continued requests to meet with a lawyer and make

3 telephone calls were refused. (Id.)

4 On October 1, 2002, the Immigration and Naturalization 9

5 Service ("INS") initiated removal proceedings against Arar, who

6 was charged with being temporarily inadmissible because of his

7 membership in al-Qaeda, a group designated by the Secretary of

8 State as a foreign terrorist organization. Upon being given

9 permission to make one telephone call, Arar called his mother-in10 law in Ottawa, Canada. (Id.)

11 Upon learning of Arar's whereabouts, his family

12 contacted the Office for Consular Affairs ("Canadian
 The consulate is in New York City. 10

-10-

1 Consulate") and retained an attorney, Amal Oummih, to represent 10

2 him. The Canadian Consulate had not been notified of Arar's

3 detention. On October 3, 2002, Arar received a visit from

4 Maureen Girvan from the Canadian Consulate, who, when presented

5 with the document noting Arar's inadmissibility to the United

6 States, assured Arar that removal to Syria was not an option. On

7 October 4, 2002, Arar designated Canada as the country to which

8 he wished to be removed. (Id.)

9 On October 5, 2002, Arar had his only meeting with

10 counsel. The following day, he was taken in chains and shackles

11 to a room where approximately seven INS officials questioned him

12 about his reasons for opposing removal to Syria. His attorney

13 was not provided advance notice of the interrogation, and Arar

14 further alleges that U.S. officials misled him into thinking his

15 attorney had chosen not to attend. During the interrogation,

16 Arar continued to express his fear of being tortured if returned

17 to Syria. At the conclusion of the six-hour interrogation, Arar

18 was informed that the officials were discussing his case with

19 "Washington, D.C." Arar was asked to sign a document that
-11-

1 appeared to be a transcript. He refused to sign the form. (Id.

2 at 253-54.)

3 The following day, October 7, 2002, attorney Oummih

4 received two telephone calls informing her that Arar had been

5 taken for processing to an INS office at Varick Street in

6 Manhattan, that he would eventually be placed in a detention

7 facility in New Jersey, and that she should call back the

8 following morning for Arar's exact whereabouts. However, Arar

9 alleges that he never left the MDC and that the contents of both

10 of these phone calls to his counsel were false and misleading. 

11 (Id. at 254.)

12 That same day, October 7, 2002, the INS Regional

13 Director, J. Scott Blackman, determined from classified and

14 unclassified information that Arar is "clearly and unequivocally"

15 a member of al-Qaeda and, therefore, "clearly and unequivocally

16 inadmissible to the United States" under 8 U.S.C.

17 § 1182(a)(3)(B)(i)(V). See Compl. Ex. D. at 1, 3, 5. Based on

18 that finding, Blackman concluded "that there are reasonable

19 grounds to believe that [Arar] is a danger to the security of the

20 United States." Id. at 6 (brackets in original). (Arar, 414 F.

21 Supp. 2d at 254.)
-12-

1 At approximately 4:00 a.m. on October 8, 2002, Arar

2 learned that, based on classified information, INS regional

3 director Blackman had ordered that Arar be sent to Syria and that

4 his removal there was consistent with Article Three of the United

5 Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or

6 Degrading Treatment or Punishment ("CAT"). Arar pleaded for

7 reconsideration but was told by INS officials that the agency was

8 not governed by the "Geneva Conventions" and that Arar was barred

9 from reentering the country for a period of five years and would

10 be admissible only with the permission of the Attorney General. 

11 (Id.)

12 Later that day, Arar was taken in chains and shackles

13 to a New Jersey airfield, where he boarded a small jet airplane

14 bound for Washington, D.C. From there, he was flown to Amman,

15 Jordan, arriving there on October 9, 2002. He was then handed

16 over to Jordanian authorities, who delivered him to the Syrians

17 later that day. At this time, U.S. officials had not informed

18 either Canadian Consulate official Girvan or attorney Oummih that

19 Arar had been removed to Syria. Arar alleges that Syrian

20 officials refused to accept Arar directly from the United States. 

21 (Id.)
-13-

1 Arar's Final Notice of Inadmissability ("Final Notice")

2 ordered him removed without further inquiry before an immigration

3 judge. See Compl. Ex. D. According to the Final Notice: "The

4 Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service has

5 determined that your removal to Syria would be consistent with

6 [CAT]." Id. (brackets in original). The Final Notice was dated

7 October 8, 2002, and was signed by Deputy Attorney General Larry

8 Thompson. After oral argument in the district court on the

9 defendants' motions to dismiss, in a letter dated August 18,

10 2005, counsel for Arar said that Arar had received the Final

11 Notice within hours of boarding the aircraft taking him to

12 Jordan. (Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 254.)

13 B. Arar's Detention in Syria

14 During his ten-month period of detention in Syria, Arar

15 alleges, he was placed in a "grave" cell measuring six feet long,

16 seven feet high, and three feet wide. The cell was located

17 within the Palestine Branch of the Syrian Military Intelligence

18 ("Palestine Branch"). The cell was damp and cold, contained very

19 little light, and was infested with rats, which would enter the

20 cell through a small aperture in the ceiling. Cats would urinate

21 on Arar through the aperture, and sanitary facilities were

22 nonexistent. Arar was allowed to bathe himself in cold water
-14-

1 once per week. He was prohibited from exercising and was

2 provided barely edible food. Arar lost forty pounds during his

3 ten-month period of detention in Syria. (Id.)

4 During his first twelve days in Syrian detention, Arar

5 was interrogated for eighteen hours per day and was physically

6 and psychologically tortured. He was beaten on his palms, hips,

7 and lower back with a two-inch-thick electric cable. His captors

8 also used their fists to beat him on his stomach, his face, and

9 the back of his neck. He was subjected to excruciating pain and

10 pleaded with his captors to stop, but they would not. He was

11 placed in a room where he could hear the screams of other

12 detainees being tortured and was told that he, too, would be

13 placed in a spine-breaking "chair," hung upside down in a "tire"

14 for beatings, and subjected to electric shocks. To lessen his

15 exposure to the torture, Arar falsely confessed, among other

16 things, to having trained with terrorists in Afghanistan, even

17 though he had never been to Afghanistan and had never been

18 involved in terrorist activity. (Id. at 255.)

19 Arar alleges that his interrogation in Syria was

20 coordinated and planned by U.S. officials, who sent the Syrians a

21 dossier containing specific questions. As support for this

22 allegation, Arar notes that the interrogations in the United
-15-

1 States and Syria contained identical questions, including a

2 specific question about his relationship with a particular

3 individual wanted for terrorism. In return, Arar alleges, the

4 Syrian officials supplied U.S. officials with all information

5 extracted from Arar; Arar cites a statement by one Syrian

6 official who has publicly stated that the Syrian government

7 shared information with the United States that it extracted from

8 him. See Compl. Ex. E (January 21, 2004 transcript of CBS's

9 Sixty Minutes II: "His Year In Hell"). (Id.)

10 C. Arar's Contact with the Canadian Government 

11 While Detained in Syria

12 The Canadian Embassy contacted the Syrian government

13 about Arar on October 20, 2002, and the following day, Syrian

14 officials confirmed that they were detaining him. At this point,

15 the Syrian officials ceased interrogating and torturing Arar. 

16 (Id.)

17 Canadian officials visited Arar at the Palestine Branch

18 five times during his ten-month detention. Prior to each visit,

19 Arar was warned not to disclose that he was being mistreated. He

20 complied but eventually broke down during the fifth visit,

21 telling the Canadian consular official that he was being tortured

22 and kept in a grave. (Id.)
-16-

1 Five days later, Arar was brought to a Syrian

2 investigation branch, where he was forced to sign a confession

3 stating that he had participated in terrorist training in

4 Afghanistan even though, Arar states, he has never been to

5 Afghanistan or participated in any terrorist activity. Arar was

6 then taken to an overcrowded Syrian prison, where he remained for

7 six weeks. (Id.)

8 On September 28, 2003, Arar was transferred back to the

9 Palestine Branch, where he was held for one week. During this

10 week, he heard other detainees screaming in pain and begging for

11 their torture to end. (Id.)

12 On October 5, 2003, Syria, without filing any charges

13 against Arar, released him into the custody of Canadian Embassy

14 officials in Damascus. He was flown to Ottawa the following day

15 and reunited with his family. (Id.)

16 Arar contends that he is not a member of any terrorist

17 organization, including al-Qaeda, and has never knowingly

18 associated himself with terrorists, terrorist organizations, or

19 terrorist activity. Arar claims that the individual about whom

20 he was questioned was a casual acquaintance whom Arar had last

21 seen in October 2001. He believes that he was removed to Syria

22 for interrogation under torture because of his casual
-17-

1 acquaintance with this individual and others believed to be

2 involved in terrorist activity. But Arar contends "on

3 information and belief" that there has never been, nor is there

4 now, any reasonable suspicion that he was involved in such

5 activity. Compl. ¶ 2. (Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 255-56

6 (footnote omitted).)

7 Arar alleges that he continues to suffer adverse

8 effects from his ordeal in Syria. He claims that he has trouble

9 relating to his wife and children, suffers from nightmares, is

10 frequently branded a terrorist, and is having trouble finding

11 employment due to his reputation and inability to travel in the

12 United States. (Id. at 256.)

13 D. U.S. Policy Relating to Interrogation 

14 of Detainees by Foreign Governments

15 The complaint alleges on information and belief that

16 Arar was removed to Syria under a covert U.S. policy of

17 "extraordinary rendition," according to which individuals are

18 sent to foreign countries to undergo methods of interrogation not

19 permitted in the United States. The extraordinary rendition

20 policy involves the removal of "non-U.S. citizens detained in

21 this country and elsewhere and suspected -- reasonably or

22 unreasonably -- of terrorist activity to countries, including
-18-

1 Syria, where interrogations under torture are routine." Compl.

2 ¶ 24. Arar alleges on information and belief that the United

3 States sends individuals "to countries like Syria precisely

4 because those countries can and do use methods of interrogation

5 to obtain information from detainees that would not be morally

6 acceptable or legal in the United States and other democracies." 

7 Id. The complaint further alleges that federal officials

8 involved with extraordinary rendition "have facilitated such

9 human rights abuses, exchanging dossiers with intelligence

10 officials in the countries to which non-U.S. citizens are

11 removed." Id. The complaint also alleges that the United States

12 involves Syria in its extraordinary rendition program to extract

13 counter-terrorism information. (Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 256.)

14 This extraordinary rendition program is, Arar alleges,

15 not part of any official or declared U.S. public policy;

16 nevertheless, it has received extensive attention in the press,

17 where unnamed U.S. officials and certain foreign officials have

18 admitted to the existence of such a policy. Arar details a

19 number of articles in the mainstream press recounting both the

20 incidents of this particular case and the extraordinary rendition

21 program more broadly. These articles are attached as Exhibit C

22 of his complaint. (Id. at 256-57.)
-19-

1 Arar alleges that the defendants directed the

2 interrogations in Syria by providing information about Arar to

3 Syrian officials and receiving reports on Arar's responses.

4 Consequently, the defendants conspired with, and/or aided and

5 abetted, Syrian officials in arbitrarily detaining,

6 interrogating, and torturing Arar. Arar argues in the

7 alternative that, at a minimum, the defendants knew or at least

8 should have known that there was a substantial likelihood that he

9 would be tortured upon his removal to Syria. (Id. at 257.)

10 E. Syria's Human Rights Record

11 Arar's claim that he faced a likelihood of torture in

12 Syria is supported by U.S. State Department reports on Syria's

13 human rights practices. See, e.g., Bureau of Democracy, Human

14 Rights, and Labor, United States Department of State, 2004

15 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (Released February 28,

16 2005) ("2004 Report"). According to the State Department,

17 Syria's "human rights record remained poor, and the Government

18 continued to commit numerous, serious abuses . . . includ[ing]

19 the use of torture in detention, which at times resulted in

20 death." Id. at 1. Although the Syrian constitution officially

21 prohibits such practices, "there was credible evidence that

22 security forces continued to use torture frequently." Id. at 2. 
 The district court's description of the facts as alleged 11

in the complaint ends here.

 On October 23, 2007, this Court granted Arar's motion to 12

take judicial notice of the Report insofar as its existence and

the scope of its contents were concerned, but denied the motion

insofar as it may have sought judicial notice of the facts

asserted in the report. But cf. supra at [4-5] (employing the

report as the source for facts relating to Canadian involvement

in the Arar incident).

-20-

1 The 2004 Report cites "numerous cases of security forces using

2 torture on prisoners in custody." Id. Similar references

3 throughout the 2004 Report, as well as State Department reports

4 from prior years, are legion. See, e.g., Compl. Ex. A (2002

5 State Department Human Rights Report on Syria). (Arar, 414 F.

6 Supp. 2d at 257.)11

7 F. The Canadian Government Inquiry

8 On September 18, 2006, a Commission of Inquiry into the

9 Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar ("Arar

10 Commission"), established by the government of Canada to

11 investigate the Arar affair, issued a three-volume report. See

12 Arar Commission, Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar

13 (2006) ("Commission Report"). A press release issued by the 12

14 Commission summarized: "On Maher Arar the Commissioner [Dennis

15 O'Connor] comes to one important conclusion: 'I am able to say

16 categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar
-21-

1 has committed any offence or that his activities constitute a

2 threat to the security of Canada.'" Arar Commission, Press

3 Release, Arar Commission Releases Its Findings on the Handling of

4 the Maher Arar Case (Sept. 18, 2006) (boldface in original),

5 available at http://www.ararcommission.ca/eng/Release Final_Sept

6 18.pdf (copy on file with the Clerk of Court). On January 26,

7 2007, the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada issued the

8 following announcement:

9 Prime Minister Stephen Harper today released

10 the letter of apology he has sent to Maher

11 Arar and his family for any role Canadian

12 officials may have played in what happened to

13 Mr. Arar, Monia Mazigh and their family in

14 2002 and 2003. 

15 "Although the events leading up to this

16 terrible ordeal happened under the previous

17 government, our Government will do everything

18 in its power to ensure that the issues raised

19 by Commissioner O'Connor are addressed," said

20 the Prime Minister. "I sincerely hope that

21 these actions will help Mr. Arar and his

22 family begin a new and hopeful chapter in

23 their lives."

24 Canada's New Government has accepted all 23

25 recommendations made in Commissioner

26 O'Connor's first report, and has already

27 begun acting upon them. The Government has

28 sent letters to both the Syrian and the U.S.

29 governments formally objecting to the

30 treatment of Mr. Arar. Ministers Day and

31 MacKay have also expressed Canada’s concerns

32 on this important issue to their American

33 counterparts. Finally, Canada has removed
-22-

1 Mr. Arar from Canadian lookout lists, and

2 requested that the United States amend its

3 own records accordingly.

4 The Prime Minister also announced that

5 Canada's New Government has successfully

6 completed the mediation process with Mr.

7 Arar, fulfilling another one of Commissioner

8 O'Connor's recommendations. This settlement,

9 mutually agreed upon by all parties, ensures

10 that Mr. Arar and his family will obtain fair

11 compensation, in the amount of $10.5 million,

12 plus legal costs, for the ordeal they have

13 suffered.

14 Office of the Prime Minister, Press Release, Prime Minister

15 Releases Letter of Apology to Maher Arar and His Family and

16 Announces Completion of Mediation Process (Jan. 26, 2007),

17 available at http://pm.gc.ca/eng/

18 media.asp?id=1509 (last visited July 15, 2009); see also Margaret

19 L. Satterthwaite, Rendered Meaningless: Extraordinary Rendition

20 and the Rule of Law, 75 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1333, 1339-40 (2007).

21 II. The Dismissal of the Fourth Claim for Relief

22 The fulcrum of the en banc majority's analysis is its

23 conclusion that this appeal requires us to decide whether "to

24 devise a new Bivens damages action" under Wilkie v. Robbins, 127

25 S. Ct. 2588, 2597 (2007). See supra at [6]. But the majority

26 can characterize Arar's action as "new" only by isolating and

27 eliminating the domestic aspects of the case. It does so in part
-23-

1 by affirming the district court's dismissal of Arar's "Fourth

2 Claim for Relief, (Fifth Amendment: Substantive Due Process --

3 Domestic Detention)" on the ground that the claim was

4 insufficiently pleaded. See supra at [19-21]. We think that

5 ruling to be incorrect.

6 With respect to the conditions of confinement aspect of

7 this claim, the district court concluded that Arar was entitled

8 to Fifth Amendment substantive due process protection and that

9 his rights in that respect could have been violated by "the

10 deprivations Arar alleges with respect to his treatment while in

11 U.S. custody." Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 286. We agree, and the

12 majority does not decide otherwise. Supra at [21]. With respect

13 to the access to counsel and the courts aspect of the claim, the

14 district court concluded that Arar would be able to state a claim

15 for interference "with his access to courts in part by

16 [government officials] lying to his counsel," if he could

17 "identify 'a separate and distinct right to seek judicial relief

18 for some wrong.'" Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 285 (quoting

19 Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 414-15 (2002)). We agree

20 here, too, and the majority does not decide otherwise. 

21 But the district court nonetheless dismissed the Fourth

22 Claim for Relief without prejudice. On pain of forfeiture of the
 Following the district court's dismissal of the fourth 13

claim without prejudice and dismissal of the first three claims

with prejudice, Arar moved for certification of a final judgment

on the first three claims to enable him to appeal them

immediately. See Arar v. Ashcroft, No. CV-04-0249 (DGT), 2006 WL

1875375, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45550 (E.D.N.Y. July 5, 2006). 

The district court denied the motion. See id. Arar then

declined to replead the fourth claim, apparently in order to

obtain this Court's early review of the dismissal of the first

three claims, cf. id. 

The majority affirms the dismissal of the fourth claim

partly "in view of Arar's rejection of an opportunity to replead." Supra at [21]. While we do not read that as a

suggestion that this claim has been waived on appeal, we note

that any such suggestion would be incorrect. We may review the

entire judgment. See, e.g., Kittay v. Kornstein, 230 F.3d 531,

541 n.8 (2d Cir. 2000) ("[A] disclaimer of intent to amend the

complaint renders the District Court's judgment final and allows

review of the dismissal in this Court."); Festa v. Local 3 Int'l

Brotherhood of Elec. Workers, 905 F.2d 35, 36-37 (2d Cir. 1990)

(per curiam); Conn. Nat'l Bank v. Fluor Corp., 808 F.2d 957,

-24-

1 claims, it required Arar (1) with respect to the mistreatment

2 claim, to "name those defendants that were personally involved in

3 the alleged unconstitutional treatment," and, (2) with respect to

4 the denial of access claim, to replead "without regard to any

5 [underlying] rendition claim," in light of the court's conclusion

6 that no Bivens action was available with respect to such a claim,

7 and, because it was unclear to what underlying relief Arar was

8 denied access, "identify[ing] the specific injury he was

9 prevented from grieving." Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 287-88. Arar

10 declined to replead, rendering the dismissal final. 13
960-61 (2d Cir. 1987).

-25-

1 A. Specification of Defendants' Acts and Conspiracy Allegations

2 The majority affirms the dismissal of the Fourth Claim

3 for Relief on the ground that Arar's complaint does not "specify

4 any culpable action taken by any single defendant" and fails to

5 allege a conspiracy. Supra at [21]. We disagree with each of

6 these rationales.

7 Arar should not have been required to "name those

8 defendants [who] were personally involved in the alleged

9 unconstitutional treatment." Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 287. In

10 actions pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which are "analog[s]" of

11 the less-common Bivens action, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct.

12 1937, 1948 (2009) (citation omitted), we allow plaintiffs to

13 "maintain[] supervisory personnel as defendants . . . until [they

14 have] been afforded an opportunity through at least brief

15 discovery to identify the subordinate officials who have personal

16 liability." Davis v. Kelly, 160 F.3d 917, 921 (2d Cir. 1998)

17 (citing Second Circuit authority). 

18 Similarly, courts have rejected the dismissal

19 of suits against unnamed defendants described

20 by roles . . . until the plaintiff has had

21 some opportunity for discovery to learn the

22 identities of responsible officials. Once

23 the supervisory officer has inquired within
 The Supreme Court explained: "The agents were not named 14

in petitioner's complaint, and the District Court ordered that

the complaint be served upon "those federal agents who it is

indicated by the records of the United States Attorney

participated in the November 25, 1965, arrest of the

[petitioner]." App. 3. Five agents were ultimately served." 

Id. at 390 n.2; see also Bivens, Brief for Respondent at *2 n.1,

1970 WL 116900 ("The apparent contradiction in the title of this

case -- "Unknown Named" -- arises from the fact that after

petitioner filed his complaint, the United States Attorney

supplied the clerk of the court with the agents' names. However,

as the summonses and their returns indicate, only five agents are

apparently involved (App. 5-24), rather than six as stated in the

case title.")

-26-

1 the institution and identified the actual

2 decision-makers of the challenged action,

3 those officials may then submit affidavits

4 based on their personal knowledge of the

5 circumstances.

6 Id. (citations omitted). It should not be forgotten that the

7 full name of the Bivens case itself is Bivens v. Six Unknown

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

9 (emphasis added). 

14

10 To be sure, the Supreme Court has recently set a strict

11 pleading standard for supervisory liability claims under Bivens

12 against a former Attorney General of the United States and the

13 Director of the FBI." See Iqbal, supra. We do not think,

14 however, that the Court has thereby permitted governmental actors

15 who are unnamed in a complaint automatically to escape personal

16 civil rights liability. A plaintiff must, after all, have some
 The complaint alleges, inter alia: 15

Early on October 8, 2002, at about 4 a.m.,

Mr. Arar was taken in chains and shackles to

a room where two INS officials told him that,

based on Mr. Arar's casual acquaintance with

certain named individuals, including Mr.

Almalki as well as classified information,

Defendant Blackman, Regional Director for the

Eastern Region of Immigration and

Naturalization Services, had decided to

-27-

1 way to identify a defendant who anonymously violates his civil

2 rights. We doubt that Iqbal requires a plaintiff to obtain his

3 abusers' business cards in order to state a civil rights claim. 

4 Put conversely, we do not think that Iqbal implies that federal

5 government miscreants may avoid Bivens liability altogether

6 through the simple expedient of wearing hoods while inflicting

7 injury. Some manner of proceeding must be made available for the

8 reasons we recognized in Davis.

9 Whether or not there is a mechanism available to

10 identify the "Doe" defendants, moreover, Arar's complaint does

11 sufficiently name some individual defendants who personally took

12 part in the alleged violation of his civil rights. The role of

13 defendant J. Scott Blackman, formerly Director of the Regional

14 Office of INS, for example, is, as reflected in the district

15 court's explication of the facts, see Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at

16 252-54, set forth in reasonable detail in the complaint. So are 15
remove Mr. Arar to Syria. Without

elaboration, Defendant Blackman also

stipulated that Mr. Arar's removal would be

consistent with Article 3 of CAT. . . . (A

copy of Defendant Blackman's decision is

attached as Exhibit D [to the complaint]).

Compl. ¶ 47.

 The complaint alleges, inter alia: 16

The only notice given [Arar's counsel prior

to his interrogation late on the evening of

Sunday, October 6, 2002] was a message left

by Defendant McElroy, District Director for

Immigration and Naturalization Services for

New York City, on [counsel's] voice mail at

work that same [Sunday] evening. [She] did

not retrieve the message until she arrived at

work the next day, Monday morning, October 7,

2002 -- long after Mr. Arar's interrogation

had ended.

Compl. ¶ 43.

-28-

1 at least some of the acts of the defendant Edward J. McElroy,

2 District Director of the INS. 

16

3 The majority also asserts that Arar does no more than

4 "allege[] (in passive voice) that his requests to make phone

5 calls 'were ignored,' and that 'he was told' that he was not

6 entitled to a lawyer." Supra at [21]. But as indicated above,

7 such an identification of the unnamed defendants by their "roles"

8 should be sufficient to enable a plaintiff to survive a motion to

9 dismiss, and subsequently to use discovery to identify them. And

10 while the majority is correct that the complaint does not utter
 That rule provides: 17

Claim for Relief. A pleading that states a

-29-

1 the talismanic words "meeting of the minds" to invoke an

2 agreement among the defendants, see supra at [21], it is plain

3 that the logistically complex concerted action allegedly taken to

4 detain Arar and then transport him abroad implies an alleged

5 agreement by government actors within the United States to act in

6 concert.

7 B. Dismissal of Claims of Denial of Access to Courts and

8 Counsel

9

10 With respect to the dismissal of Arar's claim for

11 "interfere[nce] with his access to lawyers and the courts" while

12 he was incarcerated by United States officials, Compl. ¶ 93, we

13 think the district court erred here, too. An access to courts

14 claim requires the pleading of (1) a "nonfrivolous, arguable

15 underlying claim" that has been frustrated by the defendants'

16 actions, and (2) a continued inability to obtain the relief

17 sought by the underlying claim. Christopher, 536 U.S. at 415-16

18 (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court decided

19 that Arar failed to plead with sufficient "precis[ion]" the

20 existence of a sought-for underlying claim for relief, Arar, 414

21 F. Supp. 2d at 286, which means it decided that, for purposes of

22 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8, the defendants were not put 17
claim for relief must contain:

 (1) a short and plain statement of the

grounds for the court's jurisdiction, unless

the court already has jurisdiction and the

claim needs no new jurisdictional support;

 (2) a short and plain statement of the

claim showing that the pleader is entitled to

relief; and

 (3) a demand for the relief sought, which

may include relief in the alternative or

different types of relief.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a). 

-30-

1 on notice of the existence of such a claim. See Christopher, 536

2 U.S. at 416 ("Like any other element of an access claim, the

3 underlying cause of action and its lost remedy must be addressed

4 by allegations . . . sufficient to give fair notice to a

5 defendant."). 

6 But taking the allegations in the complaint as true, as

7 we must, the complaint clearly implies the existence of an

8 underlying claim for relief under CAT. The defendants can hardly

9 argue that under Arar's assertions, which we take to be true,

10 they lacked notice of such a claim, since the complaint says that

11 it was they who first notified Arar about it: Arar alleges that

12 on October 8, 2002, "two INS officials told him that . . .

13 Defendant Blackman . . . had decided to remove [him] to Syria,"

14 and "Defendant Blackman also stipulated that [such action] would

15 be consistent with Article 3 of CAT." Compl. ¶ 47. Indeed, the
-31-

1 complaint alleges that Arar asked defendants for reconsideration

2 of that decision -- i.e., relief from it -- in light of the

3 prospect of torture in Syria, but the officials said that "the

4 INS is not governed by the 'Geneva Conventions.'" Id. 

5 Insofar as the district court's requirement that Arar

6 "articulate more precisely the judicial relief he was denied,"

7 Arar, 414 F. Supp. 2d at 286, related to its holding that "Bivens

8 did not extend a remedy to Arar for his deportation to Syria,"

9 id., we disagree for the reasons set forth below. Insofar as the

10 district court thought Arar's underlying CAT claim would have

11 been frivolous, it was mistaken. Cf. Ramsameachire v. Ashcroft,

12 357 F.3d 169, 184 (2d Cir. 2004) (pursuant to the CAT, the United

13 States may not remove an alien to a country if "'it is more

14 likely than not that he or she would be tortured if removed to

15 [that country]'" (quoting 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2))).

16 Nor was CAT the only relief Arar was denied. As the

17 government pointed out at oral argument, "th[e] decision [in

18 Michael v. INS, 48 F.3d 657 (2d Cir. 1995),] shows that in

19 extraordinary cases, and no one can dispute that this is an

20 extraordinary case, the plaintiff could have filed a habeas
 In response to a question by the Chief Judge as to what 18

cognizable allegations might be made in such a habeas petition,

the government said, "Your Honor, I'm not going to speak for what

a judge might or might not have said, but in his habeas position

and his petition for a stay he could say, look, things are moving

quickly, I'm afraid they're going to send me to Syria, don't let

that happen." Tr. 84; see also id. at 85. 

-32-

1 [petition] and sought a stay pursuant to the All Writs Act." Tr.

2 at 82 (Cohn). 

18

3 Contrary to the district court's ruling, then, Arar's

4 complaint put the defendants on notice of claims seeking relief

5 to bar his removal that were frustrated by the defendants'

6 actions. Whatever the ultimate merits of those claims, they

7 would not have been "frivolous." And absent a remedy for the

8 rendition and torture themselves -- the district court, and the

9 majority, of course, conclude there is none -- no contemporaneous

10 legal relief is now possible except through the access to courts

11 and counsel claim. See generally Br. of Amici Norman Dorsen et

12 al. at 12-14. The Fourth Claim for Relief therefore states a

13 sufficient due process access claim.

14 C. Sufficient Pleading under Iqbal

15 More generally, we think the district court's extended

16 recitation of the allegations in the complaint makes clear that

17 the facts of Arar's mistreatment while within the United States
-33-

1 -- including the alleged denial of his access to courts and

2 counsel and his alleged mistreatment while in federal detention

3 in the United States -- were pleaded meticulously and in copious

4 detail. The assertion of relevant places, times, and events --

5 and names when known -- is lengthy and specific. Even measured

6 in light of Supreme Court case law post-dating the district

7 court's dismissal of the fourth claim, which instituted a more

8 stringent standard of review for pleadings, the complaint here

9 passes muster. It does not "offer[] 'labels and conclusions' or

10 'a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action.'" 

11 Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949 (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,

12 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). Nor does it "tender[] 'naked

13 assertion[s]' devoid of 'further factual enhancement.'" Id.

14 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557). Its allegations of a

15 constitutional violation are "'plausible on [their] face.'" Id.

16 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). And, as we have explained,

17 Arar has pled "factual content that allows the court to draw the

18 reasonable inference that the defendant[s] [are] liable for the

19 misconduct alleged." Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). We

20 would therefore vacate the district court's dismissal of the

21 Fourth Claim for Relief.
-34-

1 III. The Majority's Interpretation of the Second and 

2 Third Claims for Relief 

3 Having thus decided, mistakenly we think, that Arar's

4 Fourth Claim for Relief has failed, our colleagues leap to the

5 conclusion that what remains -- the allegations contained in what

6 Arar's complaint styles as the Second and Third Claims for Relief

7 -- relates only to the legal implications of the international

8 and foreign elements of the defendants' behavior. See supra at

9 [21] ("Arar's remaining claims seek relief on the basis of

10 torture and detention in Syria . . . ."). Even were we to agree

11 with the majority's view that the Fourth Claim for Relief

12 warranted dismissal, we would still not concur in its crabbed

13 interpretation of Arar's complaint in light of the facts alleged

14 in it.

15 "[W]e may not affirm the dismissal of [a] complaint

16 because [it has] proceeded under the wrong theory 'so long as [it

17 has] alleged facts sufficient to support a meritorious legal

18 claim.'" Hack v. President & Fellows of Yale Coll., 237 F.3d 81,

19 89 (2d Cir. 2000) (plurality opinion of Pooler, J.) (quoting

20 Northrop v. Hoffman of Simsbury, Inc., 134 F.3d 41, 46 (2d Cir.

21 1997)), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 888 (2001). "'Factual allegations

22 alone are what matter[].'" Northrop, 134 F.3d at 46 (quoting

23 Albert v. Carovano, 851 F.2d 561, 571 n.3 (2d Cir. 1988) (en
 The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure instruct that 19

"[p]leadings must be construed so as to do justice." Fed. R.

Civ. P. 8(e). Wright and Miller's treatise counsels that "[t]his

provision is not simply a precatory statement but reflects one of

the basic philosophies of practice under the federal rules." 5

Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and

Procedure § 1286 (3d ed. 2004). "One of the most important

objectives of the federal rules is that lawsuits should be

determined on their merits and according to the dictates of

justice, rather than in terms of whether or not the averments in

the paper pleadings have been artfully drawn." Id.

-35-

1 banc)); see also Newman v. Silver, 713 F.2d 14, 15 n.1 (2d Cir.

2 1983) ("[T]he nature of federal pleading . . . is by statement of

3 claim, not by legal theories."). And we are required to read 19

4 those factual allegations as a whole. See Shapiro v. Cantor, 123

5 F.3d 717, 721 (2d Cir. 1997); see also Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh

6 Produce, N.A., Inc., 416 F.3d 1242, 1252 n.11 (11th Cir. 2005)

7 (per curiam), cert. denied, 127 S. Ct. 596 (2006); Goldwasser v.

8 Ameritech Corp., 222 F.3d 390, 401 (7th Cir. 2000).

9 Although Arar pled in his Fourth Claim for Relief what

10 he denominated as a separate "Claim" on the subject of "Domestic

11 Detention," including allegations about unconstitutional

12 conditions of confinement and denial of access to courts and

13 counsel, the complaint as a whole makes broader allegations of

14 mistreatment while within the borders of the United States. 

15 According to the complaint: (1) Arar was apprehended by

16 government agents as he sought to change planes at JFK; (2) he

17 was not seeking to enter the United States; (3) his detention was
-36-

1 for the purpose of obtaining information from him about terrorism

2 and his alleged links with terrorists and terrorist

3 organizations; (4) he was interrogated harshly on that topic --

4 mostly by FBI agents –- for many hours over a period of two days;

5 (5) during that period, he was held incommunicado and was

6 mistreated by, among other things, being deprived of food and

7 water for a substantial portion of his time in custody; (6) he

8 was then taken from JFK to the MDC in Brooklyn, where he

9 continued to be held incommunicado and in solitary confinement

10 for another three days; (7) while at the MDC, INS agents sought

11 unsuccessfully to have him agree to be removed to Syria because

12 they and other U.S. government agents intended that he would be

13 questioned there along similar lines, but under torture; (8) U.S.

14 officials thwarted his ability to consult with counsel or access

15 the courts; and (9) thirteen days after Arar had been intercepted

16 and incarcerated at the airport, defendants sent him against his

17 will to Syria, where they allegedly intended that he be

18 questioned under torture and while enduring brutal and inhumane

19 conditions of captivity. This was, as alleged, all part of a

20 single course of action conceived of and executed by the

21 defendants in the United States in order to try to make Arar

22 "talk." 
-37-

1 It may not have been best for Arar to file a complaint

2 that structures his claims for relief so as to charge knowing or

3 reckless subjection to torture, coercive interrogation, and

4 arbitrary detention in Syria (the second and third claims)

5 separately from charges of cruel and inhuman conditions of

6 confinement and "interfere[nce] with access to lawyers and the

7 courts" while in the United States (the fourth claim). But such

8 division of theories is of no legal consequence. "'Factual

9 allegations alone are what matter[].'" Northrop, 134 F.3d at 46

10 (quoting Albert, 851 F.2d at 571 n.3). The assessment of Arar's

11 complaint must, then, take into account the entire arc of factual

12 allegations that it contains –- his interception and arrest; his

13 interrogation, principally by FBI agents, about his putative ties

14 to terrorists; his detention and mistreatment at JFK in Queens

15 and the MDC in Brooklyn; the deliberate misleading of both his

16 lawyer and the Canadian Consulate; and his transport to

17 Washington, D.C. and forced transfer to Syrian authorities for

18 further detention and questioning under torture. Such attention

19 to the complaint's factual allegations, rather than its legal

20 theories, makes perfectly clear that the remaining claims upon

21 which Arar seeks relief are not limited to his "detention or

22 torture in Syria," supra at [6], but include allegations of
-38-

1 violations of his due process rights in the United States. The

2 scope of those claims is relevant in analyzing whether a Bivens

3 remedy is available.

4 IV. The "Context" in Which a Bivens Remedy Is Sought

5 The majority's artificial interpretation of the

6 complaint permits it to characterize the "context" of Arar's

7 Bivens action as entirely one of "international rendition,

8 specifically, 'extraordinary rendition.'" Supra at [32]; see

9 also id. ("Extraordinary rendition is treated as a distinct

10 phenomenon in international law."). This permits the majority to

11 focus on the part of the complaint that presents a "new context"

12 for Bivens purposes. But when the complaint is considered in

13 light of all of Arar's allegations, his due process claim for

14 relief from his apprehension, detention, interrogation, and

15 denial of access to counsel and courts in the United States, as

16 well as his expulsion to Syria for further interrogation likely

17 under torture, is not at all "new."

18 A. Bivens and Its Progeny

19 In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of

20 Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court "recognized for

21 the first time an implied private action for damages against

22 federal officers alleged to have violated a citizen's
-39-

1 constitutional rights." Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S.

2 61, 66 (2001). Bivens permitted "a victim of a Fourth Amendment

3 violation by federal officers [to] bring suit for money damages

4 against the officers in federal court." Id. The Supreme Court

5 has been reluctant, as the majority correctly observes, to

6 "extend" Bivens liability further. See, e.g., Wilkie, 127 S. Ct.

7 at 2597. The Court has done so only twice –- in the contexts of

8 "an implied damages remedy under the Due Process Clause of the

9 Fifth Amendment" in Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979), and 

10 under "the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth

11 Amendment" in Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980). Malesko, 534

12 U.S. at 67; see also Wilkie, 127 S. Ct. at 2597-98. But we must

13 ask whether we should "devise a new Bivens damages action,"

14 Wilkie, 127 S. Ct. at 2597, only if the asserted action is,

15 indeed, new. And a new Bivens action is not being sought unless

16 the plaintiff is asking the court to "extend Bivens liability to

17 a[] new context or new category of defendants." Malesko, 534

18 U.S. at 68.

19 B. The New Category of Defendants Test 

20 The majority does not suggest that Arar's Bivens claim

21 fails because it is against a new category of defendants. The

22 Bivens remedy was devised to supply relief for constitutional
-40-

1 torts by federal agents and officials. See Malesko, 534 U.S. at

2 70. 

3 C. The New Context Test 

4 The questions, then, are whether we are facing a "new

5 context," or considering recognizing "a new Bivens damages

6 action," questions that are complicated by the fact that the

7 meaning that the Supreme Court has ascribed to those terms is

8 less than clear. Compare Malesko, 534 U.S. at 67 (noting that

9 Bivens was extended to "a new right of action" in Davis v.

10 Passman, in which the Court "recognized an implied damages remedy

11 under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment" (emphasis

12 added)), with id. at 68 (describing Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487

13 U.S. 412 (1988), as presenting a "new context[]" in which the

14 plaintiffs sought damages under the Due Process Clause for errors

15 made by federal officials "in the[] handling of [their] Social

16 Security applications" (emphasis added)).

17 If the alleged facts of Arar's complaint were limited

18 to his claim of "extraordinary rendition" to, and torture in,

19 Syria -- that is, limited to his allegations that he was

20 transported by the United States government to Syria via Jordan

21 pursuant to a conspiracy or other arrangement among the countries

22 or their agents and mistreated in Syria as a result -- as the
 In one sense, every case presents a new context, in that 20

it presents a new set of facts to which we are expected to apply

established law. But a new set of facts is not ipso facto a "new

context." We do not decide, based on the difference in factual

setting alone, whether or not it is a good idea to allow a

plaintiff to avail him or herself of a well-established remedy

such as that afforded by Bivens. This is illustrated by cases

involving legal contexts where Bivens is well-established, in

which courts do not conduct a fresh assessment as to whether a

Bivens action is available based on the facts of each case. See,

e.g., Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551 (2004) (Bivens action for

Fourth Amendment violation); McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U.S. 140

(1992) (Bivens action for Eighth Amendment violation), superseded

by statute on other grounds as stated in Booth v. Churner, 532

U.S. 731 (2001); Castro v. United States, 34 F.3d 106 (2d Cir.

1994) (Fourth Amendment); Armstrong v. Sears, 33 F.3d 182 (2d

Cir. 1994) (same); Anderson v. Branen, 17 F.3d 552 (2d Cir. 1994)

(same); see also Hallock v. Bonner, 387 F.3d 147 (2d Cir. 2004)

(same), rev'd on other grounds, sub nom Will v. Hallock, 546 U.S.

345 (2006).

-41-

1 majority would have it, then we might well agree that we are

2 dealing with a "new context." But, as we have explained, the

3 complaint is not so limited. Incarceration in the United States

4 without cause, mistreatment while so incarcerated, denial of

5 access to counsel and the courts while so incarcerated, and the

6 facilitation of torture by others, considered as possible

7 violations of a plaintiff's procedural and substantive due

8 process rights, are hardly novel claims, nor do they present us

9 with a "new context" in any legally significant sense. 

20

10 We have recognized implied Bivens rights of action

11 pursuant to the Due Process Clause, so Arar's claims for relief

12 are not new actions under Bivens in that sense. A deprivation of
-42-

1 procedural due process rights can give rise to a Bivens claim

2 under our case law. See, e.g., Tellier v. Fields, 280 F.3d 69,

3 80-83 (2d Cir. 2000). And while we do not appear to have

4 squarely considered whether a Bivens action may lie for alleged

5 violations of substantive due process rights, our cases imply

6 that it can be. In Iqbal v. Hasty, 490 F.3d 143 (2d Cir. 2007),

7 rev'd in part on other grounds sub nom Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.

8 Ct. 1937 (2009), for example, we considered a Bivens action

9 brought on, inter alia, a Fifth Amendment substantive due process

10 theory. The plaintiff alleged physical mistreatment and

11 humiliation, as a Muslim prisoner, by federal prison officials,

12 while he was detained at the MDC. After concluding, on

13 interlocutory appeal, that the defendants were not entitled to

14 qualified immunity, we returned the matter to the district court

15 for further proceedings. We did not so much as hint either that

16 a Bivens remedy was unavailable or that its availability would
 Shortly after we decided Iqbal, the Supreme Court made 21

clear that by appealing from the district court's denial of

qualified immunity, the defendants placed within our jurisdiction

the question of "the recognition of the entire cause of action." 

Wilkie, 127 S. Ct. at 2597 n.4. The district court in Iqbal had

specifically rejected the defendants' argument that a Bivens

action was unavailable. See Elmaghraby v. Ashcroft, No. 04 CV

01809 JG SMG, 2005 WL 2375202, at *14, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS

21434, at *44-*45 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 27, 2005). Thus, had we

thought that no Bivens action was available, we had the power to

resolve Iqbal's claims on that basis. 

-43-

1 constitute an unwarranted extension of the Bivens doctrine.21

2 Iqbal, 490 F.3d at 177-78. 

3 In other cases we have apparently assumed Bivens

4 remedies were available for substantive due process claims. See

5 Thomas v. Ashcroft, 470 F.3d 491, 497 (2d Cir. 2006) (reversing

6 district court's dismissal of Bivens action for violation of

7 plaintiff's Fifth Amendment substantive due process rights while

8 detained at the MDC); Cuoco v. Moritsugu, 222 F.3d 99 (2d Cir.

9 2000) (dismissing, on qualified immunity grounds, plaintiff's

10 Bivens claim for, inter alia, substantive due process violations,

11 without questioning whether a cause of action was available); Li

12 v. Canarozzi, 142 F.3d 83 (2d Cir. 1998) (affirming judgment

13 following jury verdict for defendants in Bivens action based on

14 allegations of physical assault by guards at the federal

15 Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, although not

16 explicitly on substantive due process grounds); Ayeni v. Mottola,

17 35 F.3d 680, 691 (2d Cir. 1994) (apparently assuming that Bivens

18 remedy was available for substantive due process claim, but
-44-

1 deciding that it could not be pursued because the claim in issue

2 was covered by the more particular provisions of the Fourth

3 Amendment, for which a Bivens action was permitted), abrogated on

4 qualified immunity grounds, Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603 (1999).

5 Indeed, even the most "international" of Arar's

6 domestic allegations -- that the defendants, acting within the

7 United States, sent Arar to Syria with the intent that he be

8 tortured -- present no new context for Bivens purposes. 

9 Principles of substantive due process apply to a narrow band of

10 extreme misbehavior by government agents acting under color of

11 law: mistreatment that is "so egregious, so outrageous, that it

12 may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience." 

13 Lombardi v. Whitman, 485 F.3d 73, 79 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal

14 quotation marks omitted). Sending Arar from the United States

15 with the intent or understanding that he will be tortured in

16 Syria easily exceeds the level of outrageousness needed to make

17 out a substantive due process claim. 

18 Although the "shocks the conscience" test is undeniably

19 "vague," see Estate of Smith v. Marasco, 430 F.3d 140, 156 (3d

20 Cir. 2005); Schaefer v. Goch, 153 F.3d 793, 798 (7th Cir. 1998),

21 "[n]o one doubts that under Supreme Court precedent,

22 interrogation by torture" meets that test, Harbury v. Deutch, 233
 The D.C. Circuit in Harbury concluded that the 22

interrogation in question did not violate the Constitution

because it occurred entirely abroad. See Harbury, 233 F.3d at

602-04 (relying upon United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S.

259 (1990)). 

 The full quotation is: 23

[T]he freedom of the state in establishing

its policy is the freedom of constitutional

government and is limited by the requirement

of due process of law. Because a State may

dispense with a jury trial, it does not

follow that it may substitute trial by

ordeal. The rack and torture chamber may not

be substituted for the witness stand. 

Because a state may dispense with a jury

trial, it does not follow that it may

substitute trial by ordeal. The rack and

-45-

1 F.3d 596, 602 (D.C. Cir. 2000), rev'd on other grounds sub nom

2 Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403 (2002); see also Rochin v. 22

3 California, 342 U.S. 165, 172 (1952) (holding that the forcible

4 pumping of a suspect's stomach to obtain evidence to be used

5 against him was "too close to the rack and the screw to permit of

6 constitutional differentiation"); Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S.

7 319, 326 (1937) (noting that the Due Process Clause must at least

8 "give protection against torture, physical or mental"), overruled

9 on other grounds, Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784 (1969); Brown

10 v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 285-86 (1936) ("Because a state may

11 dispense with a jury trial, it does not follow that it may

12 substitute trial by ordeal. The rack and torture chamber may not

13 be substituted for the witness stand."). 

23
torture chamber may not be substituted for

the witness stand.

Brown, 297 U.S. at 285-86.

 "[R]endition -- the market approach -- outsources our 24

crimes, which puts us at the mercy of anyone who can expose us,

makes us dependent on some of the world's most unsavory actors,

and abandons accountability. It is an approach we associate with

crime families, not with great nations." Philip Bobbitt, Terror

and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century 388 (2008). 

"[O]ne could get the worst of both worlds: national

responsibility for acts as to which the agents we have empowered

are unaccountable." Id. at 387.

 "I do not think that whether the defendants violated 25

Arar's Fifth Amendment rights turns on whom they selected to do

the torturing: themselves, a Syrian Intelligence officer, a

warlord in Somalia, a drug cartel in Colombia, a military

contractor in Baghdad or Boston, a Mafia family in New Jersey, or

a Crip set in South Los Angeles." Arar partial panel dissent at

205.

-46-

1 To be sure, Arar alleges not that the defendants

2 themselves tortured him; he says that they "outsourced" it. But 24

3 we do not think that the question whether the defendants violated

4 Arar's substantive due process rights turns on whom they selected

5 to do the torturing, or that such "outsourcing" somehow changes 25

6 the essential character of the acts within the United States to

7 which Arar seeks to hold the defendants accountable. 

8 We think that Arar states a substantive due process

9 claim under either of two theories of substantive due process

10 liability: "special relationship liability" or

11 "state-created-danger liability," Benzman v. Whitman, 523 F.3d

12 119, 127 (2d Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). 
-47-

1 Under the latter doctrine, the defendants can be held liable for

2 "tak[ing] an affirmative act that creates an opportunity for a

3 third party to harm a victim (or increases the risk of such

4 harm)." Lombardi, 485 F.3d at 80. Under the former, Arar was

5 owed "an affirmative duty" by the defendants to protect him from

6 harm by Syrian agents in light of the fact that the government

7 took him "into its custody and h[eld] him there against his

8 will." Matican v. City of New York, 524 F.3d 151, 155-56 (2d

9 Cir.) (citations, internal quotation marks, and footnotes

10 omitted), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 636 (2008).

11 In sum, we do not view the current action as presenting

12 a "new context" in any relevant sense. We therefore do not think

13 we must decide whether "to devise a new Bivens damages action." 

14 Wilkie, 127 S. Ct. at 2597, here.

15 V. Devising a New Bivens Damages Action 

16 Even apart from our disagreement with the majority that

17 Arar's claims present a new context in which to extend Bivens

18 liability, we are puzzled by the majority's analysis as to

19 whether to do so. Having decided that the issue for our

20 consideration is whether a Bivens action should be permitted in

21 what it has concluded is a new context, the majority engages in a

22 two-part inquiry: "whether there is an alternative remedial
-48-

1 scheme available to the plaintiff; and whether 'special factors

2 counsel[] hesitation' in creating a Bivens remedy." Supra at

3 [33] (quoting Wilkie, 127 S. Ct. at 2598). 

4 Our colleagues wisely decline to decide the first

5 issue, whether an alternative remedial scheme is available,

6 partly because they conclude that this is not an immigration case

7 (or, at least, not a "typical" one), see supra at [28], and

8 partly because "Arar has alleged that he was actively prevented

9 from seeking any meaningful review and relief through the INA

10 processes," supra at [35]; see also supra at [27]. This is

11 significant inasmuch as the Supreme Court has observed that it

12 has recognized "new" Bivens actions precisely, inter alia, "to

13 provide a cause of action for a plaintiff who lacked any

14 alternative remedy for harms caused by an individual officer's

15 unconstitutional conduct." Malesko, 534 U.S. at 70 (emphasis

16 omitted).

17 The majority moves on to the second prong of the test,

18 concluding that "special factors are clearly present in the new

19 context of this case, and they sternly counsel hesitation." 

20 Supra at [35-36]. We think it unfortunate that the majority

21 concludes that Arar should be afforded no Bivens right of action

22 in light of such "special factors." We quarrel not only with
-49-

1 their conclusion, but also the majority's apparent treatment of

2 the existence vel non of "special factors counseling hesitation"

3 as the determinative legal standard for whether an extension of

4 Bivens is warranted. Setting aside for the moment our view that

5 many of the "special factors" cited by the majority are not

6 properly considered to be such, we think it mistaken to preclude

7 Bivens relief solely in light of a citation or compilation of one

8 or more purported examples of such "special factors." 

9 A. "Special Factors" As a Standard

10 The majority is not altogether clear in conveying its

11 understanding of the legal significance of a finding that

12 "special factors counseling hesitation," "sternly" or otherwise,

13 are present. The majority acknowledges that "[h]esitation is a

14 pause, not a full stop, or an abstention; and to counsel is not

15 to require," supra at [37], but it also states that

16 countervailing factors are not considered, and that no such

17 factors have "ever been cited by the Supreme Court as a reason

18 for affording a Bivens remedy where it would not otherwise

19 exist," id. What we are left with is an implication that the

20 presence of "special factors counseling hesitation" in fact does

21 require a "full stop, or an abstention." We disagree. It seems
 The Court referred by way of example to its previous 26

decisions in United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U.S. 301, 311

(1947), in which it had concluded that the government had no

implied right of action against a company that had allegedly

injured a soldier because it trenched upon "federal fiscal

policy" particularly delegated to Congress, and Wheeldin v.

Wheeler, 373 U.S. 647 (1963), in which the Court found no private

right of action under federal law where the defendant's acts were

not asserted to violate the plaintiff's constitutional rights and

were governed by state law.

-50-

1 to us that the existence of such "special factors" alone does not

2 compel a conclusion that a Bivens action is unavailable.

3 When the words "special factors counseling hesitation"

4 were first uttered by the Supreme Court, in Bivens itself, the

5 Court asserted that there is a general rule "that where legal

6 rights have been invaded, and a federal statute provides for a

7 general right to sue for such invasion, federal courts may use

8 any available remedy to make good the wrong done." Bivens, 403

9 U.S. at 396 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court then

10 said: "The present case involves no special factors counseling

11 hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress,"

12 citing cases in which the general rule had not been applied.26

13 Id. The Bivens Court's observation that there was no cause for

14 hesitation, and its simultaneous recognition in the case before

15 it of a private right of action did not imply, however -- as the

16 majority seems to -- that if there had been reason to hesitate,
 This appears to reflect a classic logical fallacy, 27

"denial of the antecedent," which mistakes a necessary condition

for a sufficient one. E.M. Adams, The Fundamentals of General

Logic 164 ("The truth of the premises does not require the truth

of the conclusion. This means that denying the antecedent is an

invalid form of the simple conditional argument.").

-51-

1 then the Court, ipso facto, would not have recognized a right of

2 action.27

3 The Supreme Court has not told us that "special factors

4 counseling hesitation" are to be understood to prohibit a private

5 right of action. In Wilkie, for example, the Court noted that

6 deciding "whether to recognize a Bivens remedy may require two

7 steps," the second of which asks that the court "pay[] particular

8 heed . . . to any special factors counselling hesitation," id.,

9 127 S. Ct. at 2598 (emphasis added). And the Court, in Bush v.

10 Lucas, 462 U.S. 367 (1983), relied upon by the Wilkie Court in

11 this regard, similarly observed that "[i]n the absence of . . . a

12 congressional directive [that a right of action lies], the

13 federal courts must make the kind of remedial determination that

14 is appropriate for a common-law tribunal, paying particular heed,

15 however, to any special factors counseling hesitation before

16 authorizing a new kind of federal litigation." Id. at 378

17 (emphasis added). 
 Such a test would be reminiscent of Leo Tolstoy's 28

brother's perhaps apocryphal challenge to Tolstoy to stand in a

corner and not think of a white bear. See, e.g., Aylmer Maude,

The Life of Tolstoy: First Fifty Years (Dodd, Mead and Co. 1910)

19 ("[T]here was also a certain Fanfarónof Hill, up which [my

brother] said he could lead us, if only we would fulfil all the

appointed conditions. These were: first, to stand in a corner

and not think of a white bear. I remember how I used to get into

a corner and try (but could not possibly manage) not to think of

-52-

1 "[H]eed" means "[c]lose attention" or "notice." 

2 American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 813 (4th ed.

3 2000). To "pay heed," then, means "to notice," it does not mean

4 "to be governed by." The majority tells us that "'[h]esitation'

5 is 'counseled' whenever thoughtful discretion would pause even to

6 consider." Supra at [37]. If the existence of "special factors

7 counseling hesitation" were determinative of the existence of a

8 right of action, the bar to declining to allow a new Bivens claim

9 would be less than "remarkably low." Id. It would be

10 chimerical.

11 It is difficult to deny the existence of "special

12 factors counseling hesitation" in this case. We have been

13 "hesitating" -- in order to deliberate in light of those factors

14 -- for nearly two years. While the time we have taken to

15 consider "special factors" strongly indicates that they counsel

16 hesitation, it cannot follow that having hesitated, we must

17 therefore halt, and dismiss the Bivens complaint.28
a white bear.").

-53-

1 B. The Special Factors Identified by the Majority

2 The "special factors" cited by the majority fall into

3 one of two general categories: those involving security, secrecy,

4 and confidentiality, and those involving other policy

5 considerations. We turn to the latter category first, briefly

6 summarizing each factor as the majority describes it and then

7 setting forth our view of the factor's weight.

8 1. Factors not involving secrecy or security. 

9 ! This action asks for damages, but it

10 functionally "operates as a constitutional

11 challenge to the policies promulgated by the

12 executive." Supra at [38]. We should

13 hesitate to allow such an action to proceed

14 because to do so would tacitly "decide," id.,

15 that Bivens can subject federal officers to

16 the kind of enterprise liability that was

17 established for actions under 42 U.S.C. §

18 1983 by Monell v. Department of Social

19 Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), but has not

20 been established for Bivens actions. 

21 This paraphrase sets forth the strongest argument

22 ("factor"), we think, for denying a Bivens remedy to Arar. After

23 Iqbal, it would be difficult to argue that Arar's complaint can

24 survive as against defendants who are alleged to have been

25 supervisors with, at most, "knowledge" of Arar's mistreatment. 

26 See Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949; see also id. at 1955 (Souter, J.,
-54-

1 dissenting). And to the extent that the United States remains a

2 defendant, perhaps it should be dismissed for want of possible

3 liability under Bivens too. But that does not dispose of the

4 case against the lower-level defendants, such as Blackman,

5 McElroy, and the Doe defendants, who are alleged to have

6 personally undertaken purposeful unconstitutional actions against

7 Arar.

8 It also may be that to the extent actions against

9 "policymakers" can be equated with lawsuits against policies,

10 they may not survive Iqbal either. But while those championing

11 Arar's case may in fact wish to challenge extraordinary rendition

12 policy writ large, the relief Arar himself seeks is principally

13 compensation for an unconstitutional implementation of that

14 policy. That is what Bivens actions are for.

15 ! Actions for damages against federal officers

16 "who implement" rendition "policy" implicate

17 sovereign immunity concerns, by

18 "influenc[ing] government policy, prob[ing]

19 government secrets, invad[ing] government

20 interests, enmesh[ing] government lawyers,

21 and . . . elicit[ing] government funds for

22 settlement." Supra at [39]. 

23 ! Recognizing a Bivens action for Arar would

24 entail a judicial "assessment of the validity

25 and rationale" of rendition, which "directly

26 affect[s] significant diplomatic and national

27 security concerns." Supra at [40]. The

28 concern here is in part one of separation of

29 powers, see supra at [41], and in part one of
-55-

1 institutional incompetence, see supra at

2 [41].

3 Aside from diplomatic and national security

4 considerations, which we address below, this consideration

5 applies to all civil rights actions. Bivens by its nature

6 implicates "government interests," enmeshes government lawyers,

7 and elicits government funds for settlement. Bivens by its

8 nature authorizes courts to invalidate exercises in executive

9 power. A Bivens action, like any other civil rights action, is

10 an attempt to hold members of the executive accountable for their

11 allegedly unconstitutional acts, through the courts. If these

12 "special factors" were persuasive grounds on which to deny Bivens

13 actions, they would not only not be permitted in new contexts,

14 they would not be permitted at all. 

15 Similarly, insofar as this Bivens action may influence

16 executive policy, we doubt that that should be a factor

17 "counseling hesitation" either. Civil rights actions influence

18 policy: They make it more costly for executive officers to

19 violate the Constitution. That is their point. See Wyatt v.

20 Cole, 504 U.S. 158, 161 (1992) ("The purpose of § 1983 is to

21 deter state actors from using the badge of their authority to

22 deprive individuals of their federally guaranteed rights and to

23 provide relief to victims if such deterrence fails."). 
-56-

1 Finally, the majority suggests that "[i]n the small

2 number of contexts in which courts have implied a Bivens remedy,

3 it has often been easy to identify both the line between

4 constitutional and unconstitutional conduct, and the alternative

5 course which officers should have pursued," a "distinction [the

6 majority says] may or may not amount to a special factor

7 counseling hesitation in the implication of a Bivens remedy." 

8 Supra at [54]. It should be noted to the contrary that in the two

9 Supreme Court decisions that did "extend" a Bivens remedy in a

10 "new context," such identification was anything but "easy." 

11 Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980), involved the line between

12 constitutional and unconstitutional medical treatment and medical

13 facilities in prisons, whose management the Supreme Court has

14 found "peculiarly within the province and professional expertise

15 of corrections officials" -- and thus outside of the competence

16 of judges -- and instructed courts to "ordinarily defer to

17 [prison officials'] expert judgment," Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S.

18 817, 827 (1974). And Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979),

19 addressed the line between constitutional and unconstitutional

20 discrimination in public employment, which the Court later

21 observed raises issues requiring "decisions [that] are quite

22 often subjective and individualized, resting on a wide array of

23 factors that are difficult to articulate and quantify," Engquist

24 v. Or. Dep't of Agric., 128 S.Ct. 2146, 2154 (2008).
-57-

1 The factors relied upon by the majority that do not

2 relate to secrecy or security therefore do not appear to us to

3 counsel strongly against recognition of a Bivens remedy here.

4 2. Factors involving secrecy or security. The other

5 "special factors" cited by the majority focus our attention on

6 the ability of the executive to conduct the business of diplomacy

7 and government in secret as necessary and to protect public and

8 private security. It is beyond dispute that the judiciary must

9 protect that concern. See, e.g., Doe v. CIA, 576 F.3d 95 (2d

10 Cir. 2009). But inasmuch as there are established procedures for

11 doing just that, we think treating that need as giving rise to

12 "special factors counseling hesitation" is an unfortunate form of

13 double counting. The problem can be, should be, and customarily

14 is, dealt with case by case by employing the established

15 procedures of the state-secrets doctrine, see id.; see also

16 section VI, below, rather than by barring all such plaintiffs at

17 the courtroom door without further inquiry.

18 C. Factors Weighing in Favor of a Bivens Action

19 At least some factors weigh in favor of permitting a

20 Bivens action in this case. We assume, as we are required to,

21 that Arar suffered a grievous infringement of his constitutional

22 rights by one or more of the defendants, from his interception
-58-

1 and detention while changing planes at an international airport

2 to the time two weeks later when he was sent off in the

3 expectation -- perhaps the intent and expectation -- that he

4 would be tortured, all in order to obtain information from him. 

5 Breach of a constitutional or legal duty would appear to counsel

6 in favor of some sort of opportunity for the victim to obtain a

7 remedy for it. Justice Harlan's landmark concurrence in Bivens

8 explains:

9 The[ government's] arguments for a more

10 stringent test to govern the grant of damages

11 in constitutional cases [than that governing

12 a grant of equitable relief] seem to be

13 adequately answered by the point that the

14 judiciary has a particular responsibility to

15 assure the vindication of constitutional

16 interests . . . . To be sure, "it must be

17 remembered that legislatures are ultimate

18 guardians of the liberties and welfare of the

19 people in quite as great a degree as the

20 courts." But it must also be recognized that

21 the Bill of Rights is particularly intended

22 to vindicate the interests of the individual

23 in the face of the popular will as expressed

24 in legislative majorities; at the very least,

25 it strikes me as no more appropriate to await

26 express congressional authorization of

27 traditional judicial relief with regard to

28 [the plaintiff's constitutional] legal

29 interests than with respect to interests

30 protected by federal statutes.

31 Bivens, 403 U.S. at 407 (Harlan, J., concurring) (citation and

32 footnote omitted).
 Although there is some disagreement in the Circuits 29

regarding precisely when, following arrest, abuse of detained

persons is to be analyzed under principles of substantive due

process, we think Judge Posner's comment as to why those

principles must apply at some point is insightful and remains

valid.

-59-

1 And more generally, Bivens should be available to

2 vindicate Fifth Amendment substantive due process rights such as

3 those asserted here. As Judge Posner wrote for the Seventh

4 Circuit with respect to a Bivens action:

5 [I]f ever there were a strong case for

6 "substantive due process," it would be a case

7 in which a person who had been arrested but

8 not charged or convicted was brutalized while

9 in custody. If the wanton or malicious

10 infliction of severe pain or suffering upon a

11 person being arrested violates the Fourth

12 Amendment –- as no one doubts –- and if the

13 wanton or malicious infliction of severe pain

14 or suffering upon a prison inmate violates

15 the Eighth Amendment –- as no one doubts –-

16 it would be surprising if the wanton or

17 malicious infliction of severe pain or

18 suffering upon a person confined following

19 his arrest but not yet charged or convicted

20 were thought consistent with due process.

21 Wilkins v. May, 872 F.2d 190, 194 (7th Cir. 1989), cert. denied,

22 493 U.S. 1026 (1990); accord Magluta v. Samples, 375 F.3d 1269 29

23 (11th Cir. 2004) (reversing district court's dismissal of

24 pretrial detainee's Bivens action alleging unconstitutional

25 conditions of confinement at federal penitentiary in violation of

26 the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment); Cale v. Johnson,

27 861 F.2d 943, 946-47 (6th Cir. 1988) (concluding that "federal
 While cases permitting pretrial detainees to bring 30

Bivens actions for violations of their substantive due process

rights support the availability of a Bivens action here, Arar's

substantive due process claim should not be evaluated under the

standard for assessing the claims of persons who, unlike Arar,

were detained pretrial rather than for the purpose of

interrogation.

 We have not been asked by the parties to examine the 31

possibility that Arar has pled facts sufficient to raise a claim

under theories other than substantive due process -- such as

under the Fourth Amendment, the self-incrimination clause of the

Fifth Amendment, or even the Eighth Amendment. Because this is

an appeal from a dismissal on the facts pleaded in the complaint

under Rule 12(b)(6), we think that even if this Court were to

consider such an alternate theory and conclude that it was valid,

the case would be subject to remand to the district court for

-60-

1 courts have the jurisdictional authority to entertain a Bivens

2 action brought by a federal prisoner, alleging violations of his

3 right to substantive due process"), abrogated on other grounds,

4 Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 387-88 (6th Cir. 1999); see

5 also Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166, 193 (2003) (Scalia, J.,

6 dissenting) (observing that "a [Bivens] action . . . is available

7 to federal pretrial detainees challenging the conditions of their

8 confinement" (citing Lyons v. U.S. Marshals, 840 F.2d 202 (3d

9 Cir. 1988)). 

30

10 A federal inmate serving a prison sentence can employ

11 Bivens to seek damages resulting from mistreatment by prison

12 officials. Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980). It would be

13 odd if a federal detainee not charged with or convicted of any

14 offense could not bring an analogous claim.31
further proceedings on that theory.

-61-

1 Finally, a factor counseling recognition of a Bivens

2 action is that Arar has no other remedy for the alleged harms the

3 defendant officers inflicted on him. Cf. Malesko, 534 U.S. at 70

4 ("In 30 years of Bivens jurisprudence we have extended its

5 holding only twice, to provide an otherwise nonexistent cause of

6 action against individual officers alleged to have acted

7 unconstitutionally, or to provide a cause of action for a

8 plaintiff who lacked any alternative remedy for harms caused by

9 an individual officer's unconstitutional conduct.").

10 VI. The State-Secrets Privilege

11 A. Resolution on State-Secrets Grounds

12 If we have not been fully persuasive in arguing that a

13 Bivens remedy should not be denied in this case, we hope we have

14 made it abundantly clear that the question is a complex and

15 difficult one. And that underlies our principal cause for

16 dissent. We think it improper for the Court to take the twisting

17 road to a categorical conclusion that no plaintiff has a private

18 right of action in these circumstances and circumstances like

19 them, when, by a brief order, we could take steps that would

20 likely permit the case to be resolved on its particular facts

21 without new and strained declarations of law.
-62-

1 The majority makes a thinly veiled reference to the

2 recognition of a Bivens action as "alacrity or activism." Supra,

3 at [37]. The irony of its making that assertion while reaching

4 out unnecessarily to decide a difficult issue related to

5 separation of powers principles should not be lost. Activism in

6 the defense of "liberty," we gather, is no vice.

7 "The state secrets privilege is a common law

8 evidentiary rule that allows the government to withhold

9 information from discovery when disclosure would be inimical to

10 national security." Zuckerbraun v. Gen. Dynamics Corp., 935 F.2d

11 544, 546 (2d Cir. 1991). "In some cases, the effect of an

12 invocation of the privilege may be so drastic as to require

13 dismissal," as when a "proper assertion of the privilege

14 precludes access to evidence necessary for the plaintiff to state

15 a prima facie claim." Id. at 547. We share what we think to be

16 the majority's intuition that this case would likely turn

17 largely, if not entirely, on decisions of national security and

18 diplomacy that the executive branch has already assured us it has

19 good reason to keep out of public view.

20 Indeed, the government, while arguing before us en banc

21 seeking affirmance on the Bivens issue, could hardly have been

22 clearer:
-63-

1 [I]t seems like at the core of your concerns

2 and perhaps your colleagues' concerns is you

3 don't have more information. And that might

4 be the result of the fact that the district

5 court did not rule on the state secrets

6 issue, so all the classified declarations are

7 not in the record, and if this court felt it

8 could not address our Bivens special factors

9 argument at this stage, and I think it

10 can . . . then I respectfully suggest this

11 court do a limited remand for the district

12 court to review the state secrets issue. The

13 government would have to update the

14 declarations, because much time has passed,

15 but allow the government to do that, have the

16 district court rule on the state secrets

17 issues and then this Court could have this

18 declaration before it if it thought it needed

19 to do that.

20 Tr. 58-59 (Cohn). And:

21 Your Honor, if this Court is talking simply

22 about a limited remand, to send this case

23 back simply for the limited purpose of the

24 district court examining the state secrets

25 issue first [if the court won't address

26 Bivens otherwise], I think there's a lot of

27 sense to that, your Honor.

28 Id. at 62-63 (Cohn). 

29 Recognizing that the government, like Arar and his

30 counsel, would prefer a ruling on the merits, we nonetheless

31 think we should be taking the government up on its alternate

32 suggestion. Doing so would likely allow us to avoid giving

33 sweeping answers to difficult questions of law that we are not

34 required to ask. And it would, by well-established procedure,

35 address what the majority cites as additional "special factors
 Our discussion is limited to the government's invocation 32

of the state-secrets privilege in the context of civil

litigation. The protection of state secrets in the course of a

criminal prosecution would likely raise many different and

difficult issues in light of, among other things, the defendant's

rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

-64-

1 counseling hesitation" in recognizing a Bivens right of action. 

2 In particular, the majority notes these "factors":

3 ! Judicial consideration of the issues relating

4 to rendition involves particular

5 "sensitivities" because of the need to

6 discover much "classified material," supra at

7 [43], including those relating to "the

8 national security apparatus of at least three

9 foreign countries, as well as that of the

10 United States," supra at [44].

11 ! "Cases in the context of extraordinary

12 rendition are very likely to present serious

13 questions relating to private diplomatic

14 assurances from foreign countries . . . , and

15 this feature of such claims opens the door to

16 graymail." Supra at [48]; see also supra at

17 [51] ("The risk of graymail is itself a

18 special factor which counsels hesitation in

19 creating a Bivens remedy.").

20 These are "factors" that the state-secrets privilege was designed

21 to address.32

22 We are not without precedent here -- similar both

23 factually and procedurally. In El-Masri v. United States, 479

24 F.3d 296 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 128 S. Ct. 373 (2007), the

25 issue was an alleged "special rendition" by U.S. agents of a

26 German citizen from Macedonia to a U.S.-controlled prison in
 The district court's full statement bears repeating: 33

It is important to emphasize that the result reached

here is required by settled, controlling law. It is in

no way an adjudication of, or comment on, the merit or

lack of merit of El-Masri's complaint. Nor does this

ruling comment or rule in any way on the truth or

falsity of his factual allegations; they may be true or

false, in whole or in part. Further, it is also

important that nothing in this ruling should be taken

as a sign of judicial approval or disapproval of

rendition programs; it is not intended to do either. 

In times of war, our country, chiefly through the

Executive Branch, must often take exceptional steps to

thwart the enemy. Of course, reasonable and patriotic

Americans are still free to disagree about the

propriety and efficacy of those exceptional steps. But

what this decision holds is that these steps are not

proper grist for the judicial mill where, as here,

state secrets are at the center of the suit and the

privilege is validly invoked.

Tenet, 437 F. Supp. 2d at 540-41.

-65-

1 Afghanistan for the purpose of abusive interrogation. The

2 plaintiff had brought suit, inter alia, pursuant to Bivens, for

3 violation of his due process rights against former CIA director

4 George Tenet, among others. The Fourth Circuit explained:

5 The United States intervened as a defendant

6 in the district court, asserting that El7 Masri's civil action could not proceed

8 because it posed an unreasonable risk that

9 privileged state secrets would be disclosed. 

10 By its Order of May 12, 2006, the district

11 court agreed with the position of the United

12 States and dismissed El-Masri's Complaint. 

13 Id. at 299-300. The district court, in summarizing its order,

14 had said, "It is important to emphasize that the result reached

15 here is required by settled, controlling law." El-Masri v. 33
 We cite El-Masri not to endorse its conclusions, but as 34

evidence that the procedures to be applied here are not in any

sense novel.

 Cf. Bivens, 403 U.S. at 410 (Harlan, J., concurring) ("I 35

simply cannot agree with my Brother BLACK that the possibility of

'frivolous' claims -- if defined simply as claims with no legal

merit -- warrants closing the courthouse doors to people in

Bivens' situation. There are other ways, short of that, of

coping with frivolous lawsuits.").

-66-

1 Tenet, 437 F. Supp. 2d 530, 540 (E.D. Va. 2006). The Fourth

2 Circuit agreed and affirmed. El-Masri, 479 F.3d at 300.34

3 The majority cites the possibility of "graymail" as a

4 "special factor counseling hesitation." But as another decision

5 of the Fourth Circuit points out, the state-secrets privilege

6 protects this interest too, by "provid[ing] a necessary safeguard

7 against litigants presenting the government with a Hobson's

8 choice between settling for inflated sums or jeopardizing

9 national security." Sterling v. Tenet, 416 F.3d 338, 344 (4th

10 Cir. 2005).35

11 In Arar's case, the government followed essentially the

12 same procedure as it had in El-Masri. The district court here

13 (prior to the district court and court of appeals decisions in

14 El-Masri) decided the case on Bivens grounds instead. We think

15 that to have been mistaken.

16 B. Shortcomings of a State-Secrets Resolution
 There have been assertions that the state-secrets 36

invocation in Reynolds, in which the modern form of doctrine was

first set forth, was a cover-up of government misfeasance, not an

attempt to protect legitimate state secrets. See, e.g., Barry

Siegel, Claim of Privilege at 205-10; Herring v. United States,

No. A 03 Civ. 5500 (LDD), 2004 WL 2040272, at *2, 2004 U.S. Dist.

LEXIS 18545, at *6-*7 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 10, 2004); but see Herring

v. United States, 424 F.3d 384, 386 (3d Cir. 2005) (deciding,

after review of the report, that the government's "assertion of

military secrets privilege for [the] accident report [in

Reynolds] . . . was [not a] fraud upon the court"), cert. denied,

547 U.S. 1123 (2006). 

-67-

1 We discussed the state secrets doctrine in some detail

2 in Doe, 576 F.3d at 101-05 (describing, inter alia, the emergence

3 of the doctrine in and after United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S.

4 1 (1953)). We are not oblivious to the criticism to which it has

5 been subject. There has been considerable debate about it, see,

6 e.g., Robert M. Chesney, Enemy Combatants After Hamdan v.

7 Rumsfeld: State Secrets and the Limits of National Security

8 Litigation, 75 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1249, 1263-1308 (2007) ("Enemy

9 Combatants"); Carrie Johnson, "Handling of 'State Secrets' At

10 Issue," Washington Post, Mar. 25, 2009, at A1, which has been

11 stoked by the recent surfacing of the now-declassified Air Force

12 accident report that was the subject of Reynolds, see Barry

13 Siegel, Claim of Privilege 205-10 (2008).36

14 But this controversy has centered on the extent of the

15 judiciary's role in making the determination of the legitimacy of
 Questions that have been raised include: Did the 37

Reynolds dissenters, and the Third Circuit and Eastern District

of Pennsylvania before them, see Reynolds v. United States, 192

F.2d 987, 990 (3d Cir. 1951), have the better of the argument

when concluding that the judicial role is not fully exercised in

any case without an in-chambers, ex parte review of the allegedly

privileged material? Cf. State Secret Protection Act of 2009,

H.R. 984, 111th Cong. § 5(a) ("Once the Government has asserted

the privilege . . . the court shall undertake a preliminary

review of the information the Government asserts is protected by

the privilege . . . ."); State Secrets Protection Act, S. 417,

111th Cong. § 2 (2009) (providing that, absent certain exceptions

"the United States shall make all evidence the United States

claims is subject to the state secrets privilege available for

the court to review, consistent with [specified requirements],

before any hearing conducted under this section"). Should the

monetary loss occasioned as the result of the invocation of the

privilege fall invariably and exclusively on plaintiffs? See

Enemy Combatants, 75 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. at 1312-13. How finely

grained a showing should be required before an action is

dismissed in light of a successful state-secrets invocation? See

Editorial, The State-Secrets Privilege, Tamed, N.Y. Times, Apr.

30, 2009, at A26 (opining on what it characterized as "the

affront to civil liberties and the constitutional separation of

powers in the Justice Department's argument that the executive

branch is entitled to have lawsuits shut down whenever an

official makes a blanket claim of national security"); see also

msnbc.com, "Full transcript of President Barack Obama's news

conference, Apr. 29, 2009," http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/

30488052// (The President: "I actually think that the state

secret doctrine should be modified. I think right now it's

overbroad."). 

-68-

1 the claim of privilege and the consequences of the government's

2 refusal to produce subpoenaed material necessary to the

3 prosecution of the plaintiff's claim. See, e.g., Enemy

4 Combatants, 75 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. at 1288. No one can seriously 37

5 doubt the need for a mechanism by which the government can

6 effectively protect its legitimate military and diplomatic

7 secrets. The question is whether those procedures now in place
-69-

1 best balance the need for secrecy with competing values and

2 interests. The critics do not, we think, seek to avoid at all

3 cost and in all circumstances the ability of the government to

4 protect state-secrets in civil litigation or the possibility that

5 some such litigation will ultimately be resolved as a result.

6 C. The Majority's Objections

7 The majority has two objections to a state-secrets

8 resolution.

9 First, it hints that we have an "unflagging" obligation

10 to address the Bivens issue before turning to the question of

11 state secrets. See supra at [39] ("True, courts can -- with

12 difficulty and resourcefulness -- consider state secrets and even

13 reexamine judgments made in the foreign affairs context when we

14 must, that is, when there is an unflagging duty to exercise our

15 jurisdiction." (emphasis in original)). We highly doubt the

16 jurisprudential necessity of addressing a broader, more difficult

17 Bivens question when this case might be resolved on its facts by

18 application of well-established state-secrets procedures. As the

19 panel majority pointed out, non-merits dispositions do not

20 require a predicate decision on subject-matter jurisdiction:

21 The Supreme Court has, on several occasions,

22 recognized that a federal court has leeway to

23 choose among threshold grounds for denying

24 audience to a case on the merits. . . . [A]
-70-

1 federal court that dismisses on non-merits

2 grounds before finding subject-matter

3 jurisdiction makes no assumption of

4 law-declaring power that violates separation

5 of powers principles.

6 See Arar, 532 F.3d at 172 (internal quotation marks, citations,

7 and ellipses omitted). The Supreme Court acted similarly in

8 Iqbal, assuming the viability of a Bivens action in order to

9 decide the case on the basis of pleading and supervisory

10 liability. See Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1948.

11 Second, the majority professes concern about the "[t]he

12 court's reliance on information that cannot be introduced into

13 the public record," which the Court says "is likely to be a

14 common feature of any Bivens actions arising in the context of

15 alleged extraordinary rendition." Supra at [42]. The majority

16 thinks that this concern "should provoke hesitation, given the

17 strong preference in the Anglo-American legal tradition for open

18 court proceedings." Supra at [42-43]. 

19 "'A trial is a public event. What transpires in the

20 court room is public property.'" Richmond Newspapers v.

21 Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 574 n.9 (1980) (plurality opinion)

22 (quoting Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367, 374 (1947)). We applaud

23 the majority's recognition of the fundamental importance of the

24 principle that the courts are presumed to be open. See supra at

25 [44]; and see, e.g., Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457
 This is "access to courts" in a sense quite different 38

from the "access to courts" argument made by Arar referring to

the frustration of his ability to seek relief from the judiciary. 

Cf. Huminski v. Corsones, 386 F.3d 116, 145 n.30 (2d Cir. 2004)

(distinguishing between a litigant's due process right of access

and the press and public's right of access under the First

Amendment).

-71-

1 U.S. 596, 604 (1982). It respects this Circuit's history of

2 meticulously guarding constitutional protection for "access to

3 the courts" in the sense of the ability of a citizen to see and

4 hear, and in that way to participate in, the workings of the

5 justice system. See, e.g., Huminski v. Corsones, 396 F.3d 56 38

6 (2d Cir. 2005); Hartford Courant Co. v. Pellegrino, 380 F.3d 83

7 (2d Cir. 2004); ABC, Inc. v. Stewart, 360 F.3d 90 (2d Cir. 2004);

8 United States v. Graham, 257 F.3d 143 (2d Cir. 2001);

9 Westmoreland v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 752 F.2d 16 (2d Cir.

10 1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1017 (1985); Joy v. North, 692 F.2d

11 880 (2d Cir. 1982). But it follows not at all, we think, from

12 the presumption of openness however gauged that the open nature

13 of the federal courts is properly weighed as a factor in the

14 Bivens analysis.

15 The presumption of openness is just that, a

16 presumption. In can be, and routinely is, overcome. We

17 regularly hear, on the basis of partially or totally sealed

18 records, not only cases implicating national security or
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1 diplomatic concerns, see, e.g., Doe, 576 F.3d 95; In re Terrorist

2 Bombings of U.S. Embassies in E. Afr. v. Odeh, 552 F.3d 93 (2d

3 Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 2778 (2009), but those

4 involving criminal defendants' cooperation with prosecutors, see,

5 e.g., United States v. Doe, 314 F. App'x 350 (2d Cir. 2008)

6 (summary order), other criminal matters, see, e.g., U.S. v.

7 Silleg, 311 F.3d 557, 560 (2d Cir. 2002), probation department

8 reports, upon which federal criminal sentences are to a

9 significant extent typically based, see, e.g., United States v.

10 Parnell, 524 F.3d 166, 168 n.1 (2d Cir. 2008) (per curiam);

11 United States v. Molina, 356 F.3d 269, 275 (2d Cir. 2004), child

12 welfare, see, e.g., Sealed v. Sealed, 332 F.3d 51 (2d Cir. 2003),

13 trade secrets, see, e.g., In re Orion Pictures Corp., 21 F.3d 24

14 (2d Cir. 1994), and any manner of other criminal and civil

15 matters. Hardly a week goes by, in our collective experience, in

16 which some document or fact is not considered by a panel of this

17 Court out of the public eye.

18 We accommodate the public interest in proceedings

19 before federal courts by rigorously adhering to the presumption

20 of openness, but the presumption is often overcome. The

21 majority's notion that because the presumption is likely to be

22 overcome in a particular species of case we should therefore
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1 foreclose a remedy or otherwise limit our jurisdiction in order

2 to accommodate the public suspicion of secrecy, is misconceived. 

3 Denying relief to an entire class of persons with presumably

4 legitimate claims in part because some of their number may lose

5 in proceedings that are held in secret or because secrets may

6 cause some such claims to fail, makes little sense to us. It

7 could work endless mischief were courts to turn their backs on

8 such cases, their litigants, and the litigants' asserted rights. 

9 We are not aware of any other area of our jurisprudence where the

10 ability to overcome the presumption of openness has been relied

11 upon to deny a remedy to a litigant. We do not think it should

12 be here.

13 CONCLUSION

14 For the foregoing reasons and to the extent indicated,

15 we respectfully dissent.
-1-

1 BARRINGTON D. PARKER, Circuit Judge, joined by Judges CALABRESI, POOLER, and

2 SACK, dissenting: 

3 I join Judge Sack’s, Judge Pooler’s, and Judge Calabresi’s opinions in full. My point of

4 departure from the majority is the text of the Convention Against Torture, which provides that

5 “[n]o exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal

6 political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” 

7 United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment

8 or Punishment, Art. 2, cl. 2, December 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100-20, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85

9 (“Convention Against Torture”). Because the majority has neglected this basic commitment and

10 a good deal more, I respectfully dissent.

11 Maher Arar credibly alleges that United States officials conspired to ship him from

12 American soil, where the Constitution and our laws apply, to Syria, where they do not, so that

13 Syrian agents could torture him at federal officials’ direction and behest. He also credibly alleges

14 that, to accomplish this unlawful objective, agents of our government actively obstructed his

15 access to this very Court and the protections established by Congress. See 8 U.S.C. §

16 1252(a)(2)(D) (providing for judicial review of constitutional claims or questions of law raised

17 by an order of removal).

18 While I broadly concur with my colleagues who dissent, I write separately to underscore

19 the miscarriage of justice that leaves Arar without a remedy in our courts. The majority would

20 immunize official misconduct by invoking the separation of powers and the executive’s

21 responsibility for foreign affairs and national security. Its approach distorts the system of checks
-2-

1 and balances essential to the rule of law, and it trivializes the judiciary’s role in these arenas. To

2 my mind, the most depressing aspect of the majority’s opinion is its sincerity.

3 A primary theme of the majority’s approach is deference to executive authority, 

4 especially in a time of national unrest, turmoil, or danger. The conduct of foreign policy and the

5 maintenance of national security are surely executive and legislative powers. Yet those powers

6 are not limitless. The bounds in both wartime and peacetime are fixed by the same Constitution. 

7 See Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2, 120-21 (1866). Where appropriate, deference to the

8 coordinate branches is an essential element of our work. But there is, in my view, an enormous

9 difference between being deferential and being supine in the face of governmental misconduct. 

10 The former is often necessary, the latter never is. At the end of the day, it is not the role of the

11 judiciary to serve as a help-mate to the executive branch, and it is not its role to avoid difficult

12 decisions for fear of complicating life for federal officials. Always mindful of the fact that in

13 times of national stress and turmoil the rule of law is everything, our role is to defend the

14 Constitution. We do this by affording redress when government officials violate the law, even

15 when national security is invoked as the justification. See U.S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 2;

16 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952). 

17 Notably, the majority opinion does not appear to dispute the notion that Arar has stated an

18 injury under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. That is heartening, because, by any

19 measure, the notion that federal officials conspired to send a man to Syria to be tortured “shocks

20 the conscience.” Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 172 (1952). What is profoundly disturbing,

21 however, is the Court’s pronouncement that it can offer Arar no opportunity to prove his case and

22 no possibility of relief. This conclusion is at odds with the Court’s responsibility to enforce the
See United States Written Response to Questions Asked by the United Nations Committee 1

Against Torture, ¶ 5 (bullet-point 5) (Apr. 28, 2006), available at

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/68554.htm; United States Report to the United Nations Committee Against

Torture, ¶¶ 51 (bullet-point 5), 274, U.N. Doc. CAT/C/28/Add/5 (Feb. 9, 2000), available at

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/100296.pdf.

-3-

1 Constitution’s protections and cannot, in my view, be reconciled with Bivens v. Six Unknown

2 Named Agents of Fed. Bur. of Narc., 403 U.S. 388 (1971), which remains good law to this day. 

3 See also Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 243 (1979) (declaring Bivens remedy for alleged Fifth

4 Amendment violations). The majority is at odds, too, with our own State Department, which has

5 repeatedly taken the position before the world community that this exact remedy is available to

6 torture victims like Arar. If the Constitution ever implied a damages remedy, this is such a case 1

7 – where executive officials allegedly blocked access to the remedies chosen by Congress in order

8 to deliver a man to known torturers. 

9 The Court’s hesitation today immunizes official conduct directly at odds with the express

10 will of Congress and the most basic guarantees of liberty contained in the Constitution. By doing

11 so, the majority risks a government that can interpret the law to suits its own ends, without

12 scrutiny. See Memorandum from John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Att'y Gen., & Robert J. Delahunty,

13 Special Counsel, to William J. Haynes II, Gen. Counsel, Dep't of Defense, Jan. 9, 2002, in The

14 Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib 38 (Karen J. Greenberg & Joshua L. Dratel eds., 2005);

15 The Federalist No. 48, at 313 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961) (warning against the

16 “tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands”). Contrary to the

17 majority, I believe that the Constitution affords Arar a remedy should he prove his sobering

18 allegations, and that his case should be permitted to proceed.

19 I
-4-

1 The majority discovers myriad reasons to “hesitate” in the face of Arar’s complaint that

2 federal officials conspired to send him to Syria to be tortured. Its principal reason, however, is

3 that permitting such an action “would have the natural tendency to affect diplomacy, foreign

4 policy and the security of the nation.” Maj. Op. at 38. This view of the separation of powers,

5 which confines the courts to the sidelines, is, in my view, deeply mistaken; it diminishes and

6 distorts the role of the judiciary especially during times of turmoil.

7 When presented with an appropriate case or controversy, courts are entitled – indeed

8 obliged – to act, even in instances where government officials seek to shield their conduct behind

9 invocations of “national security” and “foreign policy.” See, e.g., Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S.

10 557 (2006); Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 23-30 (1957); Youngstown, 343 U.S. 579. Compare Ex

11 parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 19 (1942) (observing the “duty which rests on the courts, in time of war

12 as well as in time of peace, to preserve unimpaired the constitutional safeguards of civil liberty”),

13 with Maj. Op. at 42 (suggesting that Arar’s allegations do not trigger the Court’s “unflagging

14 duty to exercise [its] jurisdiction”). This authority derives directly from the Constitution and

15 goes hand in hand with the responsibility of the courts to adjudicate all manner of cases put

16 before them. 

17 The active management of foreign policy and national security is entrusted to the

18 executive and legislative branches. See U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8; Art. II, § 2. But this does not

19 mean that executive and legislative officials are left to adhere to constitutional boundaries of

20 their own accord, without external restraint. That is the job of the courts. As Madison declared

21 when he introduced the Bill of Rights to Congress:
-5-

1 If [these amendments] are incorporated into the Constitution, independent

2 tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of

3 those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of

4 power in the Legislative or Executive; they will be naturally led to resist every

5 encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the Constitution by the

6 declaration of rights.

7

8 1 Annals of Cong. 439 (Joseph Gales ed., 1834). The Constitution established three co-equal

9 branches of government, each operating as a check upon the others. In this way, the separation of

10 powers was designed as a limiting principle of government – not to silence any one branch, as the

11 majority implies here, but to enlist each as “a sentinel over the public rights.” The Federalist No.

12 51, at 323-24 (James Madison) (G.P. Putnam's Sons ed., 1908).

13 The majority treats the separation of powers as a reason for the Court to abstain in this

14 case – in reality, it is precisely the opposite. The executive’s core responsibility for foreign

15 policy does not negate the judiciary’s duty to interpret and enforce constitutional limits. “[E]ven

16 the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties.” Home

17 Bldg. & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 426 (1934); Boumediene v. Bush, 128 S. Ct. 2229,

18 2246 (2008). One branch impermissibly intrudes upon another not when it fulfills its prescribed

19 role but when it seeks to exercise authority assigned to its coordinate branches. See Youngstown,

20 343 U.S. at 587-89 (holding that the President had exceeded his executive powers when he

21 assumed the “law making power” entrusted to “Congress alone in both good and bad times”);

22 Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 726 (1986) (holding that Congress may not remove executive

23 officers except by impeachment); The Federalist No. 47, at 325-326 (James Madison) (J. Cooke

24 ed. 1961) (“[W]here the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which

25 possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution,
-6-

1 are subverted.”). The defendants before us could, of course, be fully exonerated in the end, but it

2 is the Court’s role to determine the legality of their actions for itself.

3 In this case, Arar does not ask the Court to assume any executive functions – to dispatch

4 diplomatic representatives, negotiate treaties, or oversee battlefield decisions. Likewise, the suit

5 does not implicate his release or rescue from Syrian custody. Rather, Arar asks the Court to

6 perform a core judicial function: To interpret the laws and Constitution as they apply to detailed

7 allegations of official misconduct on American soil. And he petitions for a familiar judicial

8 remedy: money damages. See Bivens, 403 U.S. at 395. Such a suit does not represent judicial

9 interference in executive functions, as the majority would have it, but rather an effort to keep

10 executive power within constitutional limits. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 121 (1976)

11 (recognizing that each branch necessarily participates in the affairs of the others); Mistretta v.

12 United States, 488 U.S. 361, 380-81 (1989). Respectfully, I believe the majority's deference

13 dissolves the very protections and liberties that the separation of powers was intended to

14 guarantee.

15 II

16 The Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that the separation of powers does not

17 prevent the judiciary from ruling on matters affecting national security, and that the courts are

18 competent to undertake this task. See, e.g., Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 535 (2004) (“[W]e

19 necessarily reject the Government's assertion that separation of powers principles mandate a

20 heavily circumscribed role for the courts” in establishing procedures for designating enemy

21 combatants); New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) (holding that asserted
 In Little v. Barreme, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 170, 179 (1804), for example, the Supreme Court 2

found a naval captain "answerable in damages" for his unlawful seizure of a Danish trading ship, even

where a Presidential order appeared to authorize the seizure. The Court did not hesitate, as here, to

address the legality of the President's order or the seizure itself. “A commander of a ship of war of the

United States, in obeying his instructions from the President of the United States, acts at his peril. If

those instructions are not strictly warranted by law he is answerable in damages to any person injured by

their execution.” Id. at 170; see also Talbot v. Seeman, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 1 (1801) (determining the

legality of the navy's capture of foreign merchant vessel during undeclared conflict with France); The

Prize Cases, 67 U.S. (2 Black) 635 (1862). Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2 (1866), rejected the

government’s claim that civil war authorized the executive branch to act as “supreme legislator, supreme

judge, and supreme executive.” William H. Rehnquist, All the Laws But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime

121 (1998) (quoting the government’s brief in Milligan). “The Constitution of the United States is a law

for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes

of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.” Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. at 120-21.

-7-

1 military interests could not justify prior restraint of the press); Youngstown, 343 U.S. 579; Ex

2 parte Quirin, 317 U.S. at 19.2

3 Courts routinely handle classified materials and exercise judgment about both the

4 credibility and legal significance of the security interests asserted by the government. See

5 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), 50 U.S.C. §§ 1801-1811, 1821-29, 1841-

6 46, 1861-62 (2006); Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) & (b)(1)

7 (2002); Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), 18 U.S.C. App. III §§ 1-16; Boumediene

8 v. Bush, 128 S. Ct. 2229, 2261 (2008) (“The Government presents no credible arguments that the

9 military mission at Guantanamo would be compromised if habeas corpus courts had jurisdiction

10 to hear the detainees' claims.”); United States v. United States District Court (Keith), 407 U.S.

11 297, 320 (1972) (“We cannot accept the Government's argument that internal security matters are

12 too subtle and complex for judicial evaluation.”). These cases belie the majority’s notion that the

13 courts lack authority or competency to assess Arar’s claims. “What are the allowable limits of

14 military discretion, and whether or not they have been overstepped in a particular case, are

15 judicial questions.” Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 401 (1932)).
-8-

1 The courts have a duty to scrutinize unilateral assertions of security and secrecy because

2 the government’s account has, in many of these cases, been overblown. Recent disclosures

3 suggest that the military secrets so fiercely guarded in United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1

4 (1953) – the Supreme Court’s seminal state secrets case – may well have posed no threat to

5 national security. See Herring v. United States, 2004 WL 2040272, at *5 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 10,

6 2004), aff’d, 424 F.3d 384 (3d Cir. 2004) (finding no deliberate fraud upon the court, but noting

7 “the apparent dearth of sensitive information in the accident investigation report and witness

8 statements”); Louis Fisher, In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power and

9 the Reynolds Case 166-69 (2006). 

10 A similar truth has emerged from the Pentagon Papers case, New York Times Co. v.

11 United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971). Although the government argued to the Supreme Court that

12 publication posed a “grave and immediate danger to the security of the United States,” former

13 Solicitor General Griswold has since acknowledged that the executive's primary concern was

14 “not with national security, but rather with governmental embarrassment.” Erwin N. Griswold,

15 Secrets Not Worth Keeping, Wash. Post, Feb. 15, 1989, at A25; cf. Office of the Attorney

16 General, Mem. on Policies and Procedures Governing Invocation of the State Secrets Privilege 2

17 (Sept. 23, 2009) (issuing revised guidelines and clarifying that the Department of Justice “will

18 not defend an invocation of the [state secrets] privilege in order to . . . prevent embarrassment to

19 a person, organization, or agency of the United States government”). The appropriate tools for

20 evaluating national security concerns are already firmly established in our law – namely, the state

21 secrets privilege and CIPA. They do not require wholesale abstention by the courts.
-9-

1 Indeed, a number of cases in which courts have acceded in this way, relying on bald

2 appeals to national security, have proven deeply troubling in retrospect. The Supreme Court’s

3 decisions upholding convictions under the Sedition Act of 1918 are regarded as indefensible

4 today. See Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919); Debs v. United States, 249 U.S. 211

5 (1919); Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919); Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 442

6 (2007) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (observing that Justice Holmes’ dissent in Abrams has

7 “emphatically carried the day”). More recently, the dire warnings issued to justify the indefinite

8 detention of enemy combatants and forestall further court review have also drawn stern rebuke. 

9 In Padilla v. Hanft, 432 F.3d 582, 584-587 (4th Cir. 2005), the Fourth Circuit observed that the

10 government had “steadfastly maintain[ed] that it was imperative in the interest of national

11 security” to hold Padilla in military custody for three and a half years. Yet officials abruptly

12 changed course on the doorstep of Supreme Court review, seeking to move Padilla into criminal

13 custody, at a “substantial cost to the government’s credibility before the courts.” Id. at 584. See

14 also Brief for Respondents, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004) (No. 03-6696) (arguing that

15 military necessity required Hamdi’s indefinite detention, yet releasing him to Saudi Arabia seven

16 months later).

17 Finally, contrary to the majority’s suggestion, the courts require no invitation from

18 Congress before considering claims that touch upon foreign policy or national security. See Maj.

19 Op. at 10-11, 42-43, 57. In fact, the Supreme Court has demonstrated its willingness to enter

20 this arena against the express wishes of Congress. In Boumediene v. Bush, 128 S. Ct. 2229

21 (2008), the Supreme Court rebuffed legislative efforts to strip the courts of jurisdiction over

22 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. It held that the writ of habeas corpus extended to the naval
 The majority identifies extraordinary rendition as the context for Arar’s Bivens claims, a

3

label that reduces the complaint to the fact of his transfer to Syria. See Maj. Op. at 8, 32-33. In doing

so, the majority largely disregards the events both before and after Arar's transfer that are part and parcel

of his claim for relief. Arar does not merely allege that he was rendered to Syria without process, but

that he was first detained in the United States for twelve days, during which time he was held in harsh

and punitive conditions, coercively interrogated, and deliberately denied access to counsel, his consulate,

and the courts by American officials. See Compl. ¶¶ 2, 4, 32-49, 91-93. Moreover, the purpose and

culmination of this mistreatment was not simply Arar's removal from the United States. Rather,

American officials allegedly set out to render him to Syria either intending or knowing that Arar would

be tortured there, and aided this abuse by providing information to his captors. See id. ¶¶ 55-57. One

hopes that all extraordinary rendition is not for the purpose of torture; certainly, this abuse is not one of

the attributes that the majority attaches to that label. See Maj. Op. at 9-10 n.1. All told, extraordinary

rendition is the method by which Arar was transferred to Syria, but it hardly captures the constitutional

-10-

1 base, and that neither Congress nor the executive branch could displace the courts without

2 formally suspending the writ. Importantly, it did so despite the fact that this exercise of judicial

3 power plainly affected the executive’s detention of hundreds of enemy combatants and a

4 centerpiece of the war on terror. The Court recognized that habeas proceedings “may divert the

5 attention of military personnel from other pressing tasks” but refused to find these concerns

6 “dispositive.” Id. at 2261. Scores of decisions have since followed this lead. See, e.g., Al

7 Rabiah v. United States, 2009 WL 3048434 (D.D.C. Sept. 17, 2009); Ahmed v. Obama, 613 F.

8 Supp. 2d 51 (D.D.C. 2009). Courts cannot blithely accept every assertion of national security at

9 face-value, and they are entitled to enforce constitutional limits by scrutinizing such claims. 

10 III

11 Although Arar credibly alleges mistreatment in both the United States and Syria, the

12 circumstances of his detention on American soil are summarily excluded from the majority’s

13 Bivens analysis. Instead, the Court concludes that Arar has not pleaded these allegations with the

14 factual detail required by Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). See Maj. Op. at

15 23-24. Consequently, it dismisses Claim Four and proceeds as though the challenged conduct is

16 strictly extraterritorial. This conclusion goes far beyond any pleading rule we are bound to 3
injuries described in his complaint.

 At the time of Arar's detention, Defendant Ashcroft was Attorney General of the United States; 4

Defendant Thompson was Deputy United States Attorney General; Defendant Robert Mueller was the

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Defendant Ziglar was Commissioner of the

Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS); Defendant Blackman was Regional Director of the INS

for the Eastern District; Defendant McElroy was District Director for the INS for the New York City

District; and John Does 1-10 were federal law enforcement agents employed by the FBI or INS. See

Compl. ¶¶ 14-22.

-11-

1 apply, and it is inconsistent with both Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and recent

2 Supreme Court decisions.

3 Even after Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009), which dismissed

4 discrimination claims against policymakers on account of inadequate pleading, Claim Four

5 readily exceeds any measure of “plausibility.” Claim Four seeks to hold Defendants John

6 Ashcroft, Larry Thompson, Robert Mueller, James Ziglar, J. Scott Blackman, Edward McElroy,

7 and John Does 1-10 responsible for the extreme conditions under which Arar was held in the

8 United States. While the majority finds that Arar failed to allege the requisite “meeting of the 4

9 minds” necessary to support a conspiracy, see Maj. Op. 24, it ignores the fact that Arar pleaded

10 multiple theories of liability. Formal conspiracies aside, he also alleges that the defendants

11 commonly aided and abetted his detention and removal – that is, that the defendants were

12 personally involved in his mistreatment both in the United States and abroad. See Hayut v. State

13 Univ. of New York, 352 F.3d 733, 753 (2d Cir. 2003) (A supervisory official personally

14 participates in challenged conduct not only by direct participation, but by (1) failing to take

15 corrective action; (2) creation of a policy or custom fostering the conduct; (3) grossly negligent

16 supervision, or (4) deliberate indifference to the rights of others); Johnson v. Newburgh Enlarged

17 Sch. Dist., 239 F.3d 246, 254 (2d Cir. 2001). 
-12-

1 In support of his claim for mistreatment and due process violations while in American

2 custody, Arar includes factual allegations that are anything but conclusory. Indeed, he provides

3 as much factual support as a man held incommunicado could reasonably be expected to offer a

4 court at this stage. The complaint alleges that Defendant McElroy was personally involved in

5 Arar's failure to receive the assistance of counsel. See Compl. ¶ 43. It alleges that Defendants

6 Blackman and Thompson personally approved Arar's expedited transfer from the United States to

7 Syria, implicating these officials in his inability to access the courts. Id. ¶¶ 15, 47-48. And it

8 recounts statements by Arar's American interrogators that they were discussing his situation with

9 “Washington D.C.” Id. ¶ 45; see also Dep't of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector

10 General, The Removal of a Canadian Citizen to Syria (“OIG Report”) at 11 (reporting that DOJ

11 and INS officials in Washington, D.C. learned of Arar's apprehension on the evening of

12 Thursday, September 26, 2002, 12 days before he was rendered to Syria via Jordan). More

13 broadly, Arar details the harsh conditions under which he was held, including shackling, strip

14 searches, administrative segregation, prolonged interrogation, and a near communications

15 blackout. See id. ¶¶ 29-47. Notably, these are not “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a

16 cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements.” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949. They

17 easily satisfy the requirements of both Iqbal and also Rule 8, whose “short and plain statement”

18 remains the baseline for notice-pleading. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(1).

19 Moreover, as Iqbal made clear, plausibility is “context-specific,” requiring the reviewing

20 court “to draw on its experience and common sense.” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1950. There, the

21 Supreme Court rejected Iqbal's discrimination claims against high-ranking federal officials

22 because his complaint lacked sufficient factual allegations supporting the inference of
-13-

1 discriminatory intent. Id. at 1952. Central to the majority's decision was the fact that these

2 officials faced a devastating terrorist attack “perpetrated by 19 Arab Muslim hijackers.” Id. at

3 1951. Against this backdrop, the majority found Iqbal's claim overwhelmed by the “obvious

4 alternative explanation” – that his arrest stemmed from a “nondiscriminatory intent to detain

5 aliens . . . who had potential connections to those who committed terrorist acts.” Id. at 1951

6 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 567). Apparently having their own views about the defendants’

7 state of mind, the majority simply found Iqbal's discrimination claim incredible.

8 Plausibility, in this analysis, is a relative measure. Allegations are deemed “conclusory”

9 where they recite only the elements of the claim. They become implausible when the court’s

10 commonsense credits far more likely inferences from the available facts. See Harris v. Mills, 572

11 F.3d 66, 71-72 (2d Cir. 2009). Plausibility thus depends on a host of considerations: The full

12 factual picture presented by the complaint, the particular cause of action and its elements, and the

13 available alternative explanations. See Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1947-52. As Rule 8 implies, a claim

14 should only be dismissed at the pleading stage where the allegations are so general, and the

15 alternative explanations so compelling, that the claim no longer appears plausible. See Fed. R.

16 Civ. P. 8(a); Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556 (requiring simply “enough fact to raise a reasonable

17 expectation that discovery will reveal evidence” supporting the claims).

18 Arar's claim readily survives this test, particularly in light of the Court's obligation to

19 “draw[] all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor” on a motion to dismiss. See Chambers

20 v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 152 (2d Cir. 2002). The notion that high-ranking

21 government officials like Defendants Ashcroft and Mueller were personally involved in setting or

22 approving the conditions under which suspected terrorists would be held on American soil – and
 Likewise, the majority finds these very same allegations sufficient for purposes of 5

personal jurisdiction, as did the panel. See Maj. Op. at 19; Arar v. Ashcroft, 532 F.3d 157, 173-75 (2d

Cir. 2008) (panel op.) (applying identical personal involvement standard in considering personal

jurisdiction and finding it met).

-14-

1 even oversaw Arar's detention and removal – is hardly far-fetched. Arar's arrival at JFK airport

2 was a significant event in September 2002, triggering all manner of security responses. See, e.g.,

3 Compl. ¶ 45; OIG Report at 11, 15 (citing “high-level interest in Arar in Washington, DC”); id.

4 at 30 n.31 (describing the four-vehicle convoy in which Arar was transported, including nine INS

5 officers equipped with their service weapons, Remington 870 shotguns, M-4 rifles, helmets, and

6 ballistic vests). The fact that Arar was covertly transferred to Syria, by itself, indicates

7 involvement at the highest levels of government. 

8 In contrast to Iqbal, it is the alternative here that is difficult to fathom. To think that low9 level agents had complete discretion in setting the conditions for holding a suspected member of

10 al Qaeda defies commonsense. It requires the Court to believe that, while high-level officials

11 were involved in arranging Arar's removal to Syria – a premise the majority does not question –

5

12 they were oblivious to the particulars of his detention. The majority was, of course, bound to

13 credit all reasonable inferences from the allegations in the complaint, understanding that their

14 factual basis would be thoroughly tested in discovery. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (a court

15 must proceed “on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if

16 doubtful in fact)”). The inference that, in 2002, high-level officials had a role in the detention of

17 a suspected member of al Qaeda requires little imagination.

18 Further, unlike Iqbal, Arar’s due process claims do not ask the Court to speculate about

19 the mental state of government officials. Rather, Claim Four rests on objective factors – the
 In Iqbal, the Supreme Court looked beyond the complaint to a wider factual context in 6

assessing plausibility. See 129 S. Ct. at 1951-52.

-15-

1 conditions of confinement and his access to the courts – that are independent of motive. 

2 Compare Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1948 (claim of invidious discrimination requires the plaintiff to

3 “plead and prove that the defendant acted with discriminatory purpose”), with Kaluczky v. City of

4 White Plains, 57 F.3d 202, 211 (2d Cir.1995) (government conduct that is “arbitrary, conscience5 shocking, or oppressive in a constitutional sense” violates substantive due process). The

6 complaint contains more than sufficient factual allegations detailing these deprivations. See

7 Compl. ¶¶ 27-49.

8 Finally, it should not be lost on us that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of

9 Inspector General has itself confirmed the broad contours of Arar's mistreatment, producing a

10 lengthy report on the conditions of his detention in American custody. See OIG Report. This

11 report provides a powerful indication of the reliability of Arar’s factual allegations at this stage. 

6

12 Plainly, the majority has read the OIG report, even citing it for limited purposes in its opinion. 

13 See Maj. Op. at 48. It is difficult, then, to comprehend how the majority can ignore the report’s

14 findings and conclusions in assessing the basic plausibility of Arar’s fourth claim. 

15 Ultimately, it is unclear what type of allegations to overcome a motion to dismiss by

16 high-level officials could ever satisfy the majority. In refusing to credit Arar's allegations, the

17 majority cites the complaint’s use of the “passive voice” in describing some of the underlying

18 events. See Maj. Op. at 25. This criticism is odd because the occasional use of the passive

19 voice has not previously rendered pleadings defective, particularly where the defendants’ roles

20 can be easily ascertained from the overall complaint. See Compl. ¶¶ 14-22; Yoder v.
-16-

1 Orthomolecular Nutrition Institute, Inc., 751 F.2d 555, 561 (2d Cir. 1985) (“It is elementary that,

2 on a motion to dismiss, a complaint must be read as a whole, drawing all inferences favorable to

3 the pleader.”) (citations omitted). Specifically, the majority faults Arar for not pinpointing the

4 individuals responsible for each event set out in the complaint and for failing to particularize

5 more fully when and with whom they conspired. The irony involved in imposing on a plaintiff –

6 who was held in solitary confinement and then imprisoned for ten months in an underground cell

7 – a standard so self-evidently impossible to meet appears to have been lost on the majority.

8 The flaws in the majority's approach are not unique to Arar, but endanger a broad swath

9 of civil rights plaintiffs. Rarely, if ever, will a plaintiff be in the room when officials formulate

10 an unconstitutional policy later implemented by their subordinates. Yet these closeted decisions

11 represent precisely the type of misconduct that civil rights claims are designed to address and

12 deter. See Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 21 (1980). Indeed, it is this kind of executive

13 overreaching that the Bill of Rights sought to guard against, not simply the frolic and detour of a

14 few “bad apples.” The proper way to protect executive officials from unwarranted second15 guessing is not an impossible pleading standard inconsistent with Rule 8, but the familiar

16 doctrine of qualified immunity. 

17 Even if the majority finds that Arar’s factual allegations fall short of establishing the

18 personal involvement of Defendants Ashcroft and Mueller, they plainly state a claim against

19 defendants such as Thompson, Blackman, McElroy, and John Doe FBI and ICE agents. See

20 Compl. ¶¶ 43, 47-48, 55. The direct involvement of these defendants is barely contested by the

21 appellees and barely mentioned by the majority. For this reason alone, there is no legal

22 justification for the majority to dismiss Claim Four outright.
 Responding to the Committee’s question, “What guarantees and controls does [the United 7

States] have to ensure the monitoring of the activities of law enforcement officials in prisons and other

detention centres . . . under its jurisdiction or de facto control,” the State Department acknowledged

among other remedies: “Suing federal officials for damages under provisions of the U.S. Constitution for

‘constitutional torts,’ see Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), and Davis v.

Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979).”

-17-

1 IV

2 When the full range of alleged mistreatment is considered, Arar’s injuries hardly

3 constitute a “new” context for Bivens claims, and I agree with both Judge Sack's and Judge

4 Pooler's careful analyses. This Court has repeatedly assumed that Bivens extends to substantive

5 due process claims and provides a damages remedy to other detainees illegally injured by

6 executive officials or their agents. See Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980); Thomas v.

7 Ashcroft, 470 F.3d 491, 497 (2d Cir. 2006); Cuoco v. Moritsugu, 222 F.3d 99 (2d Cir. 2000). 

8 Our State Department is of the same view, having assured the United Nations’ Committee

9 Against Torture that a Bivens remedy is available to torture victims. See United States Written

10 Response to Questions Asked by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, ¶ 5

11 (bullet-point 5) (Apr. 28, 2006), available at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/68554.htm.

7

12 Even if Arar’s case were viewed as a new context, the “special factors” cited by the

13 majority do not justify denying him relief because they are not “special.” They largely duplicate

14 concerns – like state secrets, sovereign immunity, and qualified immunity – amply addressed by

15 other doctrines at the Court’s disposal. See Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 246 (1979)

16 (refusing to hesitate where special factors were “coextensive with the protections afforded by the

17 Speech or Debate Clause”). My colleagues make these arguments in greater detail, cataloging

18 the flaws in the majority’s Bivens analysis. I write to emphasize the heightened need for a Bivens

19 remedy in cases such as this where executive officials have deliberately thwarted the remedies
-18-

1 provided by Congress and obstructed access to the courts. Arar's claims in this regard supply an

2 exceptionally compelling justification for affording a Bivens remedy, going well beyond the

3 allegations that gave rise to Bivens in the first place.

4 The judicial role recognized in Bivens reflects an important institutional balance – one

5 closely aligned with separation of powers. Bivens offers Congress the first opportunity to fashion

6 a remedy for invasions of individual rights protected by the Constitution. However, when a

7 legislative judgment is lacking, Bivens permits the courts to use their common-law powers to fill

8 crucial gaps and provide redress in appropriate instances. This line of cases thus instructs the

9 courts to tread lightly where Congress has spoken, presuming that in those instances

10 constitutional interests have been adequately addressed by the legislative branch. See Schweiker

11 v. Chilicky, 487 U.S. 412, 423 (1988) (“When the design of a Government program suggests that

12 Congress has provided what it considers adequate remedial mechanisms for constitutional

13 violations that may occur in the course of its administration, we have not created additional

14 Bivens remedies.”).

15 On the other hand, where no legislative remedy exists, Bivens reaffirms the courts’ power

16 to ensure that individuals can obtain relief for constitutional injuries. The courts, within this

17 framework, provide a forum of last resort; through Bivens, they stand behind constitutional

18 guarantees neglected by the political branches. Compare Bivens, 403 U.S. at 410 (Harlan, J.,

19 concurring) (implying a remedy where constitutional injury would otherwise go unredressed),

20 with Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 388 (1983) (denying Bivens remedy in light of the “elaborate

21 remedial system” established by Congress). 
 While the majority pointedly notes that the Supreme Court has only agreed to extend a

8

Bivens remedy three times since 1971, it has only rejected such claims based on special factors on three

occasions over that same period. See Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S. 537, 554 (2007); United States v.

Stanley, 483 U.S. 669 (1987); Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296 (1983). In every other case, the Court

has determined that the remedial scheme established by Congress displaces a judicial remedy – a finding

that the majority does not purport to make here. Moreover, even in Chappell, the Supreme Court relied

in part on the alternative remedial scheme provided in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

 The special factors analysis considers the wisdom and effectiveness of one particular 9

remedy – the recovery of money damages from individual federal officers. This determination is

separate and distinct from (1) a court's capacity to assess the right in question; and (2) its power to afford

-19-

1 Even so, this remedy is constrained by “special factors” that counsel hesitation even in

2 the “absence of affirmative action by Congress.” Bivens, 403 U.S. at 396. The Supreme Court

3 has never provided an exhaustive definition of these special factors, and existing precedent offers

4 only a few data-points. But it has nonetheless indicated that this analysis should “weigh[] 8

5 reasons for and against the creation of a new cause of action, the way common law judges have

6 always done.” Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S. 537, 554 (2007). In Wilkie, for example, the factor

7 that ultimately counseled hesitation was the difficulty of distinguishing unconstitutional conduct

8 from lawful government activity. Id. at 555-61. In earlier cases, involving claims by military

9 personnel, the Supreme Court cited Congress’ plenary authority “To make Rules for the

10 Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,” and its adoption of the Uniform Code

11 of Military Justice. See Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 302-03 (1983) (citing U.S. Const.,

12 Art. I, § 8, cl. 12-14; 10 U.S.C. § 938); see also United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 683-84

13 (1987). Where Congress, pursuant to this authority, had established a parallel system of military

14 discipline, the Court declined to interfere in the relationship between enlisted personnel and their

15 commanding officers. See Chappell, 462 U.S. at 304. “Special factors,” then, must be regarded

16 as a prudential limitation: One that considers the suitability of money damages for the particular

17 constitutional injuries alleged, together with the availability of other relief. See Davis, 442 U.S. 9
relief of any kind. In particular, if a court would be entitled to provide injunctive or habeas relief for the

same or similar claims, it cannot treat the special factors analysis as a proxy for justiciability, the

political question doctrine, or the separation of powers. Indeed, if other forms of relief would be

available, these potential obstacles to the court's jurisdiction have already been dispatched and they may

not be smuggled in a second time through the back door. Yet the majority does precisely this, relying on

a host of “special factors” that simply repeat concerns accounted for elsewhere in our law. See Maj. Op.

at 38-50 (treating as special factors separation of powers, sovereign immunity, state secrets and classified

information, and diplomatic assurances). In reality, it is a much more modest inquiry. The special

factors analysis must focus on why money damages – as opposed to other forms of available relief –

might be inappropriate or undesirable.

-20-

1 at 245 (finding “special concerns” overcome by impossibility of equitable relief and

2 appropriateness of damages remedy).

3 So limited, Bivens is an infrequent remedy, but it is a vitally necessary one. In laying out

4 the Bivens remedy, the Supreme Court recognized that “[t]he very essence of civil liberty

5 certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws.” Butz v.

6 Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 485 (1978) (quoting Bivens, 403 U.S. at 395, 397); see also Davis, 442

7 U.S. at 241 (“[T]he judiciary is clearly discernible as the primary means through which these

8 rights may be enforced.”). It was this principle, in the face of “the most flagrant abuses of

9 official power,” that prompted the Court to afford a damages remedy. Bivens, 403 U.S. at 410

10 (Harlan, J., concurring). Bivens thus reflects the courts’ role as an independent source of

11 protection, applying the damages remedy as a form of individual relief and official

12 accountability. 

13 This prerogative is consistent with the constitutional plan. With its built-in limitations,

14 Bivens has never represented a formidable expansion of judicial power. The doctrine, it must be

15 remembered, does not create any new rights; it provides a mechanism for enforcing existing

16 constitutional rights when no other avenue exists. “[W]here legal rights have been invaded, and

17 a federal statute provides for a general right to sue for such invasion, federal courts may use any
-21-

1 available remedy to make good the wrong done.” Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 684 (1946); see

2 also Bivens, 403 U.S. at 395 (“Historically, damages have been regarded as the ordinary remedy

3 for an invasion of personal interests in liberty.”). 

4 Against this backdrop, the majority sets out to narrow Bivens to the point of vanishing. 

5 The majority's test would not just eliminate a Bivens remedy in Arar's case, but in almost all

6 cases. According to the majority, “‘[h]esitation’ is ‘counseled’ whenever thoughtful discretion

7 would pause even to consider,” and “no account is taken of countervailing factors.” See Maj.

8 Op. at 37. But because “thoughtful” people, by definition, always “pause to consider,” this

9 approach would foreclose a damages remedy on account of the most fleeting and superficial of

10 concerns. And it would permit courts to ignore completely, as the majority opinion itself does,

11 the gravity of the constitutional injuries alleged. As the Court admits, this dramatic recasting of

12 Bivens is unnecessary to support its holding. Id. at 38 (expressing the view that Arar's action

13 “would have the natural tendency to affect diplomacy, foreign policy and the security of the

14 nation,” and therefore the Court's holding “need be no broader”). The standard described by the

15 majority misstates the law and, for the reasons surveyed here, significantly weakens the courts’

16 ability to redress constitutional injuries. 

17 V

18 Arar’s claims, in fact, go beyond the usual imperatives for a Bivens remedy. His

19 complaint offers an exceptionally compelling basis for relief, one that the majority repeatedly

20 sidesteps: The charge that government officials actively obstructed Arar’s access to the courts,

21 violating core procedural due process rights. See Tellier v. Fields, 280 F.3d 69 (2d Cir. 2000)

22 (assuming that a Bivens action exists for procedural due process claim by detainee). Any court
-22-

1 should be deeply disturbed by such allegations, especially those backed by the factual detail

2 presented here. Cf. Valverde v. Stinson, 224 F.3d 129, 133-34 (2d Cir. 2000) (finding AEDPA

3 statute of limitations equitably tolled where prison officials intentionally obstructed habeas

4 petitioner’s ability to file his petition by confiscating his legal papers). Yet the majority’s

5 wholesale dismissal of claims relating to Arar’s detention in the United States – for insufficient

6 pleading, as described above – allows it to avoid any meaningful engagement with these

7 allegations.

8 Normally, as we have seen, when Congress legislates in a particular area, a Bivens action

9 is not appropriate. In particular, the division of labor outlined in Bivens contemplated two

10 scenarios: (1) Where Congress has selected a remedy for constitutional injuries, the courts should

11 defer to its legislative wisdom; (2) Where Congress has not considered a remedy, however, a

12 court must use its “judgment about the best way to implement a constitutional guarantee.” 

13 Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550; see Bivens, 403 U.S. at 496. However, Arar’s case fits neither situation. 

14 Instead, the allegations are that any remedy provided by Congress and the Constitution was

15 purposefully foreclosed by executive officials. 

16 When it comes to torture, Congress has spoken loudly and clearly. Title 18, Section 2441

17 makes it a felony punishable by life imprisonment to commit, or conspire to commit, “an act

18 specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering . . . upon another

19 person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a

20 confession.” See also 18 U.S.C. § 2340A. Arar’s transfer to Syria was allegedly designed to

21 skirt the congressional prohibition on torture by outsourcing this form of interrogation. 

22 Moreover, in order to seamlessly accomplish this transfer, officials had to ignore or evade a
-23-

1 number of other congressional dictates: An immigration policy that bars the removal of any

2 person to a country where he will likely be tortured, and the INA's judicial review provision. See

3 Convention Against Torture, December 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100-20, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85,

4 implemented by Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-277,

5 Div. G., Tit. XXII, § 2242, 112 Stat. 2681-822 (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1231); 8 U.S.C. §

6 1252(a)(2)(D); see also Tun v. INS, 445 F.3d 554, 566 (2d Cir. 2006). Finally, officials’ actions

7 also foreclosed Arar’s opportunity to seek habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and the

8 Constitution, a remedy that the government itself concedes should have been available to Arar.

9 In bare terms, the complaint alleges that executive officials set out to circumvent and

10 undercut the powers of both the legislative and judicial branches. Under these circumstances, the

11 usual justifications for hesitation in applying Bivens are simply not present. When, as here, the

12 executive branch takes measures incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress, its

13 “power is at its lowest ebb.” Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 637 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). 

14 Factors that might otherwise counsel hesitation disappear where executive officials have sought

15 to nullify the remedies chosen by Congress. In these cases, courts owe the executive branch little

16 deference. Instead, the courts’ provision of a substitute remedy is an undertaking not simply

17 “appropriate for a common-law tribunal” but essential for the rule of law. Bush v. Lucas, 462

18 U.S. 367, 378 (1983). Since the majority fails in these responsibilities, I repectfully dissent.

19
 I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that Arar’s case presents a new context for 1

a Bivens action for the reasons stated in Judge Sack’s dissent.

1

POOLER, Circuit Judge, joined by Judges Calabresi, Sack, and Parker, dissenting.

I agree with the well-reasoned dissents of my colleagues and join their opinions in full. I

write separately to note that the majority’s opinion in this troubling and unusual case should not

be misread as adopting a new framework for determining whether to recognize a Bivens claim,

and to explain why I do not agree that Arar’s TVPA claim should be dismissed. 

I. Bivens

At first glance, it might seem that the majority’s reasoning with respect to Arar’s Bivens

claim proceeds in two simple steps: (1) Arar’s claim presents a new context for a Bivens action,1

and (2) special factors counsel hesitation before recognizing a Bivens remedy. But a closer

reading of the majority opinion reveals far more than a mere hesitation to extend Bivens to a new

context in light of special factors. Because the majority’s holdings bear no relation to its new

statements of Bivens principles, those remarks are dicta. Moreover, any such simplistic

framework would be contrary to the Supreme Court’s Bivens decisions, which require that courts

consider reasons both for and against recognizing the remedy. 

The Supreme Court has held that we must engage in the following analysis in considering

whether to recognize Bivens action:

In the first place, there is the question whether any alternative, existing process for

protecting the interest amounts to a convincing reason for the Judicial Branch to

refrain from providing a new and freestanding remedy in damages. But even in

the absence of an alternative, a Bivens remedy is a subject of judgment: “the

federal courts must 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.” 
 Recently, in dicta, the Supreme Court explained that its “reluctan[ce]” to extend Bivens 2

stems from the fact that “implied causes of action are disfavored.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct.

1937, 1948 (2009). 

2

Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S. 537, 550 (2007) (quoting Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 378 (1983)). 

After sidestepping the question of existing remedies, Maj. Op. at 33-36, the majority states that

the remainder of inquiry can be reduced to the question of whether there any special factors to

consider. Id. at 35-36

The majority begins by observing that the Supreme Court has extended Bivens twice but

refused to extend Bivens seven times, as if this empirical disfavor could save courts the trouble

of engaging in “the kind of remedial determination that is appropriate for a common-law

tribunal.” Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s reluctance to extend 2

Bivens in recent years, it has not overruled Bivens, nor has it overruled the decisions extending

Bivens to new contexts in Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979) and Carlson v. Green, 446

U.S. 14 (1980), nor has it ever held that “Bivens and its progeny should be limited to the precise

circumstances that they involved.” Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 568 (Thomas, J., concurring) (quotation

marks omitted). Thus, the majority must distinguish Bivens, Davis, and Green’s cases from

Arar’s.

To do so, the majority points to “special factors” that counsel hesitation. The majority

observes, in dicta, two “principles” emerging from the case law on Bivens. First, where special

factors counseling hesitation exist, “no account is taken of countervailing factors.” Maj. Op. at

37. Notwithstanding this new principle, the majority concludes that it “cannot ignore that, as the

panel dissent put it, ‘there is a long history of judicial review of Executive and Legislative

decisions related to the conduct of foreign relations and national security.’” Id. at 56-57 (quoting
3

Arar v. Ashcroft, 532 F.3d 157, 213 (2d Cir. 2008) (Sack, J., dissenting in part)). And the

majority recognizes that prudential considerations play into the Bivens analysis, considering, for

example, whether a Bivens action in Arar’s context would have a deterrent effect. Id. at 52. 

Ultimately, therefore, the majority has not adopted any new principle of disregarding

countervailing factors.

Second, the majority proclaims that the threshold for determining whether a factor

“‘counsels hesitation’ is remarkably low.’” Maj. Op. at 37. The majority explains that

“‘[h]esitation’ is ‘counseled’ whenever thoughtful discretion would pause even to consider.” Id. 

I find this statement somewhat inscrutable, but I do not take the majority to mean that Bivens

should not be extended anytime a special factor deserves any degree of consideration. Insofar as

the majority intends to lower the bar for special factors, its remarks are dicta. These remarks

bear no relation to the majority’s holding that extension of Bivens to Arar’s context is not

“advisable,” id. at 32, because separation of powers, institutional competence, and other factors

“sternly” counsel hesitation. Id. at 36. Indeed, the majority’s opinion devotes twenty pages to its

stern assessment of special factors, id. at 36-56, including the fear that “actual terrorists” could

win damages awards, placing courts in the position of funding terrorism, id. at 53 n.12; that the

government will be “graymail[ed]” into settling cases to prevent disclosure of classified

information, id. at 51-54; and that other countries will be “less willing to cooperate with the

United States in sharing intelligence resources to counter terrorism,” id. at 43. 

Apart from being dicta, these remarks represent a misreading of Supreme Court

precedent. Wilkie exhorts that we pay heed to special factors counseling hesitation while

exercising the type of remedial judgment appropriate for a common law tribunal – “weighing
4

reasons for and against the creation of a new cause of action, the way common law judges have

always done.” 551 U.S. at 554 (citing Bush, 462 U.S. at 378). In the exercise of remedial

judgment, we should not consider only those factors that militate in favor of one side of the

argument. We must be mindful of a wide range of prudential concerns. See, e.g, id. at 550

(holding that “any freestanding damages remedy for a claimed constitutional violation has to

represent a judgment about the best way to implement a constitutional guarantee”); Corr. Servs.

Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 70 (2001) (considering whether extension of Bivens would “deter

individual federal officers . . . from committing constitutional violations”). The majority cannot

overrule Wilkie’s holding that we must make “the kind of remedial determination that is

appropriate for a common-law tribunal,” 551 U.S. at 550, by replacing that phrase with ellipses

when quoting the case, see Maj. Op. at 35. 

Were the majority’s dicta the rule, there would be no explanation for the Supreme Court’s

decision in Bivens in the first place. Surely there were special factors that would have counseled

hesitation – the drain on the public fisc, the strain on judicial resources, the hindrance to law

enforcement personnel whose efforts had to be diverted to defending lawsuits for damages. 

Without pausing to consider these factors, the Bivens Court held that a damages remedy was

necessary to enforce the Fourth Amendment. Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S.

388, 397-98 (1971). Moreover, were the majority’s dicta correct, it would be impossible to make

heads or tails of Davis v. Passman, supra. In that case, the Court extended Bivens to a claim for

employment discrimination in violation of the equal protection component of the Fifth

Amendment’s Due Process Clause against a member of Congress. The Court recognized a

Bivens remedy despite pausing to give thoughtful consideration to the argument that Passman’s
 By abandoning the panel majority’s holding that the INA is an alternative existing 3

remedy that precludes Bivens relief, the majority has avoided any implication that

well-established Bivens actions for immigrants alleging Fourth and Eighth amendment violations

5

status as a member of Congress, “counsel[ed] hesitation.” 442 U.S. at 246. The Court also noted

the risk of “deluging federal courts with claims” and the scarcity of judicial resources, but did not

find these special factors sufficiently persuasive to overwhelm Davis’s need for a remedial

mechanism. Id. at 248 (quotation marks omitted).

The absence of other remedies for a constitutional violation may be a reason for creating

a new cause of action. Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 554 (considering, at the second step of the analysis,

the inadequacy of existing remedies). Thus, the Supreme Court has recognized a Bivens remedy

where, for the plaintiff, it was “damages or nothing.” Davis, 442 U.S. at 245 (quoting Bivens,

402 U.S. at 410 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment)). “‘The very essence of civil liberty

certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he

receives an injury.’” Bivens, 403 U.S. at 397 (quoting Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch (5 U.S.)

137 (1803)). “[W]here federally protected rights have been invaded, it has been the rule from the

beginning that courts will be alert to adjust their remedies so as to grant the necessary relief.” Id.

at 392 (quoting Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 684 (1946)). In Davis, the Court held, “unless such

rights are to become merely precatory, the class of those litigants who allege that their own

constitutional rights have been violated, and who at the same time have no effective means other

than the judiciary to enforce these rights, must be able to invoke the existing jurisdiction of the

courts for the protection of their justiciable constitutional rights.” 442 U.S. at 242. 

The majority “avoids any categorical ruling on alternative remedies,” in favor of its

“dominant holding” on special factors. Maj. Op. at 8. I have searched the majority’s opinion for 3
are without basis. And, by abandoning the holding that it could not take as true Arar’s

“unverified” allegations of official obstruction of his right to challenge the CAT determination,

the opinion avoids the implication that Bivens claimants face a heightened pleading standard.

6

a subordinate and non-categorical ruling on alternative remedies, and I have found none. This is

for good reason. The majority recognizes that “Arar has alleged that he was actively prevented

from seeking any meaningful review and relief through the INA processes.” Id. at 35. This

makes Arar’s case unlike those in which the Court refused to imply a Bivens remedy upon

concluding that Congress had already established a remedial scheme covering the field. See, e.g.,

Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U.S. 412 (1988); Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367 (1983). Where

defendants blocked a plaintiff’s access to the remedies established by Congress, foreclosing a

Bivens remedy eliminates any judicial review. See Rauccio v. Frank, 750 F. Supp. 566, 571 (D.

Conn. 1990); Grichenko v. U.S. Postal Serv., 524 F. Supp. 672, 676-77 (E.D.N.Y. 1981). This

result thwarts Congress’s will and abdicates the judicial role. The majority errs in failing to take

account of this consideration in its assessment of special factors.

In cases in which the Court declined to extend Bivens, it did not resolve the issue simply

by observing that it had to pause to consider special factors. Rather, the Court declined to extend

Bivens because factors related to institutional competence and separation of powers strongly

counseled hesitation. For example, in Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296 (1983), the Court

declined to create a damages remedy for alleged racial discrimination by military officers because

“[t]he need for . . . a special and exclusive system of military justice[] is too obvious to require

extensive discussion; no military organization can function without strict discipline and

regulation that would be unacceptable in a civilian setting,” id. at 300, and the creation of a

Bivens remedy by the federal courts “would be plainly inconsistent with Congress’ authority in
7

this field” under Article 1of the Constitution, id. at 304.

Ultimately, the majority concludes that the Constitution provides Arar no remedy for this

wrong, that the judiciary must stay its hand in enforcing the Constitution because untested

national security concerns have been asserted by the Executive branch. For the reasons stated

herein and in Judge Sack’s dissenting opinion, I would hold the Arar should have a Bivens

remedy – to reinforce our system of checks and balances, to provide a deterrent, and to redress

conduct that shocks the conscience. I understand the majority’s opinion today to be a result of its

hyperbolic and speculative assessment of the national security implications of recognizing Arar’s

Bivens action, its underestimation of the institutional competence of the judiciary, and its

implicit failure to accept as true Arar’s allegations that defendants blocked his access to judicial

processes so that they could render him to Syria to be tortured, conduct that shocks the

conscience and disfigures fundamental constitutional principles. This is a hard case with unique

circumstances. The majority’s disappointing opinion should not be interpreted to change Bivens

law.

II. TVPA

I cannot join the Court in concluding that the facts of Arar’s complaint are insufficient to

state a claim under the TVPA. Section 2(a) of the TVPA provides that a defendant is liable only

if he acted under “actual or apparent authority, or color of law, of any foreign nation . . .” 28

U.S.C. 1350 (note). In construing this requirement, we look “to principles of agency law and to

jurisprudence under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232, 245 (2d Cir. 1995). 

Under Section 1983, “[t]he traditional definition of acting under color of state law requires that

the defendant . . . have exercised power possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only
8

because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law.” West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42,

49 (1988) (quotation marks omitted). 

I agree with the majority that there is no litmus test for determining whether a Section

1983 defendant is acting under color of state law. Maj. Op. at 21 (“The determination as to

whether a non-state party acts under color of state law requires an intensely fact-specific

judgment unaided by rigid criteria as to whether particular conduct may be fairly attributed to the

state.” (citing Brentwood Acad. v. Tenn. Secondary Sch. Ath. Ass’n, 531 U.S. 288, 295 (2001)). 

This is a wise departure from the test set forth by the panel opinion, which interpreted Section

1983 case law to require that when the defendant is a federal official, he must be under the

“control or influence” of the state actor to act under color of state law. Arar, 532 F.3d at 175-76.

Our Circuit has consistently recognized several bases for liability under Section 1983, “control or

influence” being just one:

For the purposes of section 1983, the actions of a nominally private entity are

attributable to the state when: (1) the entity acts pursuant to the “coercive power”

of the state or is “controlled” by the state (“the compulsion test”); (2) when the

state provides “significant encouragement” to the entity, the entity is a “willful

participant in joint activity with the [s]tate,” or the entity’s functions are

“entwined” with state policies (“the joint action test” or “close nexus test”); or (3)

when the entity “has been delegated a public function by the [s]tate,” (“the public

function test”).

Sybalski v. Indep. Group Home Living Program, Inc., 546 F.3d 255, 257 (2d Cir. 2008) (per

curiam) (quoting Brentwood Acad., 531 U.S. at 296). As the majority now recognizes, “[a]

federal officer who conspires with a state officer may act under color of state law.” Maj. Op. at

21 (citing Beechwood Restorative Care Ctr. v. Leeds, 436 F.3d 147, 154 (2d Cir. 2006)). 

The majority concludes that Arar’s pleading was deficient because he alleged only that
9

“United States officials encouraged and facilitated the exercise of power by Syrians in Syria,” not

that defendants possessed power under Syrian law which they used to remove him to Syria to be

tortured. Maj. Op. at 21-22. I disagree. In the Section 1983 context, the Supreme Court has held

that private individuals may be liable for joint activities with state actors even where those

private individuals had no official power under state law. Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24, 27-28

(1980). In Sparks, the private individuals conspired with a state judge to enjoin the plaintiff’s

mining operation. The Court held:

[T]o act ‘under color of’ state law for § 1983 purposes does not require that the

defendant be an officer of the State. It is enough that he is a willful participant in

joint action with the State or its agents. Private persons, jointly engaged with state

officials in the challenged action, are acting ‘under color’ of law for purposes of §

1983 actions.

Id.; see also Khulumani v. Barclay Nat. Bank Ltd., 504 F.3d 254, 315 (2d Cir. 2007) (Korman, J.,

concurring in part). Arar alleges that U.S. officials, recognizing that Syrian law was more

permissive of torture that U.S. law, contacted an agent in Syria to arrange to have Arar tortured

under the authority of Syrian law. Specifically, Arar alleges that U.S. officials sent the Syrians a

dossier containing questions, identical to those questions he was asked while detained in the

U.S., including one about his relationship with a particular individual wanted for terrorism. He

also alleges the Syrian officials supplied U.S. officials with information they extracted from him,

citing a public statement by a Syrian official. Assuming the truth of these allegations,

defendants’ wrongdoing was only possible due to the latitude permitted under Syrian law and

their joint action with Syrian authorities. The torture may fairly be attributed to Syria. 

Because the majority’s holding in this case is not required by controlling law from the
 Because the majority’s holding turns on the unique aspects of Arar’s claim under the 4

TVPA, it does not limit the range of conduct for which non-state actors can be held liable under

Section 1983.

10

Section 1983 context, the decision must turn on the unique features of this case – brought under 4

the TVPA alleging joint action by federal agents with Syrian officials. The majority cites

Harbury v. Hayden, 444 F. Supp. 2d 19, 42-43 (D.D.C. 2006), aff’d on other grounds, 522 F.3d

413 (D.C. Cir. 2008). In that case, as well as one other, district judges concluded that U.S.

officials pursuing federal policy under federal statutes act under color of U.S., not foreign, law. 

Id. (holding that CIA officers cooperating with the Guatemalan military acted under color of U.S.

law because they were “within the scope of their employment serving the United States” and

“carrying out the policies and directives of the CIA”); Schneider v. Kissinger, 310 F. Supp. 2d

251, 267 (D.D.C. 2004) (“Dr. Kissinger was most assuredly acting pursuant to U.S. law . . .

despite the fact that his alleged foreign co-conspirators may have been acting under color of

Chilean law.”), aff’d on other grounds, 412 F.3d 190 (D.C. Cir. 2005). But the majority does not

adopt this questionable reasoning – that a federal official can act under color of only one

sovereign’s authority at a time. The majority simply observes that because “federal officials

typically act under color of federal law, they are rarely deemed to have acted under color of state

law.” Maj. Op. at 21 (quotation marks omitted). 

Rather, where the alleged torture was carried out by foreigners in a foreign land, the

majority draws a line between the actual exercise of power under foreign law and the

encouragement, facilitation, or solicitation of that exercise of power. Id. at 21-22. This

distinction is unprincipled. Under agency law, “when two persons engage jointly in a partnership

for some criminal objective, the law deems them agents for one another. Each is deemed to have
 The majority’s perplexing statement that if a federal official were found to be acting 5

under color of foreign law, it “would render a U.S. official an official of a foreign government,”

Maj. Op. at 22-23 n.3, is simply incorrect. A private actor is not transformed into a state official

merely because he acted under color of state law, see Dennis, 449 U.S. at 27-28 (1980), and

there is no reason that this would be the case in the analogous TVPA context.

 Although the question in Aldana was whether violence by a private security force

6

involved “state action,” and not whether the U.S. corporation was acting in Guatemala under

color of U.S. or Guatemalan law, in the Section 1983 context, the two inquiries are

interchangeable. See, e.g., Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 929 (1982); see

also Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co., 578 F.3d 1252, 1264 (11th Cir. 2009). 

11

authorized the acts and declarations of the other undertaken to carry out their joint objective.” 

United States v. Russo, 302 F.3d 37, 45 (2d Cir. 2002). It is of no matter that only one member

of the conspiracy carried out the torture. If we carry the majority’s logic to its extreme, federal

agents “could never be responsible for torture inflicted under color of foreign law, even if they

were in the room with the foreign torturers orchestrating the techniques.” Arar Reply Br. at 36.5

Under Section 1983, non-state actors who willfully participate in joint action with state

officials, acting under state law, themselves act under color of state law. By analogy, under the

TVPA, non-Syrian actors who willfully participate in joint action with Syrian officials, acting

under Syrian law, themselves act under color of Syrian law. In Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh

Produce, 416 F.3d 1242, 1249, 1265 (11th Cir. 2005), the Eleventh Circuit sustained a TVPA

claim where plaintiffs alleged that a U.S. corporation “hir[ed] and direct[ed] its employees and/or

agents,” including a Guatemalan mayor, “to torture the Plaintiffs and threaten them with death.”

416 F.3d at 1265. The allegation that the corporation participated in joint action with the

Guatemalan official was sufficient. I see no principled reason to apply different rules to the 6

TVPA context than the Section 1983 context, to federal agent defendants than corporate
 Because plaintiffs must meet a plausibility standard for claims against federal officials 7

under Ashcroft v. Iqbal, supra, I am not concerned that subjecting federal officials to liability

under the TVPA would open the floodgates to a wave of meritless litigation. But see Hayden,

444 F. Supp. 2d at 41. 

12

defendants, or to actors in the United States than actors on foreign soil. Arar alleges that 7

defendants, acting in concert with Syrian officials, interrogated him through torture under color

of Syrian law, which they could not have accomplished under color of U.S. law alone.

Thus, I cannot agree that the panel correctly determined the TVPA question on the “color

of law” question.

I must therefore respectfully dissent.
 I use this much abused phrase “judicial activism,” in its literal sense, to mean the 1

unnecessary reaching out to decide issues that need not be resolved, the violation of what Chief

Justice Roberts called “the cardinal principle of judicial restraint—if it is not necessary to decide

more, it is necessary not to decide more.” PDK Labs., Inc. v. U.S. DEA, 362 F.3d 786, 799 (D.C.

Cir. 2004) (Roberts, J., concurring).

1

1 CALABRESI, Circuit Judge, joined by Judges Pooler, Sack, and Parker, dissenting.

2 I respectfully dissent. I join Judge Sack’s, Judge Parker’s, and Judge Pooler’s dissenting

3 opinions in full. But, because I believe that when the history of this distinguished court is

4 written, today’s majority decision will be viewed with dismay, I add a few words of my own, “. .

5 . more in sorrow than in anger.” Hamlet, act 1, sc. 2.

6 My colleagues have already provided ample reason to regret the path the majority has

7 chosen. In its utter subservience to the executive branch, its distortion of Bivens doctrine, its

8 unrealistic pleading standards, its misunderstanding of the TVPA and of § 1983, as well as in its

9 persistent choice of broad dicta where narrow analysis would have sufficed, the majority opinion

10 goes seriously astray. It does so, moreover, with the result that a person—whom we must assume

11 (a) was totally innocent and (b) was made to suffer excruciatingly (c) through the misguided

12 deeds of individuals acting under color of federal law—is effectively left without a U.S. remedy. 

13 See especially dissenting opinion of Judge Parker.

14 All this, as the other dissenters have powerfully demonstrated, is surely bad enough. I

15 write to discuss one last failing, an unsoundness that, although it may not be the most significant

16 to Maher Arar himself, is of signal importance to us as federal judges: the majority’s unwavering

17 willfulness. It has engaged in what properly can be described as extraordinary judicial activism.

1

18 It has violated long-standing canons of restraint that properly must guide courts when they face

19 complex and searing questions that involve potentially fundamental constitutional rights. It has
2

1 reached out to decide an issue that should not have been resolved at this stage of Arar’s case.

2 Moreover, in doing this, the court has justified its holding with side comments (as to other fields

3 of law such as torts) that are both sweeping and wrong. That the majority—made up of

4 colleagues I greatly respect—has done all this with the best of intentions, and in the belief that its

5 holding is necessary in a time of crisis, I do not doubt. But this does not alter my conviction that

6 in calmer times, wise people will ask themselves: how could such able and worthy judges have

7 done that?

8 I

9 I focus first on the willful reaching out to decide a hard constitutional question. “If there

10 is one doctrine more deeply rooted than any other in the process of constitutional adjudication, it

11 is that we ought not to pass on questions of constitutionality . . . unless such adjudication is

12 unavoidable.” Spector Motor Serv., Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U.S. 101, 105 (1944). The

13 Supreme Court long ago made clear that it would not—and that we should not—“pass upon a

14 constitutional question although properly presented by the record, if there is also present some

15 other ground upon which the case may be disposed of.” Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 347

16 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring); see also, e.g., Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. 625, 633

17 (1972) (“[W]e follow our usual custom of avoiding decision of constitutional issues unnecessary

18 to the decision of the case before us.”); Burton v. United States, 196 U.S. 283, 295 (1905) (“It is

19 not the habit of the court to decide questions of a constitutional nature unless absolutely

20 necessary to a decision of the case.”). We ourselves have described this canon of constitutional

21 avoidance as “axiomatic,” Allstate Ins. Co. v. Serio, 261 F.3d 143, 149 (2d Cir. 2001), and have

22 long allowed it to “dictate[]” our decisions in appropriate circumstances. Fine v. City of New
 There is also a canon that courts should not lightly find legislation to be 2

unconstitutional. See, e.g., Clark v. Suarez Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 381-82 (2005). That canon

is of great importance, and is related to but separate from the canon to which I am referring. See

id. at 381. It derives from the so-called “majoritarian difficulty,” the fact that courts are,

generally, not representative bodies. See Alexander M. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch 16-

17 (2d ed. 1986) (“[W]hen the Supreme Court declares unconstitutional a legislative act or the

action of an elected executive, it thwarts the will of representatives of the actual people . . . .”) 

The canon at issue in this case is different, however, and demands, more broadly, that

unnecessary constitutional decisions not be made, whichever way they would come out. It is

expressed in a large variety of rules, a few of which are listed in one Supreme Court decision:

constitutional issues affecting legislation will not be determined in friendly, nonadversary

proceedings; in advance of the necessity of deciding them; in broader terms than are

required by the precise facts to which the ruling is to be applied; if the record presents

some other ground upon which the case may be disposed of; at the instance of one who

fails to show that he is injured by the statute's operation, or who has availed himself of its

benefits; or if a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be

avoided.

Rescue Army v. Mun. Court of Los Angeles, 331 U.S. 549, 569 (1947) (emphasis added).

3

1 York, 529 F.2d 70, 76 (2d Cir. 1975).2

2 The question that today’s majority elects to decide implicates this fundamental principle. 

3 This is because the existence vel non of a claim meriting a Bivens remedy, in the absence of any

4 congressionally mandated relief, is a matter of constitutional interpretation. As early as Bivens

5 itself, the Supreme Court made clear that the cause of action it recognized arose “under” the

6 Constitution. Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S.

7 388, 397 (1971). As Justice Harlan said in his influential concurrence in Bivens, “the source of

8 the legal interest” protected by any Bivens action is “the Federal Constitution itself”; “the

9 Constitution is in the relevant sense a source of legal protection for the ‘rights’ enumerated

10 therein.” Id. at 402 n.3 (Harlan, J., concurring). And even the majority here describes Bivens as

11 “a judicially-created remedy stemming directly from the Constitution itself.” Maj. Op. at 30
Cf. Fine, 529 F.2d at 71, 76 (2d Cir. 1975) (declining to decide the “difficult and 3

troublesome constitutional questions” in a Bivens-like claim against a municipality “founded

directly upon the Fourteenth Amendment”); Brault v. Town of Milton, 527 F.2d 730, 738 (2d Cir.

1975) (en banc) (assuming, without deciding, that a claim against a municipality “can be founded

directly on the Fourteenth Amendment,” but finding “discussion of other possible barriers on [the

plaintiff’s] road to relief . . . superfluous” because the allegations in the complaint were

insufficient).

 For this reason, were there a majority finding that Arar could bring a TVPA action, as 4

Judge Pooler, in her dissenting opinion, powerfully argues he should be able to do, then of course

there might well be an “alternative, existing process,” Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 550, in which case a

Bivens action might not lie under the well-established rule that such a remedial scheme may

obviate the need for a Bivens action. Because of the majority’s holding that the TVPA does not

apply, however, I need not reach this question. A more complicated issue, which I also don’t

need to reach, is whether compensation by a foreign government can constitute an alternative

redress, because of which, on the very particular facts of this case, a Bivens action might not lie. 

But no one has discussed or argued that in any way, and since it is not an easy issue, I see no

need to delve into it further.

 The first step of the two-part analysis laid out in Wilkie is itself an instance of 5

constitutional avoidance. Where a congressionally created process adequately protects a

4

1 (emphasis added).3

2 I recognize that this question—the constitutional status of Bivens actions—is one that has

3 vexed some in academia. But as is often the case, what can be layered with mystery in the pages

4 of a law review is, in practice, fairly simple. When a court concludes that a Bivens action is

5 appropriate, it is holding that, on the then-present state of the law, the Constitution requires the

6 court to create a remedy. As even the staunchest critics of Bivens recognize, a holding that a

7 particular constitutional right implies a remedy “can presumably not even be repudiated by

8 Congress.” Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 75 (2001) (Scalia, J., concurring). 

9 While Congress can vitiate the need for a judicially created Bivens remedy by providing an

10 “alternative . . . process for protecting the [constitutional] interest,” Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S.

11 537, 550 (2007), it cannot overturn a holding that some remedy is necessary. This is the 4 5
constitutional right, there is no need to determine whether the Constitution requires a remedy. 

See Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 378 n.14 (1983) (“We need not reach the question whether the

Constitution itself requires a judicially fashioned damages remedy in the absence of any other

remedy to vindicate the underlying right, unless there is an express textual command to the

contrary. The existing civil service remedies for a demotion in retaliation for protected speech

are clearly constitutionally adequate.” (citation omitted)).

By contrast, the Supreme Court, acting prudentially, has denied Bivens claims due to

“special factors” only in quite particular circumstances implicating substantial constitutional

questions. First, it has done so in response to an exclusive textual commitment of authority to

another branch. See United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 681-82 (1987) (holding that no

Bivens action lay because of “explicit constitutional authorization for Congress ‘to make Rules

for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces’” and “the insistence . . . with

which the Constitution confers authority over the Army, Navy, and militia upon the political

branches” (quoting U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 14)); Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 300-02

(1983) (same); cf. Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 246 (1979) (“[A]lthough a suit against a

Congressman for putatively unconstitutional actions taken in the course of his official conduct

does raise special concerns counseling hesitation, we hold that these concerns are coextensive

with the protections afforded by the Speech or Debate Clause.”). Second, it has done so where

the Constitution did not provide a workable standard for distinguishing constitutional conduct

from unconstitutional conduct. See Wilkie, 551 U.S. at 555-61.

 While the methodology that courts apply in determining whether or not a constitutional 6

right presupposes some implied remedy is that of “a common-law tribunal,” Bush, 462 U.S. at

378, that fact in no way diminishes the status of the ultimate holding, up or down, as a

constitutional interpretation. 

And while there are, of course, situations in which a court must or should put aside the

practice of avoiding constitutional questions, as when its jurisdiction under Article III is in doubt,

see Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94-95 (1998), none of them apply here. 

The existence vel non of a Bivens action is not a jurisdictional prerequisite that must be resolved

first. If this was ever in doubt, it has been resolved by Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1948

(2009), which makes clear that a court can “assume, without deciding, that [a] claim is actionable

under Bivens” and then dismiss a case on non-jurisdictional grounds. 

5

1 essence of a constitutional holding, and hence one directly subject to the avoidance canon.6

2 That avoiding difficult constitutional questions like those before us is the proper course

3 was made clear by the Supreme Court in Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403 (2002). In that

4 case, the only issue before the Supreme Court was whether Harbury’s Bivens action for denial of

5 access to courts could proceed. Id. at 412. Justice Souter (for eight members of the Court) wrote
 To be sure, the Supreme Court noted that the defendants in Harbury “did not challenge 7

below the existence of a cause of action under Bivens,” and accordingly it did not express an

opinion on the question or use the “special factors” terminology. Harbury, 536 U.S. at 412 n.6. 

But the constitutional question before us, of the balancing of two constitutional interests, one an

individual right and one a matter of national security and separation of powers, is the same one as

was avoided in Harbury. 

6

1 that whether this Bivens action lies would require an inquiry that raises

2

3 concerns for the separation of powers in trenching on matters committed to the other

4 branches. Since the need to resolve such constitutional issues ought to be avoided where

5 possible, the [courts] should . . . as soon as possible in the litigation [determine] whether

6 a potential constitutional ruling may be obviated because the allegations of denied access

7 fail to state a claim on which relief could be granted.

8

9 Id. at 417 (emphasis added). The Court, in other words, said we must first decide if there are

10 non-Bivens grounds for resolving the dispute, and only then address the constitutional issues

11 raised by Bivens actions. This practice, the Court stated, comports with “the obligation of the 7

12 Judicial Branch to avoid deciding constitutional issues needlessly.” Id. The Court then

13 proceeded to examine closely the cause of action that Harbury claimed to have lost through the

14 defendants’ behavior, determined that it was insufficient to justify relief, and, on that non15 constitutional basis, dismissed Harbury’s claim. Id. at 418. 

16 The implications for Arar’s case could hardly be more manifest. The national security

17 concerns that the majority relies upon in its special factors analysis are precisely those that the

18 Supreme Court said must be avoided in Harbury. And in such circumstances, it is our job to put
 At footnote 7, the majority disputes Judge Pooler’s statement that the propositions in the 8

accompanying text are dicta. See Maj. Op. at 37. The majority then seeks to characterize those

propositions as holdings. But whether something is holding or dicta is an objective fact and does

not depend on how it is characterized either by a majority or by a dissent. It is what it is

regardless of what one calls it. To paraphrase my professor Fleming James, “You can call it

Thucydides or you can call it mustard plaster, but it is [dicta or holding] just the same.”

The fact that the majority wishes to call the propositions holding is instructive, however. 

If the propositions are holding then they would eliminate virtually all Bivens actions in this

circuit. And they would do so despite the assertions, elsewhere in the majority opinion, that

recognizing a Bivens action in this extraordinary case would be uniquely dangerous. The

majority’s desire to make a “holding” of such breadth, as to a question entailing constitutional

interpretation, in a case which, as I argue, could likely be resolved on other grounds, displays a

truly extraordinary degree of willfulness and activism.

7

1 “the trial court . . . in a position as soon as possible in the litigation to know whether a potential

2 constitutional ruling may be obviated.” Id. at 417. For reasons that will be clear soon enough, it

3 may well be that, on remand, this case would, for non-constitutional reasons, “fail to state a claim

4 on which relief could be granted.” Id. at 417. That being so, the Supreme Court has told us, we

5 must avoid constitutional pronouncements.

6 For this Court to go out of its way to decide on Bivens grounds when it is not necessary is,

7 therefore, a reaching out of a particularly dangerous sort, regardless of what conclusion the Court

8 comes to on the Bivens question. If—as I would if I had to face the question—we were to 8

9 decide that Bivens applies, then some remedy would be necessary regardless of Congress’s

10 preference. If, as the majority chooses to do, we rule that Bivens does not apply, we have said

11 that, in a wide variety of cases, the Constitution fails to give protection. Both positions require a

12 parsing of the Great Charter. When such a decision cannot be avoided, so be it: we do our job. 

13 But where it can be avoided, it should be.

14 II

15 So, how might the Bivens issue have been avoided? As Judge Sack explains in his
 At footnote 14, the majority states that the state secrets privilege, despite its common 9

law origin, is not devoid of constitutional implications. See Maj. Op. at 58-59. That may well

be. But that fact in no way means that decisions as to the applicability of a particular claim of the

privilege entail constitutional interpretations. The existing common law privilege more than

covers whatever the Constitution requires. The proper analogy is quite simple. If Congress were

to pass a statute, akin to § 1983, giving broad cause of action to those injured by federal officials,

decisions under that statute would not normally involve constitutional interpretations. And this

would be so even though, in the absence of such a statute, a Bivens, constitutional claim, might

lie. The same is so with respect to applications of the common law state secrets privilege. As an

excuse for the majority’s violation of the canon of constitutional avoidance this argument does

not make it to first base.

8

1 eloquent dissent, this might be done through first examining the significance of the state secrets

2 privilege to this case. That privilege has long required dismissal in those rare cases where

9

3 national security interests so drastically limit the evidence that can be introduced as to deprive

4 either a plaintiff or a defendant of an opportunity to make its case. See, e.g., Zuckerbraun v. Gen.

5 Dynamics Corp., 932 F.2d 544, 547 (2d Cir. 1991); see also United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S.

6 1 (1953); El-Masri v. United States, 479 F.3d 296, 308 (4th Cir. 2007) (“[A] proceeding in which

7 the state secrets privilege is successfully interposed must be dismissed if the circumstances make

8 clear that privileged information will be so central to the litigation that any attempt to proceed

9 will threaten that information’s disclosure.”). In a case such as this, where the Government

10 asserts that the plaintiff’s claim implicates vital national secrets, we must, before we move to the

11 merits, examine the consequences of our duty to guard against any potentially harmful

12 disclosures.

13 The majority obviously shares our concerns about the protection of state secrets, as

14 virtually every “special factor” identified in the majority opinion concerns classified material. 

15 But, as Judge Sack says, this amounts to double-counting of the Government’s interest in

16 preserving state secrets. See dissenting opinion of Judge Sack at 52. We already possess a well-
 Indeed, if anything, existing doctrine may be too solicitous of the need for secrecy, if 10

the many critics of the Reynolds line are correct. See infra Part IV. But while there is

widespread concern that the doctrine may be overused, it is hard to find any commentators who

think that state secrets are inadequately protected under current law.

9

1 established method for protecting secrets, one that is more than adequate to meet the majority’s

2 concern. Denying a Bivens remedy because state secrets might be revealed is a bit like denying 10

3 a criminal trial for fear that a juror might be intimidated: it allows a risk, that the law is already at

4 great pains to eliminate, to negate entirely substantial rights and procedures.

5 Even more mystifying is the majority’s insistence that it is respecting “[t]he preference

6 for open rather than clandestine court proceedings.” Maj. Op. at 47. How, exactly, does the

7 majority promote openness by shaping a constitutional decision around the fact that state secrets

8 might be involved in a claim? The state secrets doctrine is undoubtedly in tension with the

9 public right of access to the courts, but the majority’s approach is more opaque than any state

10 secrets resolution. When a court properly applies the state secrets doctrine, the case at bar will

11 proceed only if the alleged state secrets are not vital to a claim or defense, so there should be

12 little fear that a substantive holding will ultimately turn on secret material. By contrast, consider

13 the harm done to the openness of the court system by what the majority does here. It bars any

14 action in the face of what we are required to assume are outrageous constitutional violations, and

15 it does so simply because state secrets might possibly be involved, without having a court look

16 into that very question. As a result, even if the Government’s claimed need for secrecy turned

17 out to be wholly illusory, there would be no recourse! Indeed, even if the Government

18 declassified every document relating to this case, even if all four countries involved announced

19 that they had nothing to hide and that Arar’s claim should proceed so that they could be
 That is, except to the extent “state secrets” are involved. And to the extent they are, as 11

already discussed, the state secrets privilege is more than sufficient to preclude graymail. 

10

1 exonerated, there would be no open judicial testing of Arar’s allegations. Which approach

2 should give us more cause to hesitate?

3 The majority further errs in its use and abuse of other fields of law. In trying to find

4 “special factors” that could justify barring a Bivens claim (but do not depend on “state secrets”)

5 the majority points to two issues that arise in every tort suit against a government official. If they

6 are valid here they would appear to counsel “hesitation” in (and, under the majority’s reasoning,

7 seemingly preclude) every Bivens action. First, the majority warns that “[t]he risk of graymail . .

8 . counsels hesitation in creating a Bivens remedy.” Maj. Op. at 51. Because the risk of

9 unwarranted and dangerous disclosure is so high, the Government will be pressured into settling

10 meritless cases. Second, as a consequence of such graymail, the Government, rather than

11 individual defendants, would wind up paying off claims. See Maj. Op. at 52. Because these

12 possibilities are “an endemic risk in cases (however few) which involve a claim like Arar’s,” the

13 majority concludes, they make Bivens actions particularly inappropriate. Maj. Op. at 51.

14 But both of these issues—the risk of graymail and the disjunction between individual

15 defendants and an indemnifying government—are present in every tort suit against a government

16 agent, not just the relatively “few” cases involving extraordinary rendition for the purposes of

17 torture. Taking the latter point first, both state and federal officers are almost universally 11

18 indemnified by the State if they lose tort suits. In Bivens cases, the federal government

19 “indemnifies its employees against constitutional tort judgments or settlements (in the rare

20 instances in which a Bivens claim results in a monetary liability) and takes responsibility for
11

1 litigating such suits.” Cornelia T.L. Pillard, Taking Fiction Seriously: The Strange Results of

2 Public Officials’ Individual Liability Under Bivens, 88 Geo. L.J. 65, 76 (1999). Indeed, “[a]s a

3 practical matter . . . indemnification is a virtual certainty.” Id. at 77. Similarly, as is widely

4 understood, “a suit against a state officer is functionally a suit against the state, for the state

5 defends the action and pays any adverse judgment. So far as can be assessed, this is true not

6 occasionally and haphazardly but pervasively and dependably.” John C. Jeffries, Jr., In Praise of

7 the Eleventh Amendment and Section 1983, 84 Va. L. Rev. 47, 50 (1998) (citation omitted). So

8 the majority’s point proves far too much: if a Bivens action is inappropriate where the individual

9 defendants’ pocketbooks are not ultimately at risk, then Bivens actions are always inappropriate. 

10 And while the majority could be right that, as a policy matter, tort suits against financially

11 indifferent defendants are unwise, who are we as federal appellate judges to say that what is

12 standard tort law in every state in the nation, and what has been repeatedly approved by the

13 Supreme Court and every federal circuit, is fatally unacceptable?

14 As to graymail, defendants in civil suits are always subject to pressures to settle, yet this

15 has never been considered a reason to bar categorically a type of suit against government

16 officials. Is the desire to avoid the revelation of state secrets (a desire that is already fully

17 accommodated by the state secrets doctrine) so different from the desire to avoid, for example,

18 devastating reputational injury, which will often drive a state or federal entity’s response to a

19 suit? How is the hassle attendant on a claim like Arar’s—the “enmesh[ing of] government

20 lawyers” and the “elicit[ing of] government funds for settlement,” Maj. Op. at 39—so much

21 worse here than it is in the types of suits that every state has chosen to permit and that all three

22 branches of the federal Government have accepted since Bivens was issued almost 40 years
 On the subject of graymail, something must be said in response to the majority’s 12

remarkable insinuation that Canada has been the victim of graymail at Arar’s hands. Maj. Op. at

53-54. (“It is not for nothing that Canada (the government, not an individual officer of it) paid

Arar $10 million dollars.”). The Canadian government decided on its own accord to initiate an

inquiry into its role in Arar’s treatment, an investigation that operated independently of Arar’s

suits. That inquiry was “specifically precluded from making any findings (or even assessments)

as to whether the Government of Canada would be civilly liable to Mr. Arar.” Report of the

Events Relating to Maher Arar: Analysis & Recommendations, Commission of Inquiry into the

Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar 362 (Sept. 18, 2006). It had no power

to recommend payment, but instead just expressed the facts surrounding Arar’s treatment,

spelling out Canada’s conduct vis-à-vis Arar in hundreds of pages of detail. The Canadian

government considered that report and decided to compensate and apologize to Arar. In other

words, Canada voluntarily established a commission the entire purpose of which was to

determine and discuss publicly what the Canadian government did to Arar; it then assessed those

facts and concluded that it should negotiate a settlement with him and formally apologize for the

role of Canadian officials. Many lessons could be drawn from this process for the American

response to allegations like Arar’s, but one thing quite clearly cannot be said: that what happened

in Canada is tantamount to graymail.

 My fellow dissenters have said all that needs to be said about the majority’s insistence 13

that Arar’s action is “a constitutional challenge to policies promulgated by the executive” and

that Bivens actions cannot proceed where they “affect diplomacy, foreign policy and the security

of the nation.” Maj. Op. at 38. And as to the ominous-sounding warning that “[s]uch a suit

unavoidably influences government policy” and “invades government interests,” Maj. Op. at 39, I

would not think that an unconstitutional course of government action is shielded from scrutiny

merely because it can be described as a “policy” or “interest.” If the DEA had a “policy” of

conducting warrantless home searches, would we hesitate to influence it? See Bivens, 403 U.S.

at 389-90. If corrections officials acted on an “interest” in denying their inmates medical care,

would we hesitate to invade it? See Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 16 (1980).

12

1 ago?12

2 These, then, are the majority’s determinative “special factors”: a mix of risks that are

3 amply addressed by the state secrets doctrine and policy concerns that inhere in all Bivens actions

4 and in innumerable every-day tort actions as well. This maladaptation of a Bivens analysis, as 13

5 far as I can tell, is motivated by a belief that the majority’s holding is necessary to protect our

6 nation’s security. But, as I have already said, that worthy concern both can be and should be

7 protected by already existing ordinary law and not by reaching out and potentially warping the
 The fact that a claim involves an open and plausible constitutional question should be 14

no bar to a state secrets ruling. As in Iqbal, a court can simply “assume, without deciding, that

[plaintiff’s Bivens] claim is actionable” and determine whether a case must be dismissed even on

the legal theory most favorable to the plaintiff. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1948. 

13

1 Constitution. 

2 III

3 The state secrets doctrine has recently come in for significant criticism, much of it

4 warranted. In particular, many commentators—not to mention the Obama administration and a

5 Ninth Circuit panel—have suggested that outright dismissal of a case on state secrets grounds

6 should be disfavored. See, e.g., Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., 563 F.3d 992, 1006 (9th

7 Cir. 2009), amended at 579 F.3d 942, reh’g en banc granted by No. 08-15693, 2009 U.S. App.

8 LEXIS 23595; Policies and Procedures Governing Invocation of the State Secrets Privilege,

9 Memorandum from the Attorney Gen. to Heads of Exec. Dep’ts and Agencies (Sept. 23, 2009),

10 available at http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/state-secret-priviliges.pdf. There is much to

11 these concerns. But I would note three reasons that a threshold dismissal for want of evidence

12 due to the existence of state secrets (if that were eventually determined necessary) would be

13 preferable to the constitutional holding made today. And this would be so, I suggest, quite apart

14 from the importance of adhering to the canon of constitutional avoidance. 

15 First, a dismissal because a party simply cannot (for reasons of state secrets) proffer

16 necessary evidence says nothing about the merits of the underlying claim. While this may be 14

17 deeply unfair to a party who has been grievously injured (as we must assume Arar was), it, at

18 least, does no damage to the legal standards by which other parties’ claims are judged. 

19 Second, a routine practice of first considering state secrets avoids the risk of a certain type
 At oral argument, however, the Government did indicate that it could accept such a 15

remand.

14

1 of Government gamesmanship. If the Government has the option of seeking a state secrets

2 dismissal both before and after a decision on some open question, then it has the ability to moot

3 unfavorable rulings. Consider the strategy in this case. The Government’s initial filing before

4 the District Court sought a state secrets dismissal. In its brief for this en banc hearing, however,

5 after it had won a favorable substantive ruling from the District Court and the panel, the

6 Government did not mention any interest in a remand for a state secrets dismissal. It seems 15

7 more than likely that, had the District Court or the panel found against the Government on the

8 Bivens question, the Government would be arguing to us that the opinion below should be

9 vacated pending a state secrets determination. To be sure, a party has no obligation to fire all of

10 its guns at once when a single argument can shoot a claim down. And I do not mean to imply

11 any devious motive on the part of the Government in this case in particular. But there is no

12 reason to structure our law to facilitate such conduct.

13 Third, and most important, a holding that Arar, even if all of his allegations are true, has

14 suffered no remediable constitutional harm legitimates the Government’s actions in a way that a

15 state secrets dismissal would not. The conduct that Arar alleges is repugnant, but the majority

16 signals—whether it intends to or not—that it is not constitutionally repugnant. Indeed, the

17 majority expressly states that the legal significance of the conduct Arar alleges is a matter that

18 should be left entirely to congressional whim. See Maj. Op. at 56-57. While a state secrets

19 dismissal would similarly move the locus of redress to the political branches, it would do so not

20 by holding that the harm done to Arar is of no concern to the judiciary or to the Constitution. It
 Consider the closing remarks of Judge Ellis in his state secrets dismissal of Khaled El- 16

Masri’s similar allegations:

It is important to emphasize that the result reached here is required by settled, controlling

law. It is in no way an adjudication of, or comment on, the merit or lack of merit of ElMasri’s complaint. . . . [P]utting aside all the legal issues, if El-Masri’s allegations are

true or essentially true, then all fair-minded people, including those who believe that state

secrets must be protected, that this lawsuit cannot proceed, and that renditions are a

necessary step to take in this war, must also agree that El-Masri has suffered injuries as a

result of our country’s mistake and deserves a remedy. Yet, it is also clear from the result

reached here that the only sources of that remedy must be the Executive Branch or the

Legislative Branch, not the Judicial Branch.

El-Masri v. Tenet, 437 F. Supp. 2d 530, 540-41 (E.D. Va. 2006). 

15

1 would do so, instead, by acknowledging an institutional limitation—due to the presence of state

2 secrets—that is independent of the merits of Arar’s claim and would, thereby, invite other

3 branches to look into those possible merits. 

4 This leads to my final point. Whether extraordinary rendition is constitutionally

5 permissible is a question that seems to divide our country. It seems to me obvious, however, that

6 regardless of the propriety of such renditions, an issue on which I won’t hide my strong feelings,

7 mistakes will be made in its operation. And more obvious still is that a civilized polity, when it

8 errs, admits it and seeks to give redress. In some countries, this occurs through a royal

9 commission. In the United States, for better or worse, courts are, almost universally, involved. 

10 This being so, and regardless of whether the Constitution itself requires that there be such

11 redress, the object must be to create and use judicial structures that facilitate the giving of

12 compensation, at least to innocent victims, while protecting from disclosure those facts that

13 cannot be revealed without endangering national security. That might well occur here through

14 the application of a sophisticated state secrets doctrine. It does not occur when, at the outset, 16
16

1 Arar’s claims—though assumed true and constitutionally significant—are treated as lacking any

2 remedy. And this is just what today’s unfortunate holding does. It hampers an admission of

3 error, if error occurred; it decides constitutional questions that should be avoided; it is, I submit,

4 on all counts, utterly wrong. I therefore must regretfully, but emphatically, dissent.