Source: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/state_secrets/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 22:35:17+00:00

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In its lengthy, well-reasoned, and unanimous opinion in American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) v. Clapper, the Second Circuit today concluded that NSA's bulk telephony metadata collection is not authorized by §215 of the PATRIOT Act, 50 USC §1861(b)(2)(A). After hearing oral arguments last September, the panel reversed the district court's opinion that had rejected both the statutory and constitutional challenges to the scheme. Recall that this widespread collection has been controversial since the program was first revealed through information obtained by Edward Snowden; we've additionally discussed the issues here, here, and here.
appellants’ alleged injury requires no speculation whatsoever as to how events will unfold under § 215 – appellants’ records (among those of numerous others) have been targeted for seizure by the government; the government has used the challenged statute to effect that seizure; the orders have been approved by the FISC; and the records have been collected.
The panel likewise held that the ACLU organizations have standing to assert a First Amendment violation regarding its own and its members' rights of association.
However, the court did not rule on the Fourth and First Amendment claims explicitly, although its conclusion regarding §215 occurs in the shadow of the constitutional issues, or as the court phrases it: "The seriousness of the constitutional concerns" has "some bearing on what we hold today, and on the consequences of that holding."
What the court does hold is that "the telephone metadata program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized and there violates §215." After a discussion of the program and §215, it first considers the government's arguments that the judiciary is precluded from considering the issue. The court interestingly observes that judicial preclusion here would "fly in the face of the doctrine of constitutional avoidance."
[I]t would seem odd that Congress would preclude challenges to executive actions that allegedly violate Congress’s own commands, and thereby channel the complaints of those aggrieved by such actions into constitutional challenges that threaten Congress’s own authority. There may be arguments in favor of such an unlikely scheme, but it cannot be said that any such reasons are so patent and indisputable that Congress can be assumed, in the face of the strong presumption in favor of APA review, to have adopted them without having said a word about them.
The court likewise held that there was no implicit preclusion.
Search warrants and document subpoenas typically seek the records of a particular individual or corporation under investigation, and cover particular time periods when the events under investigation occurred. The orders at issue here contain no such limits. The metadata concerning every telephone call made or received in the United States using the services of the recipient service provider are demanded, for an indefinite period extending into the future. The records demanded are not those of suspects under investigation, or of people or businesses that have contact with such subjects, or of people or businesses that have contact with others who are in contact with the subjects – they extend to every record that exists, and indeed to records that do not yet exist, as they impose a continuing obligation on the recipient of the subpoena to provide such records on an ongoing basis as they are created. The government can point to no grand jury subpoena that is remotely comparable to the real‐time data collection undertaken under this program.
Moreover, the court relies on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PLCOB) Report regarding the overbreadth, noting that "counterterrorism in general" is not sufficiently narrow. Further, the court states that the government's interpretation reads the "investigation" language of §215 out of the statute, and even more specifically, §215's language "relevant to an authorized investigation (other than a threat assessment)."
Again, the court squarely rests its conclusion on §215 and avoids the constitutional issues. Nevertheless, it does discuss them. It largely relegates the First Amendment issue to a footnote (footnote 12). Its discussion of the Fourth Amendment issue is more robust, including a discussion of Smith v. Maryland, the 1979 pen register case, and United States v. Jones, the 2012 GPS case.
These constitutional issues would - - - should? - - - shape any understanding by Congress according to the court.
Concurring, Judge Robert Sack, emphasizes that the role of the courts should not be minimized. Judge Sack's concurrence is also worth reading its more robust discussion of the First Amendment issues.
Perhaps unexpectedly, the court does not enjoin the metadata collection program. The court notes that §215 is set to expire and that it is "prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape." Yet, it strongly implies, it remains ready and able to reach the constitutional issues if necessary.
The Law Review at Lincoln Memorial University in Knoxville, Tennessee is soliciting papers for its January Symposium "The Snowden Effect."
To be considered for publication in the symposium issue, please submit by October 15, 2014: (1) an abstract or a draft article; and (2) a curriculum vitae (CV). Participation in the Symposium is not a requirement for publication in the symposium issue. All materials should be submitted through the LMU Law Review’s website.
For more information contact the Editor in Chief of the law review at jacob.baggett (AT)lmunet.edu.
The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in the closely watched case of Risen v. United States (13-1009).
Recall our analysis of the sharply divided Fourth Circuit panel opinion in United States v. Sterling, with James Risen as Intervernor, that declared there was no First Amendment right - - - or common law privilege - - - for a reporter to resist a subpoena to reveal the identity of a source.
Disparate Views of the Secret Service: The Court and the Realities?
In the oral arguments last week in Wood v. Moss and the Court's 2012 decision in Reichle v. Howards, the Secret Service was center stage. Recall that both cases involve qualified immunity for Secret Service agents against constitutional claims and raise the specter that the individual agents acted inappropriately. And in both cases, there is some valorization of the agents and their difficult task of protecting the President (in Wood) and the Vice-President (in Reichle).
Arguing for the United States Government in Wood v. Moss, the Deputy Solicitor General expressed the fear that not upholding qualified immunity would lead to a "demoralization of the service leaning in the direction of being overly careful and therefore risking the life of the President" and that allowing discovery is "exactly the nightmare scenario that the Secret Service fears" including "
discovery into what the agents were thinking" and "what the Secret Service's policies were."
Officers assigned to protect public officials must make singularly swift, on the spot, decisions whether the safety of the person they are guarding is in jeopardy. In performing that protective function, they rightly take into account words spoken to, or in the proximity of, the person whose safety is their charge. Whatever the views of Secret Service Agents Reichle and Doyle on the administration’s policies in Iraq, they were duty bound to take the content of Howards’ statements into account in determining whether he posed an immediate threat to the Vice President’s physical security. Retaliatory animus cannot be inferred from the assessment they made in that regard.
But one wonders how positive views of the Secret Service suffer given recurrent scandals involving the Secret Service. As the United States Supreme Court was considering Reichle, there was the scandal in Colombia involving more than a dozen agents, but a later Homeland Security report (official synposis here) found that there was not "widespread sexual misconduct." Most recently, at least one agent assigned to protect the President was reportedly "found drunk and passed out in a hotel hallway." This latest scandal was reportedly not good news for the Secret Service's first woman director who has "tried to implement reforms." One former Secret Service agent writes in a WaPo op-ed that the problem is not bad agents but bad leadership."
But whether attributed to bad leadership or what might be called "bad apples," should these revelations about the bad judgments of secret service agents influence the Court's own judgments? Doctrines such as qualified immunity and strict pleading requirements that prevent discovery serve to protect Secret Service agents from their "nightmares" (as the Deputy Solicitor General phrased it), but might they also insulate the Secret Service from responsibility for the nightmares they cause others.
Calls for Congressional Action on Surveillance: "The Day We Fight Back"
Labeled "The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance," February 11, 2014 has been designated as a day to "make calls and drive emails to lawmakers" regarding two pieces of legislation.
The activists support the USA Freedom Act, S 1599 ("Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection, and Online Monitoring Act). The Electronic Frontier Foundation supports the bill, but considers it a "floor not a ceiling" and discusses its limitations including not covering persons outside the US, encryption, and standing issues. The ACLU legislative counsel "strongly supports" the legislation, noting that while it is not perfect, it is an "important first step," and highlights the fact that one of the sponsors in the House of Representatives is Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who "was the lead author of the Patriot Act and now is the chair of the House's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Crime."
The activists urge the rejection of The FISA Improvements Act S 1631, most closely associated with the bill's sponsor, Dianne Feinstein.
While focused on legislative action, many of the materials and arguments ground themselves in the First and Fourth Amendments. Organizers state that the day commemorates Aaron Swartz, who also invoked constitutional norms.
A new book, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger tells the "never-before-told full story of the 1971 history-changing break-in of the FBI offices in Media, Pennsylvania" that made clear the "shocking truth" that J. Edgar Hoover was spying on Americans and which led to the Ciontelpro scandal.
"Unlike Mr. Snowden, who downloaded hundreds of thousands of digital N.S.A. files onto computer hard drives, the Media burglars did their work the 20th-century way: they cased the F.B.I. office for months, wore gloves as they packed the papers into suitcases, and loaded the suitcases into getaway cars. When the operation was over, they dispersed. Some remained committed to antiwar causes, while others, like John and Bonnie Raines, decided that the risky burglary would be their final act of protest against the Vietnam War and other government actions before they moved on with their lives."
The NYT video, part of its "retro report" series is definitely worth a watch.
"I think most striking in the Media files at first was a statement that had to do with the philosophy, the policy of the FBI," Medsger says. "And it was a document that instructed agents to enhance paranoia, to make people feel there's an FBI agent behind every mailbox."

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