Source: http://openjurist.org/516/f2d/594
Timestamp: 2015-09-02 17:13:17
Document Index: 397855132

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2510', '§ 2511', '§ 2511', '§ 2510', '§ 2510', '§ 646', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 2516', '§ 2510', '§ 1331', '§ 2520', '§ 2511', '§ 2511', '§ 2518', '§ 2518', 'art.234']

516 F2d 594 Zweibon v. N Mitchell | OpenJurist
516 F. 2d 594 - Zweibon v. N Mitchell Home
516 F2d 594 Zweibon v. N Mitchell 516 F.2d 594
170 U.S.App.D.C. 1
Bertram ZWEIBON et al., Appellants,v.John N. MITCHELL, Individually and as Attorney General ofthe United States of America, et al.
Argued Oct. 23, 1974.Decided June 23, 1975.As Amended June 24, 1975.
Appellants, 16 individuals who were members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a domestic political organization, brought this damage action against appellees John Mitchell, then Attorney General, and nine special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation alleging that in the course of an electronic surveillance installed by appellees on JDL's New York headquarters appellants' conversations were illegally overheard in violation of both the Fourth Amendment and Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520 (1970). The primary defense interposed against this action was the assertion that the surveillance was in fact legal because it was "authorized by the President of the United States, acting through the Attorney General in the exercise of his authority relating to foreign affairs and was deemed essential to protect this nation and its citizens against hostile acts of a foreign power and to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States." The legality of such warrantless surveillance, based on threats to the national security involving foreign powers, had been explicitly reserved by the Supreme Court in United States v. United States District Court (Keith), 407 U.S. 297, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972), which held that no such exception to the warrant requirement exists when the national security threat solely involves domestic organizations. The District Court in this case held that the reserved question in Keith should be decided in favor of appellees, and found that, in light of JDL's activities both violent and peaceful directed against Soviet diplomatic and cultural installations in this country and the threat of Soviet retaliation against Americans living in Moscow and a worsening of Soviet-American diplomatic relations, warrantless installation of these wiretaps was reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The District Court further ruled that the provisions of Title III were inapposite when national security surveillance is involved, and granted appellees' motion for summary judgment. Held : A warrant must be obtained before a wiretap is installed on a domestic organization that is neither the agent of nor acting in collaboration with a foreign power, even if the surveillance is installed under presidential directive in the name of foreign intelligence gathering for protection of the national security. Moreover, the warrant must be obtained and executed in compliance with the procedures of Title III.
(d) In balancing individual rights and governmental needs in the intelligence gathering area, it is clear that prior judicial review can prevent Executive abuses and safeguard not only the Fourth Amendment right of privacy, but also the First Amendment values of freedom of speech and association. Thus prior judicial review should be required unless it will frustrate the legitimate goals of surveillance. A search of prior cases upholding the President's asserted right to conduct warrantless foreign security surveillance reveals almost a total lack of reasons for not requiring a warrant. Nevertheless, possible factors that might dictate abrogation of the warrant requirement include (1) lack of judicial competence to deal with foreign affairs data; (2) danger of security leaks which might endanger the lives of informants and agents and which might seriously harm national security; (3) the fact that such surveillance is not being used for criminal prosecutions, but only for "strategic" intelligence gathering; (4) the possibility that the delay involved in the warrant procedure might result in substantial harm to national security; and (5) the fact that the administrative burden on the courts or the Executive Branch which would result from such a requirement would be enormous. Our analysis of these factors indicates that none is persuasive as a reason for abrogating the warrant procedure when the President seeks to obtain information that affects foreign affairs. Infra, --- U.S.App.D.C. at --- - ---, 516 F.2d at 633-652.
(a) The dictum in Keith concerning possible future congressional legislation in the national security area is consistent with our holding that Congress intended Title III to be as comprehensive as possible, covering all surveillance which the Constitution dictates must be conducted only after securing judicial approval. This statutory construction is supported by the language of Title III, by its legislative history, by the fate of proposed wiretap legislation over the past 20 years, and by various policy considerations. Infra, --- U.S.App.D.C. at --- - ---, 516 F.2d at 659-670.
(b) Appellees may on remand, however, avoid damages on both constitutional and statutory grounds if they can establish (1) that they had a subjective good faith belief that it was constitutional to install warrantless wiretaps under the circumstances of this case, and (2) that this belief was itself reasonable. Infra, --- U.S.App.D.C. at --- - ---, 516 F.2d at 670-673.
Circuit Judge McGOWAN, concurring in the judgment of the court only on statutory grounds, concluded that in order to escape the statute's general prohibition of warrantless electronic surveillance, 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1) (1970), the instant wiretaps must fall within the statutory exemption for "measures . . . necessary to protect the Nation against actual or potential attack or other hostile acts of a foreign power." Id. § 2511 (3). Since, in Judge McGowan's view, such measures do not include surveillances directed, as these were, at citizens having no affinity with a foreign power whose hostile acts are feared, he would hold the instant surveillances illegal on that ground alone, without reference to the Constitution.
Circuit Judge ROBB concurs in the judgment of the court on statutory grounds without reaching the constitutional questions.
Circuit Judge WILKEY, concurring in the judgment of the court only on constitutional grounds and dissenting on statutory grounds, concluded that:
Although not regulated by or in violation of the provisions of Title III, the warrantless surveillance of the JDL nevertheless violated the minimal procedural requirements of the Constitution; therefore, the appellants have a cause of action against the appellees for damages under the Fourth Amendment.
(a) The question whether the surveillance should be exempted from the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement can only be answered by balancing the exigencies of intelligence gathering in this case against the constitutional values placed on prior judicial approval.
(b) The waiver approved by the District Court is an extremely broad exemption whose employment by the Executive might be subject to inordinate abuse. It poses a grave threat to the Fourth Amendment values of privacy, political freedom, and judicial oversight of governmental searches and seizures which are not outweighed in this case by the need for speed, secrecy, expertise, and Presidential freedom of action in foreign intelligence operations.
(c) The arguments for a "foreign affairs" exemption from the warrant requirement are strongest where foreign agents and collaborators with a foreign power are involved. In addition, an exemption limited to this narrow class of criminals minimizes conflict with First and Fourth Amendment values.
(d) If a "foreign affairs" exemption exists, therefore, it applies only to surveillances involving foreign agents and collaborators. It has no application to the warrantless wiretaps employed by the Executive here.
Circuit Judge MacKINNON concurs in part, dissents in part, and files a separate statement.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (D.C. Civil No. 2025-71).
Nathan Lewin, Washington, D. C., with whom Herbert J. Miller, Jr., and Martin D. Minsker, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellants.
Edward S. Christenbury, Atty., Dept. of Justice, with whom Henry E. Petersen, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Kevin T. Maroney, Deputy Asst. Atty. Gen., were on the brief, for appellees.
Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and WRIGHT, McGOWAN, LEVENTHAL, ROBINSON, MacKINNON, ROBB and WILKEY, Circuit Judges, sitting en banc.
Circuit Judge J. SKELLY WRIGHT announced the judgment of the court and delivered an opinion in which Circuit Judges LEVENTHAL and ROBINSON concurred and in which Chief Judge BAZELON concurred except as to Part III-B, concerning which he filed an opinion dissenting in part.
Circuit Judges McGOWAN and ROBB filed opinions concurring in the judgment.
Circuit Judge WILKEY filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Circuit Judge MacKINNON filed a dissenting opinion.
Over the past several years there has been increasing anxiety1 and increasing litigation2 concerning actions which the Executive Branch of our Government has undertaken under the rubric of "national security." Undoubtedly the President, our Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces, is imbued by the Constitution with vast and indispensable powers for dealing with the vital problems generated by our relations with foreign powers, including the duty to protect this country from foreign aggression or subversion.3 The very existence of such tremendous power, however, renders it susceptible to abuse4 and endangers those fundamental personal liberties which the Government was instituted to secure for its citizens and whose exercise elevates the nation to a statute worthy of defense.5 Thus, although the attempt to claim Executive prerogatives or infringe liberty in the name of security and order may be motivated by the highest of ideals,6 the judiciary must remain vigilantly prepared to fulfill its own responsibility to channel Executive action within constitutional bounds.7 The present case embodies this problem in a particularly acute form, since we are faced with the delicate and difficult task of reconciling the President's asserted power to obtain foreign intelligence information through use of electronic surveillance with the citizen's cherished right to maintain his privacy and associations inviolate against unreasonable governmental intrusion. Moreover, we must determine whether Congress, in enacting Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520 (1970), intended to affect this relationship by providing a remedy for illegal Executive surveillance.
* Plaintiffs-appellants, 16 individuals who were members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) during the period covered by this action,8 sought damages from John Mitchell, then Attorney General of the United States, and nine special agents or employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation9 for electronic surveillance overhearings of plaintiffs' telephone conversations which transpired during the month of October 1970 and from January 5 through June 30, 1971.10 The overhearings were alleged to violate plaintiffs' rights under both Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520 (1970),11 and the Fourth Amendment.12
The instant action was filed shortly after pretrial proceedings in the consolidated criminal cases United States v. Bieber, No. 71-CR-479 (E.D.N.Y.), and United States v. Joffe, No. 71-CR-480 (E.D.N.Y.),13 revealed that the Justice Department had installed wiretaps on the telephones of JDL's New York headquarters without prior judicial approval, and had overheard conversations of certain defendants who were about to stand trial. At a subsequent hearing before Judge Weinstein,14 the Government prosecutor admitted that six telephone lines had been involved in the taps and that there were "volumes and volumes" of transcripts of intercepted communications.15 Plaintiffs-appellants herein allege that their conversations were illegally monitored16 by this surveillance during calls they made to or from, or calls they received on or from, those telephones.
Although defendants-appellees have since admitted that each of the named plaintiffs had in fact been overheard during conversations over the telephones in question, they claim that this surveillance did not abridge plaintiffs' statutory or constitutional rights.17 The primary ground for this position was explicated in an affidavit submitted by former Attorney General Mitchell, in which he stated:18
The surveillance of this telephone installation was authorized by the President of the United States, acting through the Attorney General in the exercise of his authority relating to the nation's foreign affairs and was deemed essential to protect this nation and its citizens against hostile acts of a foreign power and to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States * * *.
Judge Pratt, on cross-motions for summary judgment in the District Court, sustained this assertion and granted defendants' motion, finding as a matter of fact that the Attorney General had authorized the wiretaps "after a determination was made by him that the activities of the JDL were obviously detrimental to the continued peaceful relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and threatened the President's ability and constitutional authority to conduct the foreign relations of this country," Zweibon v. Mitchell, D.D.C., 363 F.Supp. 936, 942 (1973), and holding as a matter of law that "(n)o prior authorization from a Court is necessary where, as in this case, electronic surveillances relate to the foreign aspects of our national security." Id. at 943.19 Judge Pratt then concluded that when there is a "clear threat to this country's foreign relations, it is the executive and not the judiciary, which should determine whether or not an electronic surveillance requires prior judicial authorization," id., and that the Attorney General's actions were "reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and were therefore lawful." Id. at 944.
Judge Pratt's findings that these surveillances were motivated by foreign threats to the national security, and were a reasonable response in light of those threats, are premised on the actions and statements of JDL members and the reactions they provoked on the part of officials of the Soviet Union. Although the JDL was originally organized to achieve various domestic goals, its focus eventually shifted to the international arena, where it was primarily directed at opposing the Soviet government's restrictive emigration policies as they related to Soviet Jewry.20 In furtherance of these ends, JDL members21 engaged in a broad spectrum of activities directed against Soviet officials and installations in the United States. These activities ranged from purely peaceful demonstrations through acts of violence, including the bombing of Amtorg and Intourist-Aeroflot22 offices in New York City.23 Soviet officials vigorously and continuously protested these activities, for which they held the United States Government responsible. In the wake of these protests the Attorney General, fearing the possibility of international embarrassment or Soviet retaliation against American citizens living in Moscow, initially gave his approval to an FBI request for authorization to install wiretaps on JDL headquarters during the month of October 1970 on the occasion of the 25th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.24
Although there was no evidence that this surveillance had achieved its purported aim of "provid(ing) advance knowledge of any activities of JDL causing international embarrassment to this country,"25 the Attorney General approved a second FBI request for authority to install a wiretap beginning in early January 1971. This second request for a wiretap on JDL headquarters, which was approved to last for a period of 90 days,26 was based solely on the fact that JDL demonstrations, many of which were "marked by violence," were targeted against Soviet installations in this country and were the subject of official Soviet protests.27 Once again the surveillance was "expected to provide advance knowledge of activities of the (JDL) directed against anti-Jewish diplomatic establishments, which could create situations of international embarrassment to the United States."28 This wiretap was extended for another 90-day period, based on the FBI's unsubstantiated assertion that "the authorized surveillance has continued to reveal details of plans by the * * * JDL to continue its program of harassment of Soviet and Arab bloc officials * * *. In each instance the (wiretap) installation furnished otherwise unobtainable information, well in advance of public statements by the JDL, thereby allowing for adequate countermeasures to be taken by appropriate police and security forces."29 Apparently despite any intelligence information so gathered, JDL activities continued in full force during the period of the surveillance; indeed, the surveillance failed to generate information that would have prevented the bombing of Amtorg offices on April 22, 1971, which was reportedly executed by JDL members.30 After 208 days, the wiretap installation was finally terminated, on June 30, 1971.31 During this period, neither Mr. Mitchell nor other officials of the Attorney General's office reviewed the information obtained from or the necessity for the taps,32 and Mr. Mitchell was unaware that the taps continued for more than a month after criminal indictments were handed down against several individuals (five of whom are plaintiffs in this case) whose conversations, including those with their attorney,33 were overhead in violation of Justice Department regulations.34
In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), the Supreme Court held that a federal cause of action exists to remedy violations of the Fourth Amendment and that damages are recoverable upon proof that injuries resulted from the violation. There is still some doubt, however, as to whether all warrantless wiretapping constitutes such a violation. In 1967, the Supreme Court first ruled that warrantless electronic surveillance conducted through non-trespassory methods35 is an unreasonable search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). But in a footnote, see id. at 358 n.23, 88 S.Ct. at 515, the Court explicitly cautioned:
Although three Justices expressed their views on this subject in concurring opinions,36 the issue was not squarely presented37 to the Court until United States v. United States District Court (Keith ), 407 U.S. 297, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972), narrowed the scope of the possible exception to the warrant requirement.
In a carefully reasoned opinion, Mr. Justice Powell, writing for six members of the Court,38 held that no exception exists for surveillance justified solely on the basis of domestic threats to the national security. Despite the fact that the Court expressed no opinion as to the result that would be required if foreign powers were involved in the threat to the national security,39 some courts have subsequently held that such an exception to the warrant requirement in fact exists.40 We have serious doubts as to the methodology employed by those courts,41 and we therefore undertake to analyze the issues with which we are presented in a manner more faithful to the spirit and rationale of Keith. For although this case is a civil damage suit, it squarely poses the problem of the meaning and scope of the Keith decision and the validity and viability of any distinction between surveillance justified on the basis of foreign, as opposed to domestic, threats to the national security.
Although we believe that an analysis of the policies implicated by foreign security surveillance42 indicates that, absent exigent circumstances, all warrantless electronic surveillance is unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional, our holding need not sweep that broadly. Instead, we hold today only that a warrant must be obtained before a wiretap is installed on a domestic organization that is neither the agent of nor acting in collaboration with a foreign power, even if the surveillance is installed under presidential directive43 in the name of foreign intelligence gathering for protection of the national security. We do not reach this conclusion lightly or without sensitivity to the import or the controversiality of the problem of national security wiretapping. But the Constitution compels us to do no less. In any event, our decision does not limit in any way the ability of the President to conduct legitimate national security wiretaps, since we do not address the substantive scope of that power44 or the exact standards upon which warrants should issue.45 Rather, we merely decide that whatever the legitimate scope of that power, and whatever the standard which must be met to justify the intrusion of a wiretap, the decision as to whether the scope has been exceeded or the standard has been met is to be made by a neutral and disinterested magistrate or judge rather than by an Executive official engaged in investigatory or prosecutorial duties, at least in situations where the subject of the surveillance is a domestic organization that is not the agent of or acting in collaboration with a foreign power.46A.
Before engaging in our Fourth Amendment analysis, we must dispose of an argument, based on alleged precedent, that has been implicitly advanced by several courts47 as well as by appellees in this case.48 This argument in effect asserts that prior presidential practice and several Supreme Court holdings establish the President's preeminent power over the conduct of foreign affairs, and that this power in turn establishes the inherent authority of the President to engage in warrantless national security surveillances as a necessary concomitant of this responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces49 and Chief Executive of the nation.50
To be sure, the fact that the Keith Court found the President's powers with respect to domestic affairs insufficient to justify an exception to the warrant requirement when the domestic aspects of national security are involved, yet refused to specify what procedures would be entailed if the national security threat had its origin with foreign powers,51 indicates that any difference in result must turn on the President's peculiar powers in the field of foreign affairs. However, the precedents of Executive practice and judicial decisions merely substantiate the existence of those powers and legitimate the authority of the President to obtain information necessary to protect the national security from foreign aggression; they do not preordain the procedures with which the President must comply in exercising that authority. We will therefore discuss these precedents to elaborate why they are not themselves conclusive of the procedural52 question; in a later section of this opinion we will scrutinize them to determine whether they are based on any policies which would be frustrated if a warrant requirement were to apply to the category of foreign security surveillances.
Admittedly, Presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have authorized their Attorneys General to approve investigations "to secure information by listening devices direct to the conversation or other communications of persons suspected of subversive activities against the Government of the United States."53 However, this practice has never received Supreme Court approval, and there can be no doubt that an unconstitutional practice, no matter how inveterate, cannot be condoned by the judiciary.54 Indeed, the Supreme Court in Keith merely treated the similarly long-standing Executive practice of conducting surveillance "in cases vitally affecting the domestic security"55 as indicative of the unchallenged Executive power to obtain intelligence information, not as determinative of the proper procedures to be followed in so doing.56 Even more important, this Executive practice must be considered in its historical context, which illustrates why the 30-year policy of presidentially directed electronic surveillance has no substantial bearing on whether the practice of warrantless surveillance is now constitutional.
To appreciate this problem, one must remember the Supreme Court's unfortunate decision in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928). Over vigorous dissents, including the renowned Brandeis celebration of personal privacy, the Olmstead Court held that, absent an actual physical trespass, there is no search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Thus, from 1928 until 1967,57 there was simply no dispute that the Fourth Amendment was inapplicable to non-trespassory electronic surveillance; it was for this reason that warrants were not required. However, shortly after the Olmstead decision, Congress enacted Section 605 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934,58 which provided that
no person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any radio communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person.
Section 605 was interpreted to prohibit the introduction into evidence of both the contents of conversations overheard on wiretaps installed by law enforcement officials, see Nardone v. United States, 302 U.S. 379, 58 S.Ct. 275, 82 L.Ed. 314 (1937), and the fruits of such overhearings, see Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939).59
Although various bills were subsequently introduced to avoid the effects of these decisions, they never received congressional approval.60 Nevertheless, the Justice Department construed the Nardone decisions not to prohibit wiretapping itself. As one Attorney General explained:
The question soon arose as to whether mere interception by federal agents of messages was forbidden by Section 605. The Attorney General (Jackson) at that time took the view that what the law prohibited was both interception and divulgence, and that mere report of the intercepted message to public officials by FBI or other federal agents did not constitute divulgence.61
Attorney General Jackson announced in 1940 that the Justice Department would discontinue wiretapping; he reversed that position, however, two months later, after receiving a confidential memorandum from President Roosevelt, the first such presidential directive in the corpus of Executive precedents cited as authorizing warrantless wiretapping. In effect, the memorandum was actually a reaction to the statutory construction decision of Nardone, not an assertion of presidential immunity from constitutional constraints. Accepting the Nardone holding that evidence obtained through wiretaps could not be introduced in criminal prosecutions, President Roosevelt nevertheless did not accept the view that the statute prohibited the wiretapping itself, since he discounted the possibility that any dictum in Nardone was intended "to apply to grave matters involving the defense of the nation."
The Roosevelt memorandum clearly related solely to "wiretapping" which, unlike "bugging," was generally accomplished without a physical trespass.62 Thus neither his memorandum nor those of Presidents Truman and Johnson63 actually discussed the warrant requirement, since Olmstead had rendered the Fourth Amendment inapposite where non-trespassory surveillance was involved. Indeed, presumably because bugging was generally of a trespassory nature and thus subject to Fourth Amendment strictures even before Katz, President Johnson's pre-Katz memorandum on national security surveillance recognized that "(u)tilization of mechanical or electronic devices to overhear non-telephone conversations is an even more difficult problem (than wiretapping), which raises substantial and unresolved questions of Constitutional interpretation."64
We need not recount how this practice of presidentially authorized electronic surveillance has grown from a highly circumscribed and infrequently employed device under President Roosevelt65 to its extensive scope under Presidents Truman and Johnson and its magnitude as an explicitly asserted constitutional exception under Presidents Nixon and Ford.66 Nor need we maintain that if the Supreme Court in Olmstead had held the Fourth Amendment applicable to non-trespassory surveillance, prior Presidents would not have claimed a constitutional exception from the warrant requirement. We recount the background of this Executive practice only to refute the argument that it should be viewed as an affirmative statement by prior Presidents that they were not subject to the warrant procedure of the Fourth Amendment when they acted for national security purposes. Indeed, there are no similar memoranda from these Presidents advocating unwarranted physical trespasses, to which the Fourth Amendment would have applied.67 To be sure, the Executive Branch and its law enforcement agencies had become accustomed to conducting non-trespassory electronic surveillance unhampered by prior judicial scrutiny; it was therefore expedient to argue for a constitutional exception once Katz eliminated the trespassory/non-trespassory distinction in Fourth Amendment doctrine. However, even if we ignore the fact that expediency is no soil in which to root a constitutional doctrine, we must still stress the fact that support for a constitutional exception simply cannot be derived from Executive actions that solely concerned statutory matters and whose evolution was based on considerations other than the Fourth Amendment and the proper means of effectuating its guarantees.
The second type of precedential authority relied on to justify warrantless national security surveillances is comprised of Supreme Court decisions not implicating the Fourth Amendment but relating to the President's broad powers over the conduct of foreign affairs. A very brief survey of these cases will reveal that they may be roughly divided into three overlapping subclasses: (1) cases finding that our "political" relations with foreign governments are nonjusticiable; (2) cases recognizing that the President has certain "inherent" powers in the field of foreign affairs which are not dependent upon congressional authorization; and (3) cases recognizing an evidentiary privilege shielding information pertaining to military or diplomatic secrets from disclosure in open court. It will be seen that despite broad dicta in some of these cases, none stands for the proposition that the Executive Branch is immune from constitutional strictures in the conduct of the nation's foreign affairs. Indeed, after discussing these cases we will scrutinize a separate line of cases which has clearly subjected the Executive Branch to the normal system of constitutional checks and balances, and which has clearly indicated the limited ability of the President to justify actions taken in the United States on the basis of conditions abroad or relations with foreign powers.
The paradigmatic case of the first subclass of precedents concerning the President's conduct of foreign affairs is United States v. Belmont, 301 U.S. 324, 57 S.Ct. 758, 81 L.Ed. 1134 (1937), which appellees cite for the broad proposition that "the conduct of foreign relations was committed by the Constitution to the political departments of the government, and the propriety of what may be done in the exercise of this political power (is) not subject to judicial inquiry or decision." Id. at 328, 57 S.Ct. at 760, quoted in brief for appellees at 23. See also Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 302, 38 S.Ct. 309, 62 L.Ed. 726 (1918); United States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203, 222-223, 229, 62 S.Ct. 552, 86 L.Ed. 796 (1942). This language should not, however, be divorced from its factual predicates. Belmont, Pink, and Oetjen were all basically "act of state" cases,68 and the sole presidential decision that was given conclusive force concerned who was to be considered the lawful sovereign of the foreign power. Once the legitimate sovereign is determined, the act of state doctrine precludes his acts from being reexamined by the courts of another sovereign state.
In Oetjen, which only involved the "action, in Mexico, of the legitimate Mexican government when dealing with a Mexican citizen," 246 U.S. at 303, 38 S.Ct. at 311, this doctrine disposed of the case.69 However, in Belmont and Pink, which involved an Executive agreement accepting the assignment to the United States of Russia's claims against property nationalized pursuant to a decree by the Russian government, objections were raised that the nationalization violated our Constitution. Although acknowledging the Executive's power to negotiate and finalize the agreement, the Court nevertheless addressed the constitutional validity of the Soviet expropriation. In Belmont the Court held that the Constitution has no extraterritorial effect, except with respect to United States citizens, 301 U.S. at 332, 57 S.Ct. 758, and in Pink the Court held that the Fifth Amendment does not bar the federal government from giving priority to its own claims and those of its nationals as opposed to those of foreign creditors. 315 U.S. at 228, 62 S.Ct. 552. Thus viewed, the language quoted from these cases can be seen to be of limited value when a court is faced with the constitutional validity of actions undertaken domestically, even if in furtherance of the President's foreign affairs powers.
The paradigmatic case of the second subclass of precedents concerning the President's conduct of foreign affairs is United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 57 S.Ct. 216, 81 L.Ed. 255 (1936), which held that, because they are of different origin and nature, the federal government's domestic and foreign powers are of a very different scope:
The broad statement that the federal government can exercise no powers except those specifically enumerated in the Constitution, and such implied powers as are necessary and proper to carry into effect the enumerated powers, is categorically true only in respect of our internal affairs. * * *
Not only, as we have shown, is the federal power over external affairs in origin and essential character different from that over internal affairs, but participation in the exercise of the power is significantly limited. In this vast external realm, with its important, complicated, delicate and manifold problems, the President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. * * *
* * * (H)e, not Congress, has the better opportunity of knowing the conditions which prevail in foreign countries, and especially is this true in time of war. He has his confidential sources of information. He has his agents in the form of diplomatic, consular and other officials. Secrecy in respect of information gathered by them may be highly necessary, and the premature disclosure of it productive of harmful results.
Id. at 315-320, 57 S.Ct. at 219, quoted in United States v. Butenko, 3 Cir., 494 F.2d 593, 602 n. 36, cert. denied, sub nom. Ivanov v. United States, 419 U.S. 881, 95 S.Ct. 147, 43 L.Ed.2d 121 (1974). Although Curtiss-Wright certainly supports the contention that the President's powers are not limited to those specifically enumerated in the Constitution, it is inapposite to the question of how those powers are to be reconciled with the mandate of the Fourth Amendment. For as the Curtiss-Wright Court itself recognized, "like every other governmental power, (the President's plenary power over foreign relations) must be exercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the Constitution." 299 U.S. at 320, 57 S.Ct. at 221 (emphasis added). Moreover, it must be remembered that although the Court recognized a core of inherent presidential power not dependent upon legislative authorization, see id., the question actually presented in Curtiss-Wright was the constitutionality of a congressional delegation of power to the President, that is, whether a congressional resolution granting the President authority to prohibit arms shipments to an area of armed conflict vested him with an excess of discretion.70 Indeed, the dicta as to the need for secrecy of information were uttered in the context of the reasonableness of "congressional legislation which is to be made effective through negotiation and inquiry." Id. Finally, unlike the domestic searches and seizures conducted in this case, the legislation in Curtiss-Wright was "intended to affect a situation in a foreign territory," id. at 321, 57 S.Ct. at 221; Curtiss-Wright, like all other "presidential power" cases, simply did not address the manner in which the President's foreign affairs powers are to be accommodated with the Fourth Amendment's dictates.71
Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman Steamship Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 68 S.Ct. 431, 92 L.Ed. 568 (1948), similarly recognized that the President possesses in his own right certain powers with respect to foreign affairs.72 In construing the judicial review provision of the Civil Aeronautics Act, 49 U.S.C. § 646,73 not to authorize review of those orders, which are subject to approval by the President, concerning applications by citizen carriers to engage in overseas and foreign air transportation, Mr. Justice Jackson, writing for a sharply divided Court, penned an extensive passage which has often been cited or quoted as supporting the President's power to engage in warrantless national security surveillance. See United States v. Brown, 5 Cir., 484 F.2d 418, 426 (1973); United States v. Clay, 5 Cir., 430 F.2d 165, 171 (1970) (alternative holding), reversed on other grounds, 403 U.S. 698, 91 S.Ct. 2068, 29 L.Ed.2d 810 (1971); United States v. Smith, C.D.Cal., 321 F.Supp. 424, 426 (1971) (dictum); United States v. Butenko, D.N.J., 318 F.Supp. 66, 72 (1970), affirmed, 3 Cir., 494 F.2d 593, cert. denied, 419 U.S. 881, 95 S.Ct. 147, 42 L.Ed.2d 121 (1974). Mr. Justice Jackson proclaimed:
The President, both as Commander-in-Chief and as the Nation's organ for foreign affairs, has available intelligence services whose reports are not and ought not to be published to the world. It would be intolerable that courts, without the relevant information, should review and perhaps nullify actions of the Executive taken on information properly held secret. Nor can courts sit in camera in order to be taken into executive confidences. But even if courts could require full disclosure, the very nature of executive decisions as to foreign policy is political, not judicial. Such decisions are wholly confided by our Constitution to the political departments of the government, Executive and Legislative. They are delicate, complex, and involve large elements of prophecy. They are and should be undertaken only by those directly responsible to the people whose welfare they advance or imperil. They are decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and which has long been held to belong in the domain of political power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry. * * *
333 U.S. at 111, 68 S.Ct. at 436.
It is important to recognize that this declaration was made in the context of determining congressional intent for purposes of construing the judicial review provisions of the Civil Aeronautics Act; indeed, the actual decision in Waterman, based as it was on statutory construction, has been considerably eroded since 1948.74 We thus do not find the above dicta conclusive as to the justiciability of presidential actions when a constitutional provision is at issue. Even Justice Jackson did not hesitate, only four years after authoring the Waterman opinion, to hold President Truman's seizure of domestic steel mills unconstitutional, despite its claimed necessity for preservation of national security during wartime. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 634, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952) (concurring opinion). Dismissing Waterman as an example of the "wide definition of presidential powers under statutory authorization," see id. at 636 n.2, 72 S.Ct. at 871, he warned:
(N)o doctrine that the Court could promulgate would seem to me more sinister and alarming than that a President whose conduct of foreign affairs is so largely uncontrolled, and often even is unknown, can vastly enlarge his mastery over the internal affairs of the country by his own commitment of the Nation's armed forces to some foreign venture.
Id. at 642, 72 S.Ct. at 873. Since the national security claim in Youngstown was based on armed conflict, the direct action involving foreign affairs, it is doubtful that the Justice would have approved such an expansion of powers over internal affairs, which are inevitably involved in every wiretap situation, merely upon the President's assertion that his "conduct" of foreign policy is affected.
Similarly, we see no reason to take the Waterman dicta as a Supreme Court statement that any issue that touches foreign affairs is to be immunized from judicial review, particularly when there are strong countervailing constitutional interests that merit judicial protection. Indeed, the Supreme Court has itself recognized that
(t)here are sweeping statements to the effect that all questions touching foreign relations are political questions. * * * Yet it is error to suppose that every case or controversy which touches foreign relations lies beyond judicial cognizance. Our cases in this field seem invariably to show a discriminating analysis of the particular question posed, in terms of the history of its management by the political branches, of its susceptibility to judicial handling in the light of its nature and posture in the specific case, and the possible consequences of judicial action.
Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 211, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962).75 As the Keith Court realized, the decision whether a citizen's privacy may constitutionally be invaded is not a "political" question similar to such questions as who should receive an overseas air route or who is the lawful sovereign of a foreign country; rather, it is a question of providing a bulwark against Executive excess, a task which the Fourth Amendment deliberately allocated to the neutral officials of the judiciary.76 Moreover, as we will elaborate extensively below, we do not understand why a court cannot sit in camera to receive enough information to determine the legitimacy of Executive requests for authorization to conduct electronic surveillance. No one seriously contends that some degree of in camera judicial review of the same information would be impermissible in the context of a post hoc criminal prosecution based on evidence derived from such surveillance, and the Supreme Court has itself authorized in camera determinations of the validity of asserted Executive privilege with respect to evidence which might reveal military or diplomatic secrets.77 More particularly, the Supreme Court has already directed lower courts to assess the legality under the Fourth Amendment of foreign security wiretaps, and has given no indication whatever that such a task is nonjusticiable.78 Finally, to the extent Executive determinations in the area of foreign relations merit judicial deference or are based on confidential or sensitive information, the judiciary could fashion the standard of probable cause to account for any lack of expertise on its part and to accommodate the need to maintain such confidences as the identity of Government agents and the reasons underlying an Executive decision to pursue a particular foreign policy.79
The paradigmatic case of the third and final subclass of precedents concerning the President's conduct of foreign affairs is found in dicta in the recent decision of United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (July 24, 1974), which reaffirmed the evidentiary privilege of the Executive Branch with respect to production of documents whose publication could endanger military or diplomatic secrets. See also United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 7-11, 73 S.Ct. 528, 97 L.Ed. 727 (1953); Nixon v. Sirica, 159 U.S.App.D.C. 58, 71, 79, 487 F.2d 700, 713, 721 (1973).80 Although quoting the Waterman statement concerning judicial nullification of Executive action based on confidential information, see 418 U.S. at 710, 94 S.Ct. at 3107-3110, and although it was abundantly clear that, if the legitimacy of an asserted privilege could be determined without an in camera inspection, such an inspection should not be ordered,81 the Nixon Court reiterated the longstanding judicial position that the applicability of any privilege is undeniably a question for the courts to decide:
Since this Court has consistently exercised the power to construe and delineate claims (of the Legislative or Executive Branches) arising under express powers, it must follow that the Court has authority to interpret claims with respect to powers alleged to derive from enumerated powers.
418 U.S. at 704, 94 S.Ct. at 3105.82 The role of the judiciary and the propriety of judicial scrutiny of documents allegedly pertaining to national security were also evident in the procedure mandated by the Court:
When the subpoenaed material is delivered to the District Judge in camera questions may arise as to the excising of parts (on the basis of military or diplomatic privilege) and it lies within the discretion of that court to seek the aid of the Special Prosecutor and the President's counsel for in camera consideration of the validity of particular excisions, whether the basis of excision is relevancy or admissibility or (sic ) under such cases as Reynolds, supra, or Waterman Steamship, supra.
418 U.S. at 715 n.21, 94 S.Ct. at 3111 n.21.83
This brief survey of the types of cases which have acknowledged, either in holding or in dictum, the vast scope of Executive power in the domain of foreign relations should clarify any misconception that they render that power exempt from judicial review or immune to constitutional limitations. Indeed, there is another series of cases which graphically establishes the limits on presidential power when national security is used as a talisman to invoke extraordinary powers in the conduct of domestic affairs. Probably the most celebrated decision holding executive action unconstitutional is Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, supra, previously referred to with respect to Mr. Justice Jackson's concurrence, which found that President Truman's order directing the Secretary of Commerce to seize and operate most domestic steel mills, in order to avert a nationwide steel strike that the President believed would threaten the national defense, was without statutory or constitutional basis. The case posed the question of inherent Executive power in stark form, since the Korean conflict exacerbated the potential consequences of any steel strike:
The indispensability of steel as a component of substantially all weapons and other war materials led the President to believe that the proposed work stoppage would immediately jeopardize our national defense and that governmental seizure of the steel mills was necessary in order to assure the continued availability of steel.
343 U.S. at 583, 72 S.Ct. at 865. Although the President asserted that he had inherent power, under the aggregate of his constitutional powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and as the nation's Chief Executive, to avert the "national catastrophe" which would result from such a work stoppage, see id. at 582, 584, 72 S.Ct. 863, a majority of the Court did not hesitate to rule that, under the circumstances of the case, the exercise of his asserted power was unconstitutional. And although Youngstown involved the question of the Executive's usurpation of legislative power without congressional authorization, an analogous problem is presented when the President attempts to usurp the judiciary's traditional and constitutional role of giving prior approval to searches and seizes that need not be immediately undertaken due to exigent circumstances.
A plethora of other cases have similarly recognized constitutional limits on the President's powers as Commander-in-Chief or as the nation's spokesman in the arena of foreign affairs. The Supreme Court has indicated that "even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties," Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 426, 54 S.Ct. 231, 235, 78 L.Ed. 413 (1934) (dictum), and that, despite allegations that a newspaper's "publication of (the contents of a classified study recounting the history of American decision-making on Viet Nam policy) should be restrained because it would gravely prejudice the defense interests of the United States," see United States v. Washington Post Co., 144 U.S.App.D.C. 326, 327, 446 F.2d 1327, 1328 (en banc) (per curiam), affirmed, 403 U.S. 713, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971), the Government had not overcome the First Amendment's presumption against imposition of prior restraints. See New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 714, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971) (per curiam);84 cf. United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 263, 88 S.Ct. 419, 420, 19 L.Ed.2d 508 (1967) ("the phrase 'war power' cannot be invoked as a talismatic incantation to support any exercise of congressional power which can be brought within its ambit"). The Court has also refused to allow the Executive to ignore constitutional strictures during wartime. See, e. g., Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U.S. 304, 66 S.Ct. 606, 90 L.Ed. 688 (1946) (substitution of military law for civilian process unconstitutional despite allegation that Hawaii was in danger of attack and martial law was necessary); Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2, 121, 18 L.Ed. 281 (1866) (President cannot impose martial law on civilians, thereby suspending the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial, "where the courts are open and their process unobstructed"); Mitchell v. Harmony, 54 U.S. (13 How.) 115, 134, 14 L.Ed. 75 (1852) (compensation under the Fifth Amendment would be required even if private property were lawfully destroyed by military officers to keep it from falling into enemy hands); cf., e. g., Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 5, 17, 77 S.Ct. 1222, 1230, 1 L.Ed.2d 1148 (1957) (plurality opinion) (military trial of civilian dependents abroad unconstitutional, since the "prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the Senate combined"); Ex parte Merryman, 17 Fed.Cas. No. 9487, p. 144 (C.C.Md.1861) (Taney, C. J.) (President cannot suspend the writ of habeas corpus ). But cf. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 92, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774 (1943) (constitutional for Congress and Executive, acting together, to order internment of United States citizens of Japanese ancestry as an emergency war measure). In light of these cases, which unqualifiedly subject the President to constitutional limitations,85 we must undertake an analysis of whether the Fourth Amendment mandates that the President must in fact submit his national security wiretapping installations to prior judicial approval.B.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees one of our "indispensable freedoms,"86 the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. It dictates are simple:
In its brief to this court arguing that warrantless electronic surveillance conducted pursuant to the President's foreign affairs powers does not violate the strictures of this Amendment, the Government87 in effect continues to advance88 a theory of the Fourth Amendment that the Supreme Court has consistently discredited: that "(t)he relevant test is not whether it (was) reasonable to procure a search warrant, but whether the search was reasonable."89 We are advised that we must focus our attention on "the circumstances of this case," brief for appellees at 8; that "the circumstances to be weighed by this Court in considering the reasonableness of the conduct of the Executive challenged herein, are the actions of the Jewish Defense League, directed toward Soviet officials in this country, which were of such a character as to materially effect (sic ) the relations between this country and the Soviet Union, and which through the threat of reciprocal action, endangered the lives of American citizens in that country," id. at 25-26; that we need not consider the implications of warrantless surveillance on the exercise of First Amendment rights, since "the actions of the Jewish Defense League, which necessitated the surveillance of their organization, simply were not limited to the exercise of constitutionally protected speech and conduct," id. at 27 (emphasis added); and that the reasonableness of warrantless wiretapping is somehow predetermined by the legitimate need of the Executive Branch to acquire information, see generally id. at 21-32. These are all erroneous contentions. Unfortunately, in their zeal to present a favorable facade of justifications for these surveillances, appellees have only superficially addressed the substantial questions concerning the relative merits and demerits of requiring the Government to proceed by way of the warrant procedure in obtaining necessary foreign intelligence information.90
Quoting Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 439, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 2527, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973), appellees correctly observe that the "ultimate standard set forth in the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness." Brief for appellees at 25. However, they neglect to quote the immediately following sentence, which represents the proper approach to a Fourth Amendment problem:
In construing this command (of reasonableness), there has been general agreement that "except in certain carefully defined classes of cases, a search of private property without proper consent is 'unreasonable' unless it has been authorized by a valid search warrant." Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528-529 (87 S.Ct. 1727, 1731, 18 L.Ed.2d 930) (1967). See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454-455 (91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564) (1971).91
It is of course true, as appellees contend, that "the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit all warrantless searches and seizures."92 However, the presumption has always been that a warrant should be obtained whenever practicable, and exceptions to the warrant requirement have been based on exigent or other circumstances where delay would frustrate legitimate police activity. Indeed, in Keith the Supreme Court recognized that these exceptions "are few in number and carefully delineated." 407 U.S. at 318, 92 S.Ct. at 2137.93
Thus, although we do not "seriously doubt in this time of serious international insecurity and peril that there is an imperative necessity for obtaining foreign intelligence information, and we do not believe such gathering is forbidden by the Constitution," brief for appellees at 29-30, quoting United States v. Clay, supra, 430 F.2d at 172, this is but the beginning, not the end, of our inquiry.
The question is not, at this stage at least, whether these inspections may be made, but whether they may be made without a warrant. * * * In assessing whether the public interest demands creation of a general exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, the question is not whether the public interest justifies the type of search in question, but whether the authority to search should be evidenced by a warrant, which in turn depends in part upon whether the burden of obtaining a warrant is likely to frustrate the governmental purpose behind the search.
Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 533, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1733, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967) (emphasis added). In Keith, the Supreme Court reiterated this methodology:
If the legitimate need of Government to safeguard domestic security requires the use of electronic surveillance, the question is whether the needs of citizens for privacy and free expression may not be better protected by requiring a warrant before such surveillance is undertaken. We must also ask whether a warrant requirement would unduly frustrate the efforts of Government to protect itself from acts of subversion and overthrow directed against it.
407 U.S. at 315, 92 S.Ct. at 2135 (emphasis added).94 Similarly, here we must determine whether a warrant requirement will better protect Fourth Amendment rights when foreign intelligence gathering is involved, and whether such a requirement would unduly fetter the legitimate functioning of the Government. For unless there are valid reasons for abrogating the warrant procedure when foreign relations are implicated, the President must comply with that traditional procedure. We cannot, as appellees and some courts have done, simply ignore that threshold question in determining the reasonableness of searches and seizures carried out in furtherance of the President's responsibilities for protecting the national security from foreign dangers.
To admit that there is a legitimate need on the part of the Executive Branch to acquire foreign intelligence information for either long- or short-term national security purposes95 is not, we must repeat, to admit that the locus of initial decision-making power as to the propriety of a particular surveillance should itself rest with the Executive Branch. As the Supreme Court recognized in both Katz v. United States, supra, and Keith, the Fourth Amendment is a bulwark against unreasonable governmental intrusion by non-trespassory as well as by trespassory means; both the spirit and the history of that Amendment demonstrate that there is a legitimate expectation that one's conversations no less than one's home are to be sheltered by the full panoply of Fourth Amendment safeguards. And of the potential safeguards, "(p)rior review by a neutral and detached magistrate is the time-tested means of effectuating Fourth Amendment rights." Keith, 407 U.S. at 318, 92 S.Ct. at 2137.96
Prior judicial review is important not only to protect the privacy interests of those whose conversations the Government seeks to overhear, but also to protect free and robust exercise of the First Amendment rights of speech and association by those who might otherwise be chilled by the fear of unsupervised and unlimited Executive power to institute electronic surveillances.97 As the Keith Court stressed:
National security cases * * * often reflect a convergence of First and Fourth Amendment values not present in cases of "ordinary" crime. Though the investigative duty of the executive may be stronger in such cases, so also is there greater jeopardy to constitutionally protected speech. * * * History abundantly documents the tendency of Government however benevolent and benign its motives to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies.
407 U.S. at 313-314, 92 S.Ct. at 2135. Such a convergence of First and Fourth Amendment values is particularly evident in the case before us. Many of the JDL activities98 which antagonized the Soviet government were clearly protected exercises of First Amendment rights.99 Indeed, there is no evidence that more than a small percentage of the thousands of JDL members engaged in criminal activity. Yet the actions of that minority have formed the basis for intrusive surveillance that lasted over seven months and that resulted in seizure of the contents of the conversations of innumerable innocent individuals. As appellants forcefully argue:
(A)n examination of the logs (of the surveillance) would show that it (sic ) contains the names and addresses of many individuals who called the organization, contributed funds or membership dues, and gave the office receptionist information regarding their mailing addresses. A broadside attempt to obtain such a membership list would plainly violate the First Amendment's protection for association (NAACP v. Button (Alabama ex rel. Patterson), 357 U.S. 449 (78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488) (1958); Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516 (80 S.Ct. 412, 4 L.Ed.2d 480) (1960)), and to obtain it by such clandestine means is a patent evasion of the constitutional liberty.
Brief for appellants at 30.100 In reconciling the Government's need for information with the rights of these individuals, a judge in a warrant proceeding might have limited the surveillance to the phones of those actually suspected of criminal behavior, or directed that no recordings or logs be made101 of conversations that clearly pertained to lawful JDL political or organizational activities.
Of course, even if this case itself involved only nonprotected activity, the problem of chilling First Amendment rights of others would remain. In Keith, for example, the defendant's alleged bombing of a CIA office would certainly have been beyond the pale of protected speech;102 yet the Court recognized that similar cases often would affect the exercise of fundamental personal rights.103 More important, appellees here do not limit their assertion of Executive power, and the holding of the District Court would appear to apply as readily to situations in which a foreign government threatened retaliation against American officials based solely on protected activities of American citizens.104 Nor would a limitation of such warrantless surveillance to "agents" of a foreign power105 alter the fact that First Amendment rights of others are likely to be chilled. Under such a test, a few alien members in a political organization would justify surveillance of the conversations of all members. For example, antiwar organizations which sponsored speeches by South Vietnamese political dissenters during the 1960's could have been wiretapped without a warrant because of the disruptive effect their actions allegedly had on the conduct of peace negotiations in Paris.106 Indeed, even a domestic political leader could be wiretapped without a warrant if the Government believed he had wittingly or unwittingly become the "agent" of a foreign power.107 To allow the Executive Branch to make its own determinations as to such matters invites abuse, and public knowledge that such abuse is possible can exert a deathly pall over vigorous First Amendment debate on issues of foreign policy.108
Thus confronted with the realization that prior judicial review can serve to safeguard both First and Fourth Amendment rights,109 we turn our attention to possible arguments for abrogating the warrant requirement where our national security is endangered by foreign threats. In so doing, we are mindful of the warning of the Supreme Court that such arguments must not be grounded in expediency or utility, but must relate to factors that would cause the warrant procedure to needlessly frustrate legitimate gathering of foreign intelligence information.110 However, since appellees have not directed our attention to such factors, we are relegated to seeking the rationales which have caused several other courts to except foreign intelligence activities from the strictures of prior judicial authorization.
In Keith, the Supreme Court cited United States v. Smith, supra, 321 F.Supp. at 425-426, United States v. Clay, supra, and American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Electronic Surveillance 120, 121 (Approved Draft 1971, and Feb. 1971 Supp. 11), for the "view that warrantless surveillance * * * may be constitutional where foreign powers are involved." 407 U.S. 322 n.20, 92 S.Ct. at 2139.111 The American Bar Association Project, after noting that "the national security interest is properly a concern primarily of the federal government under our constitutional system," merely asserts that "(l)imitations which are proper when the internal affairs of the nation are solely involved become artificial when international realities are considered," id. at 121; a system of prior judicial supervision would be "unworkable in this area." Id. No reasoning whatever is propounded as to why the warrant procedure would actually be "artificial" or "unworkable."112 In Clay the Fifth Circuit was similarly opaque. After determining that the wiretap was approved by the Attorney General and was made in connection with acquisition of foreign intelligence information, the court simply asserted:
No one would seriously doubt in this time of serious international insecurity and peril that there is an imperative necessity for obtaining foreign intelligence information, and we do not believe such gathering is forbidden by the Constitution or by statutory provision * * *.
430 F.2d at 172.113 We have, of course, recognized the necessity for such intelligence gathering,114 but we realize the necessity of also ascertaining whether such activities must first receive prior judicial approval. The Fifth Circuit, however, apparently advanced no reasons for its conclusion that no warrant is in fact required.
In Smith, the possible foreign security exception was mentioned purely as dictum, since the court was only presented with the question eventually decided in Keith. In deciding that question against the permissibility of warrantless domestic security surveillance, the Smith court distinguished a situation in which warrantless surveillance was predicated on foreign threats to the national security:
It might very well be that warrantless surveillance of this type, while unconstitutional in the domestic situation, would be constitutional in the area of foreign affairs. This possible distinction is largely due to the President's long-recognized, inherent power with respect to foreign relations.
321 F.Supp. at 426, citing Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S. S. Corp., supra, and United States v. Belmont, supra. We have already discussed this inherent power of the President,115 and have shown that it does not answer the question of the propriety of an exception to the warrant procedure. The Smith court, unlike appellees in this case, acknowledged this fact, since it then analyzed the asserted exception with respect to domestic security taps in terms of whether any factors militated in favor of abrogating the traditional warrant procedure.116 The principal factor which the Government there urged for that result was the fact
that the decision to initiate surveillance in this type of case must be "based on a wide variety of considerations and on many pieces of information which cannot readily be presented to a magistrate". Gov't Br. at 8.
321 F.Supp. at 428. Although the Smith court rejected this factor as a justification for warrantless domestic security surveillance, it noted that it might have greater force in the foreign security context:
In cases involving foreign affairs this argument might very well prevail. In that situation, numerous non-judicial factors are relevant and the decision would probably be far removed from the consideration of probable cause.
Id.117 This argument, which we will label the "judicial competence" argument, has some merit, and we will therefore address it as a possible justification for dispensing with the warrant requirement in foreign security cases.
Before doing so, however, we must consider whether post-Keith cases advanced other possible factors which we must consider. The cases, which all arose in the context of criminal prosecutions involving Alderman procedures,118 include United States v. Brown, 5 Cir., 484 F.2d 418 (1973), affirming E.D.La., 317 F.Supp. 531 (1970), and United States v. Butenko, 3 Cir., 494 F.2d 593 (1974) (en banc ), affirming D.N.J., 318 F.Supp. 66 (1970), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 881, 95 S.Ct. 147, 43 L.Ed.2d 121 (1974). Our reading of these opinions indicates that they simply overlooked the substantial body of case law,119 including Keith, which rejects the contention that the warrant requirement may be abrogated merely because the Government has a legitimate need to engage in certain activity. Instead of following the proper analysis of determining whether a warrant proceeding would frustrate the legitimate need of the Executive to acquire foreign intelligence information, these courts treated the need itself as determinative of the legality of warrantless surveillance.120 We find this methodology simply inconsistent with the spirit and holding of Keith and prior cases, particularly given the substantial First and Fourth Amendment interests that may be infringed by unsupervised surveillance.
Thus, mindful of the fact that the existence of presidential powers, whatever their scope, does not preclude a finding that the legitimate exercise of those powers would in no way be frustrated by subjecting them to prior judicial approval, we must look to commentators121 and our own reasoning for possible justifications for exempting such surveillance from prior judicial scrutiny. In addition to the "judicial competence" justification,122 such factors might include (2) the danger of "security leaks" which might endanger the lives of informants and agents and which might seriously harm the national security;123 (3) the fact that such surveillance is of the "ongoing intelligence gathering" type and that, since criminal prosecutions are less likely, Fourth Amendment protections are not as essential as in a normal criminal context;124 (4) the possibility that the delay involved in the warrant procedure might result in substantial harm to the national security;125 and (5) the fact that the administrative burden on the courts or the Executive Branch which would result from such a requirement would be enormous.126 We find that none of these factors is compelling.
(1) "Judicial competence": Although the judicial competence factor arguably has more force when made in the foreign rather than the domestic security context, the response of Keith to the analogous argument is nevertheless pertinent to any claim that foreign security involves decisions and information beyond the scope of judicial expertise and experience:
407 U.S. at 320, 92 S.Ct. at 2138 (emphasis added). Similarly, we do not believe federal judges will be "insensitive to or uncomprehending of the issues involved in" foreign security cases,127 or that judges will deny any legitimate requests for a warrant.
Congress apparently concurs in the belief that judges are competent to analyze the substance of matters allegedly pertaining to the national security. This attitude was unambiguously expressed by the passage of Public Law No. 93-502, 88 Stat. 1561 (1974), which amended the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552 (1970),128 to, inter alia, overrule the Supreme Court's decision in EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 93 S.Ct. 827, 35 L.Ed.2d 119 (1973). In Mink the Court interpreted 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1), which exempted from the forced disclosure mandate of the Act those matters "specifically required by Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of the national defense or foreign policy," not to allow judicial review of Executive security classifications and not even to allow in camera inspection of a contested document bearing a security classification so that nonsecret matter could be separated from secret matter and ordered disclosed. 410 U.S. at 81-84, 93 S.Ct. 827. Congress responded with amendments to Section 552 which altered Section 552(b)(1) to exempt from disclosure those documents which are:
(A) specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive order.129
It also specified that when the question of discoverability of a document is placed in issue, "the court shall determine the matter de novo, and may examine the contents of such agency records in camera to determine whether such records or any part thereof shall be withheld * * *."130
Although the conference report on these amendments expressed a congressional expectation that, since "Executive departments responsible for national defense and foreign policy matters have unique insights into what adverse effects might occur as a result of public disclosure of a particular classified record, * * * Federal courts * * * will accord substantial weight to an agency's affidavit concerning the details of the classified status of the disputed record," it unequivocally stated that the Mink decision was to be legislatively overruled with respect to in camera review and that the propriety of a document's classification was to be judicially determined with respect to "both procedural and substantive criteria contained in the Executive order under which it was classified."131 Moreover, despite the fact that the amendments were vetoed by the President, primarily on the ground that "the courts should not be forced to make what amounts to the initial classification decision in sensitive and complex areas where they have no particular expertise," 120 Cong.Rec. H10705 (daily ed. Nov. 18, 1974) (Veto Message from the President of the United States), both Houses of Congress overwhelmingly voted to repudiate that contention by convincingly overriding the presidential veto.132 Although such a congressional expression in no way binds us in the context of Fourth Amendment adjudication, we find that this vote of confidence in the competence of the judiciary affirms our own belief that judges do, in fact, have the capabilities needed to consider and weigh data pertaining to the foreign affairs and national defense of this nation.
The description of current Executive procedures for authorizing national security wiretapping also gives us reason to hesitate in according undue deference to the "expertise" that the Executive Branch brings to each decision. Former Attorney General Saxbe,133 testifying on "National Security Electronic Surveillance and S. 2820134 before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary," (Dept. of Justice release, Oct. 2, 1974), admitted that the practice of warrantless surveillance had apparently been abused in the past, see id. at 5-6,135 and then described current procedures:
First of all, for a request for a foreign intelligence surveillance to survive, it must first be approved by several different levels of supervision within the FBI before it even reaches the Director's office, and the request must contain very detailed information.
If the request originates in an FBI field office, the proposal will be considered by the case Agent, the Supervisor, and the Special Agent in Charge of the field office. At FBI Headquarters the request will be considered by the Supervisory Special Agent, the Unit Chief, the Section Chief, the Branch Chief, the Assistant Director, the Deputy Associate Director, and the Associate Director before it reaches the Director for his approval.
If the Director approves the request, it is then sent to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, Mr. Petersen. He then forwards the request with his recommendation and comments for my consideration. If, and only if, I approve the request can the surveillance be installed and then for a maximum period of three months, after which I will approve a renewal only with what I deem sufficient justification. Let me assure you that I do not approve these automatically.
Numerous requests are turned down long before they reach my desk. I personally have withheld some authorizations and on at least one occasion I have denied a request for an extension.
Id. at 6-7. With due deference to the former Attorney General, we believe this description, when considered together with the fact that there is a high turnover in the office of Attorney General,136 indicates that most actual decision making with respect to wiretapping occurs before a request reaches the desk of the Attorney General, and that he would therefore be predisposed to rely on the recommendations of his subordinates.137 We cannot blindly accept the argument that the Attorney General, who is chosen for his abilities as a lawyer rather than his acumen as a diplomat, is more likely than a federal judge138 to have the analytical ability or sensitivity to foreign affairs necessary to evaluate such recommendations. Indeed, there is even a danger that an Attorney General, pressed for time and involved in other activities, will effectively delegate the task of supervising national security wiretaps to his aides; such was the case with his arguably less important although statutorily mandated duty to supervise wiretapping under the provisions of Title III.139 To the extent the Attorney General bases his decisions on the factual data and recommendations of those career officials schooled in foreign relations and intelligence gathering, judges can be similarly informed in camera, as they often are during post hoc judicial review in criminal prosecutions or civil cases.140 We simply do not believe that any margin of expertise possessed by the Attorney General can compensate for the neutral and detached attitude that a judge would bring to his decision; given the likely deference that a judge will accord the Attorney General's request, there is no substantial likelihood that any marginal lack of expertise will result in denial of legitimate requests for a warrant and frustration of proper intelligence gathering on the part of the Executive.
Finally, the Executive Branch itself acknowledges the fact that courts are competent to conduct post hoc review to determine whether a surveillance is reasonable. In its Memorandum for the United States in Ivanov v. United States, cert. denied, 419 U.S. 881, 95 S.Ct. 147, 43 L.Ed.2d 121 (1974) (responding to petition for writ of certiorari to the Third Circuit), the Government took the position that since, in its judgment, reasonable warrantless national security surveillance is constitutional, Alderman does not require anything more than an in camera determination that the evidence was obtained from a reasonable wiretap. The Government argued:
The task of determining whether the purpose of a surveillance was foreign intelligence gathering is clearly not "too complex" nor is "the margin of error too great to rely wholly on the in camera judgment of the trial court." * * * Rather, in a field as delicate and sensitive as foreign intelligence gathering, there is every reason to proceed in camera and without disclosure.
Id. at 14.141 To be sure, the Government was making these arguments in support of restricting access to foreign intelligence information to the judge rather than to the private litigants. But the arguments must be evaluated against the realization that no one seriously denies that at least post hoc judicial review, under whatever standard of "reasonableness," is proper even for wiretaps installed pursuant to the President's foreign affairs powers.142 If a court can make a proper determination of reasonableness after a wiretap has been installed, and since the reasonableness of a search and seizure cannot depend on information secured after it occurs,143 there is no reason why judges should be presumed to be incompetent before the surveillance takes place.
Although judicial competence per se is thus no argument against prior rather than post hoc judicial review, there may be other factors actually behind the competence theory which would suggest that a warrant requirement would frustrate legitimate Executive surveillance. First, there may be a fear on the part of the Government that the standard of probable cause will be higher in a prior rather than in a post hoc judicial proceeding. Even if this were true as a practical matter, it is clearly wrong as a matter of law, and we decline to base a decision as to the legality of warrantless national security surveillances on so thin a reed. Moreover, we doubt whether this fear144 is realistic as a practical matter. As the quote from Keith indicates,145 judges are likely to be highly deferential to the Executive's determination concerning need to install a wiretap, particularly where a judicial error might substantially harm the national interest;146 in a post hoc review in a criminal or civil case, removed from the exigencies of day-to-day intelligence gathering activities, a court might be harsher in its judgment as to the reasonableness of the particular surveillance. And if pure practicalities are being considered, it should be remembered that the Government has its choice as to what judge to seek a warrant from,147 a circumstance usually not present with respect to post hoc judicial review.148
Actually, this aspect of the competence argument is properly directed to the standard for judicial review, not to whether it should occur before or after the surveillance takes place. To the extent nonjudicial policy factors constitute the Executive's rationale for desiring intelligence information, it is possible the standard for probable cause would reflect that fact.149 We must reemphasize the fact that we are not presented with the question of the scope of the President's substantive powers, but only with the procedural question whether a presidentially directed surveillance must run the gauntlet of judicial review before or after its installation. Since factors relating to judicial competence may arise at either time, we believe they should at most affect the standard of judicial review, not its timing.
Focusing on the timing of judicial intervention, however, we perceive a second fear that may actually be behind the judicial competence argument: even if the same standard is applied in prior as in post hoc judicial proceedings, an error before a surveillance occurs is likely to cause irreparable harm to the national security, whereas an error after it occurs may only result in improper award of damages or release of a single criminal defendant. The assumptions upon which this fear is based are, to say the least, questionable, and relate to the implicit belief that national security or foreign affairs information is of paramount import in all situations. The argument assumes that the erroneous invasion of individual privacy which prior review could prevent is invariably of less importance than the erroneous denial of information which could have been obtained from a reasonable wiretap. Even ignoring our belief that any error in a warrant proceeding is likely to be in favor of the Government, we find this view of foreign security information to be unduly myopic. Not only does it relegate the personal interests protected by the Fourth and First Amendments to the level of second-class rights,150 it also naively equates all foreign threats with such dangers as another Pearl Harbor.151
Domestic security information, which must, under Keith, be obtained pursuant to the warrant procedure, may be no less important than foreign security information, and the potential harm from judicial error no less devastating. For example, if there were grounds to believe that a massive conspiracy existed among military officers in this country to overthrow civilian rule and institute martial law, a judge would have to approve any surveillance. Yet the Government would have us approve a rule of law that would grant the President the power to himself authorize surveillance to obtain information pertaining to routine commercial affairs, so long as they "affected" such an international problem as our balance of payments.152 And it should be obvious that as the magnitude of a national security threat approaches that of a preemptive nuclear attack rather than that of a minor disruption of trade, the probability that a judge would erroneously deny the Executive the requested warrant approaches the infinitesimal.
A third possible fear behind the competence argument, and the one that is most realistic, is that a warrant procedure will deny the Government the benefits flowing from the fact that most surveillance could be barricaded from any judicial review if there were only post hoc review proceedings. Since surveillance often would not be used for prosecutorial purposes,153 and since few individuals would institute damage actions on the mere possibility that they were the subject of an unreasonable wiretap, much warrantless surveillance would never have its legality challenged.154 However, every search and seizure is properly subject to judicial review, and the fact that some searches are not actually reviewed is a mere convenience. To the extent that this argument is made an affirmative reason for abrogating the warrant procedure as a frustration of Executive power, it amounts to no more than an assertion that the Executive Branch's illegal activities are best kept secret.155 We find such an argument to be, to say the least, somewhat less than compelling.
Thus, given the fact that judicial review of Executive-ordered surveillance would be proper in any event after it occurs, the judicial competence argument has no substantial merit as a rationale for abrogating the warrant procedure.
(2) "Security leaks": It has been said that
(t)he President, both as Commander-in-Chief and as the Nation's organ for foreign affairs, has available intelligence services whose reports are not and ought not to be published to the world. It would be intolerable that courts, without the relevant information, should review and perhaps nullify actions of the Executive taken on information properly held secret.156
Disclosure of the secret information on which Executive decisions to install a wiretap are made would arguably pose the threat of security leaks which might endanger the national security or the lives of informants and agents, or which might frustrate the proposed surveillance itself. This argument was rejected in the domestic security context by the Supreme Court in Keith, see 407 U.S. at 320-321, 92 S.Ct. 2125, and we find that it is no more persuasive in the foreign security context. Since the warrant proceeding is conducted ex parte, disclosure of information can be restricted to the judge; administrative personnel can be provided by the Government should he require clerical or other assistance.157
Moreover, the Government can seek the warrant from a judge whose loyalty and discretion it considers unimpeachable. Indeed, judges generally have maintained confidences with respect to sensitive information in criminal investigations,158 and are likely to be even more careful where the national security is at stake.159 And as the Keith Court observed, "Title III * * * already has imposed this responsibility on the judiciary in connection with such crimes as espionage, sabotage and treason, § 2516(1)(a) and (c), each of which may involve domestic as well as foreign security threats."160 Furthermore, except for the possibility of frustrating the tap itself, most risks of security leakage will not be lessened in a post hoc review setting.161 Finally, it is important to realize that the judge need only satisfy himself that "probable cause"162 to conduct the surveillance exists. Thus, in cases where wiretapping would in fact be reasonable, the Government should be able to make this showing without actually disclosing the vast majority of the data it has available;163 indeed, even as to information which it does disclose, it could withhold the name or other information which would identify an informant or destroy the cover of an agent.164
(3) "Strategic" information-gathering: Foreign security wiretaps, even more than domestic security wiretaps,165 are likely to be aimed at collecting and maintaining "strategic" intelligence information on a continuing basis rather than at obtaining evidence for use in criminal prosecutions. Such long-term intelligence gathering is supposedly less offensive to Fourth Amendment values and less susceptible to judicial review than are searches in the criminal context.166 It is, of course, a myth to characterize national security surveillance as purely non-prosecutorial in the criminal sense; the whole controversy concerning wiretap legislation pre-Katz revolved around the question whether evidence obtained in the course of a national security surveillance should be admitted into evidence if the wiretap had not received prior judicial approval.167 Incriminating evidence is often uncovered through such a wiretap,168 and the cases which have dealt with the issue of the constitutionality of warrantless national security surveillance169 demonstrate that the Executive Branch will not hesitate to utilize the fruits of its surveillance to obtain criminal convictions.170
More important is the fact that "(o)fficial surveillance, whether its purpose be criminal investigation or ongoing intelligence gathering, risks infringement of constitutionally protected privacy of speech." Keith, supra, 407 U.S. at 320, 92 S.Ct. at 2138 (emphasis added). Indeed, the ongoing nature of such surveillance just increases its intrusiveness and the likelihood that individuals will fear that their conversations are being overheard. See id. Nor are the Fourth Amendment privacy interests any weaker merely because the offensive search does not lead to a criminal prosecution.171 Public disclosure of many legal activities could be highly embarrassing and intimidating; indeed, mere knowledge that one's "private" discussions have been overheard may be extremely insulting or traumatic.172 In short, the premise behind the "strategic information" rationale for abrogating the warrant procedure, the idea that the Fourth Amendment is limited to remedies in the criminal process, is anomalous, since it would suggest that the more innocent the individual the less protection his privacy interests merit.173
(4) "Delay ": It is frequently asserted that electronic surveillance must often be hastily instituted, and that the delay which would result from compliance with a warrant procedure could mean loss of essential intelligence information and subsequent disastrous harm to the national security.174 Admitting the validity of this contention, we nevertheless find it to be nothing more than an argument that warrantless electronic surveillance, like many other warrantless searches,175 may be justifiable in exigent circumstances. It cannot be gainsaid that even if national security surveillance is subjected to prior judicial approval a traditional exigent circumstances exception should be available where delay might cause irreparable harm. Indeed, even Title III provides for up to 48 hours of warrantless surveillance if "an emergency situation exists with respect to conspiratorial activities threatening the national security interest."176 However, to allow the potential for harm in certain exigent circumstances to serve as a justification for dispensing with a warrant in all national security contexts is to let the tail wag the dog. And particularly when one recalls that the average national security surveillance has a duration of from 70 to 200 days,177 it is obvious that even if a warrantless wiretap must be hastily installed, a judge could be requested within a brief period to authorize its continuation.178 Finally, given former Attorney General Saxbe's description of Executive procedures relating to departmental wiretap authorizations,179 it would appear that most wiretap installations are carefully planned in advance particularly where the goal is general intelligence gathering. Thus in the vast majority of cases delay will be no problem, and those rare cases in which it would be a problem may be subsumed within the normal exception for searches conducted in exigent circumstances.
(5) "Administrative burden" on courts and the Executive: It has been suggested that
judges (should not be) burdened with the grave responsibility of deciding whether (national security) surveillances are reasonable and necessary to fulfill information requirements of foreign policy and national defense (.)180
If this "burden" refers to the imposition of a task beyond the capability of the judiciary, our "judicial competence" argument should indicate our feelings as to this asserted factor for abrogating the warrant procedure. If, however, it refers to the desirability of removing the weight of responsibility for making admittedly difficult decisions from our shoulders, we can only respond that we are grateful for the sympathy with which our role is viewed. Nevertheless, we are mindful that the judicial system is the focal point of all the conflicts and controversies of our society, and that the task of a judge, though not always a pleasant or a simple one, is to resolve those controversies in the fairest manner of which he is capable. Faced with such problems, we can only recall Chief Justice Marshall's lament:
With whatever doubts, with whatever difficulties, a case may be attended, we must decide it, if it be brought before us. We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, then to usurp that which is not given. The one or the other would be treason to the constitution. Questions may occur which we would gladly avoid; but we cannot avoid them. All we can do is, to exercise our best judgment, and conscientiously to perform our duty.
Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 404, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821). Although the "burden" argument may be cast alternatively as the administrative cost and burden which will be imposed on the Executive Branch if it must justify in every case181 its request for a wiretap, we decline to accept an argument grounded in expediency as a basis for resolving our constitutional inquiry. As the Supreme Court in Keith observed in rejecting a similar argument in the domestic context, "Although some added burden will be imposed upon the Attorney General, this inconvenience is justified in a free society to protect constitutional values." 407 U.S. at 321, 92 S.Ct. at 2139.182
Having analyzed those factors which might dictate abrogation of the warrant requirement for that category of cases in which surveillance is based upon the President's constitutional powers with respect to the conduct of foreign affairs, we find that they do not suggest that the warrant procedure would actually fetter the legitimate intelligence gathering functions of the Executive Branch. Indeed, our analysis would suggest that, absent exigent circumstances, no wiretapping in the area of foreign affairs should be exempt from prior judicial scrutiny, irrespective of the justification for the surveillance or the importance of the information sought. As in Keith, we need not rest our decision on so broad a holding, since we are only presented with a case in which foreign threats of retaliation against individual citizens abroad were provoked by the actions of the domestic organization which was subsequently wiretapped, rather than a case in which the wiretapped organization acted in collaboration with, or as the agent of, the foreign power from which the threat emanated.183
In the Solicitor General's brief to the Supreme Court in Keith, the Government argued strenuously that foreign and domestic threats to the national security were often intertwined and that, since warrantless surveillance for foreign intelligence gathering should certainly be sustained, warrants should not be required for any national security surveillance.184 The Court rejected this argument by imposing the warrant procedure on domestic security wiretapping and limiting the scope of its decision. Pointing to the facts before it, the Keith Court made clear that no foreign threat was involved:
(T)he instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country. The Attorney General's affidavit in this case states that the surveillances were "deemed necessary to protect the nation from attempts of domestic organizations to attack and subvert the existing structure of Government" (emphasis supplied). There is no evidence of any involvement, directly or indirectly, of a foreign power.185
In concluding its opinion, the Court reemphasized the scope of its holding:
(T)his case involves only the domestic aspects of national security. We have not addressed, and express no opinion as to, the issues which may be involved with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents.186
Although appellants contend and appellees admit187 that the JDL is a domestic organization with no Russian connection, that fact does not mean that appellants are correct in their assertion188 that the warrantless surveillance here is automatically unlawful. In Keith, "(t)here was no evidence of any involvement, directly or indirectly, of a foreign power." Here, by contrast, while there is no collaboration between the JDL and Russia quite the reverse JDL's activities did involve Russia in a confrontation with the United States. Thus this case does indeed involve the foreign affairs of this country and therefore falls outside the holding in Keith and into the area it reserved for future disposition. Although the type of involvement here was not anticipated in Keith, there is no indication that Keith intended to limit "involvement" to collaboration with a foreign power. Collaboration simply was the most obvious example of how a domestic organization could become involved in the foreign affairs of this country.189
The rationale underlying Keith nevertheless requires that warrants be obtained before surveillance can take place on a domestic organization that shares no community of interest with the foreign power "involved" in the case. Judge Costantino, in assessing the legality of the same wiretaps involved in this case, although in a criminal context, succinctly stated the appropriateness of applying the reasoning of Keith to our case:
(T)he President's duty "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," was not (under Keith ) a sufficient basis to allow warrantless surveillance for the purpose of "domestic security." It would likewise be held, then, that the President's power to conduct foreign affairs would not be a basis for allowing warrantless surveillance of domestic groups whose activities and conduct are not in any way controlled by a foreign power. That a domestic group, through conduct which would be violative of the internal laws of this country, may by some indirect manner affect the relations between this country and another would not be, under the reasoning of Eastern District of Michigan, a sufficient cause to allow warrantless surveillance. Of greatest significance, is the fact that the conduct which forms the gravamen of this case involves "domestic" crimes, and that there is only an indirect relation between the alleged conduct of the defendants and the foreign affairs of this country.190
Much of the Keith opinion was concerned with the vagueness of the asserted power to protect the "domestic security"191 and the substantial danger to political dissent that could result from abuse of such a power. As we have noted,192 the concept of "affecting foreign relations" is no less vague and no less subject to abuse, particularly when a domestic organization has no positive nexus with the foreign power making threats against this country. It would indeed be anomalous to allow the Government to engage in warrantless surreptitious surveillance of activity, which would otherwise remain private and protected, merely because another government is antagonized by such activity. To the extent such activity constitutes domestic crime, there is no reason to accord the suspect less protection merely because a foreign power objects to the activity; to the extent such activity constitutes protected speech, there is the inherent danger that the Government will use the protests of foreign powers or the fact that the speech "affects" its foreign relations to dampen protests to its foreign relations policies. For example, such an exception to the warrant requirement would have allowed warrantless surveillance of all groups protesting our policies during the conflict in Vietnam, for the Johnson and Nixon Administrations were both of the opinion, in concurrence with the opinion of the government of South Vietnam, that such protests were making successful negotiation in Paris impossible and military operations in Vietnam more difficult, and that they thus posed a severe threat to the national security.193
Moreover, when domestic organizations are involved, not only are the interests in favor of requiring a warrant strongest, but the possible arguments against the warrant procedure, which are weak in any event, have even less force. There is less objection to the competence of judges to properly weigh the respective interests, since judges are both familiar with criminal activity and sensitive to the importance of protecting First Amendment rights. For example, the Government does not suggest that we are incapable of assessing the reasonableness of the wiretaps here in question on the basis of State Department documents which were also available when the surveillance was originally instituted. Furthermore, security leaks during a warrant proceeding are less likely to disrupt foreign relations in a case such as the present one, since the domestic organization by hypothesis has no ties with the foreign power. Indeed, if it had been disclosed that JDL conversations were being overheard in an effort to appease the Soviet Government, a furor might have resulted domestically, but it is doubtful such a disclosure would have caused the Soviet Union to act to our detriment.194 Moreover, in this case all of the essential information which prompted the wiretap installation, including the fact of Soviet protests, was already in the public domain.195 Nor is there as much force in the argument that long-term surveillance is justifiable for strategic information gathering purposes when the domestic organization can yield no information about "the intentions, capabilities and possible responses of other countries."196 For example, surveillance of the JDL could provide no information as to action which the Soviet Government would itself take. To the extent information on criminal activities which would antagonize the Soviet Union could be obtained through surveillance, a traditional warrant would serve as well; to the extent information on First Amendment demonstrations which would antagonize the Soviet Union could be obtained, it is doubtful whether the Government could or should be able to take any actions to prevent such "embarrassment."197
Most important, given the way in which almost any activity can be said to relate, at least remotely, to foreign affairs or foreign policy making, the potential scope of such an exception to the warrant requirement is boundless, and thus a substantial danger to the values the Fourth Amendment was fashioned to protect. And although we doubt that an exception to the warrant requirement should be created even for the activities of foreign agents or collaborators, at least such an exception would be more "carefully delineated"198 than an exception allowing warrantless wiretapping whenever the activities of domestic groups incur the wrath of a foreign power or affect in any manner the conduct of our foreign affairs.199
Since we have determined that the President's authority with respect to the conduct of foreign affairs does not excuse him from seeking judicial approval before instituting a surveillance, at least where the subject of the surveillance is a domestic organization that is not the agent of or acting in collaboration with a foreign power, we feel we should at least briefly adumbrate our views as to the role of the judge in such a proceeding. Although such a statement is not necessary for resolution of the pending case, we believe it would serve the salutary purpose of informing both the Executive Branch and members of the judiciary of some of the considerations which should guide their actions in the future.200 Moreover, we find such a statement particularly necessary in light of the fact that those courts which have limited the role of the judiciary to post hoc determination of the "reasonableness" of national security surveillances have also sharply circumscribed the judiciary's role in balancing the actual need of the Government for specific information against the interest in protecting the First and Fourth Amendment rights of our citizens.
For example, the Third Circuit in Butenko stated:
Since the primary purpose of these searches is to secure foreign intelligence information, a judge, when reviewing a particular search must, above all, be assured that this was in fact its primary purpose and that the accumulation of evidence of criminal activity was incidental. * * * Since, we reiterate, the district court has found that the * * * interceptions of conversations of (defendant) Ivanov were "solely for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information," they are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
United States v. Butenko, supra, 494 F.2d at 606 (emphasis added). And the Solicitor General, in his Memorandum in Response to the Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in Butenko, suggested that "(a)ll that the Fourth Amendment requires is a determination that the purpose of the surveillance is intelligence gathering."201 The full significance of this formulation only becomes apparent when one recognizes not only that it focuses on only one side of the Fourth Amendment balance, but also that "intelligence gathering" pursuant to the President's foreign affairs powers is not thereby limited to situations such as those enumerated in Title III threats of foreign attack or aggression, and intelligence and counterintelligence activities.202 The Third Circuit found that the President's duties as Commander-in-Chief and as the nation's representative in foreign affairs implied the responsibility to "exercise an informed judgment." 494 F.2d at 601. This responsibility seemingly opened the door to warrantless Executive intelligence gathering that would relate even remotely to any decision, however minor, pertaining to foreign relations: "(T)he efficient operation of the Executive's foreign policy-making apparatus depends on a continuous flow of information. A court should be wary of interfering with this flow. * * * The government (has a weighty interest in acquiring) the information necessary to exercise an informed judgment in foreign affairs." Id. at 605-606 (emphasis added).203
We recognize that the Supreme Court has indicated that the "probable cause" standard for warrant issuance is a flexible one which may vary depending on the type of search involved and the Government interests subserved thereby.204 And there are factors which indicate that the determination of probable cause for conducting a foreign, no less than for conducting a domestic, security surveillance should reflect the fact that "the focus of * * * surveillance may be less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime." 407 U.S. at 322, 92 S.Ct. at 2139. Thus it would appear to be proper to issue warrants where there is "probable cause" to believe that certain categories of intelligence information are likely to be obtained from the surveillance, even though evidence of crime is neither sought nor likely to be uncovered.205 However, we do not believe that every search must be deemed to be "reasonable" merely because the Third Circuit's test is met and some information relevant to any decision relating to foreign affairs is likely to be obtained from the surveillance. Such an approach would not assure that surveillances are "reasonable both in relation to the legitimate need of the Government for intelligence information and the protected rights of our citizens," 407 U.S. at 323, 92 S.Ct. at 2139 (emphasis added); the Butenko test assesses neither the Government's need for the information nor the countervailing individual interests affected by a search.
To be sure, some information relating to foreign affairs is of paramount importance for example, information such as that relating to imminent attack or other hostile actions by a foreign power, or to prevention of espionage activities directed at obtaining important military defense data. On the other hand, there is some information which, though "relevant" to foreign affairs decisions, would appear to be of minimal importance to the Government for example, information pertaining to the attitudes of hotel proprietors and restaurateurs may be "relevant" to assuring that no embarrassing "international incidents" occur when this counry hosts foreign Olympic teams or the Bolshoi Ballet.206 This is not to say that the President or Congress would never have authority to obtain such information for example, by conditioning governmental patronizing of these establishments on the disclosure of certain information by their owners. Rather, it is to say that obtaining such information through installation of wiretaps would be unreasonable, particularly given the low ratio of expected relevant information to nonrelevant information and the relative nonurgency of the information sought.207 In this circumstance, Fourth Amendment protection under the Butenko test would "approach the evaporation point."208
This example also highlights another possible factor that judges might consider in determining whether a proposed search would be reasonable. Since most of the crucial intelligence information sought through legitimate surveillance is likely to relate to military or diplomatic affairs, and since the sources of such information are likely to be aliens whose primary allegiance is to the foreign power and who are diplomatically immune from various types of legal process, there may be a greater justification for conducting electronic surveillance when such aliens are the proposed subjects than when citizens or domestic organizations are involved. In short, a judge could require a showing that the subject of the surveillance is hostile to the Government and that alternative means of obtaining the information, such as subpoenas or routine FBI questioning, have been exhausted or would prove to be unsuccessful or inconsistent with the information gathering goals.209 Certainly there are less intrusive means than surreptitious surveillance for obtaining information concerning domestic, political, economic, or social events which might nevertheless tangentially affect the conduct of foreign affairs.
Nor does the role accorded the judiciary by the Butenko test allow for adequate protection of individual constitutional rights. For the intrusiveness of a wiretap certainly bears on whether it is constitutionally "unreasonable." If only one member of the JDL were engaged in activity that would justify wiretapping, the Butenko test would allow installation of a wiretap on any phone he might use, regardless of the number of others whose conversations would also be overheard. But even if the Government sought to institute the surveillance on JDL's headquarters in good faith, a court might conclude that a tap on the individual's home phone would serve the Government's purposes just as adequately, particularly if the information sought were not of surpassing import.210 Moreover, a judge could pass on the reasonableness of the proposed scope or duration of the surveillance, and could grant renewals based on the success of an initial period of surveillance, rather than in 90-day blocks on a pro forma basis.211
These are merely some of the considerations which a judge should take into account in deciding whether it is reasonable to authorize installation of electronic surveillance equipment. This approach must inevitably be somewhat ad hoc, but we believe the judiciary must take some role more active than that suggested by the Butenko court if there is to be any meaningful protection for individual rights and any meaningful restraint on the Government's ability to abuse any power to wiretap to gather information "relating to" the conduct of foreign affairs. Nor should such a role in any way hamper the Government; in other contexts the judiciary has shown great deference to Executive judgments on foreign affairs matters, and we believe any errors on the part of the judiciary are likely to result in "unreasonable" searches rather than "unreasonable" denials of intelligence data.
Finally, we must observe that we do not now delineate the exact procedures the Executive must follow in securing warrants and preserving the records of electronic surveillance. Since we will indicate, in the next section of this opinion, that Congress intended the procedures and remedies of Title III to apply to all surveillance subjected by the courts to the warrant procedure,212 we do not consider what other protective standards, whether stricter or more permissive than those currently embodied in Title III,213 Congress could constitutionally provide for the conduct of surveillance in this area.
We have held that the electronic surveillances involved in this case were illegal because they were executed without a warrant. If this were a criminal case, as in Keith, we could end our inquiry here. However, this is a civil suit for damages, and both the measure of damages and the allowable defenses will turn on whether the provisions of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520 (1970), apply in this case, or whether appellants are relegated to the remedies afforded under the seminal decision of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, supra, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619.214 Under the latter approach, only compensatory damages would be allowed, appellees could interpose a general "good faith" defense,215 and jurisdiction would be premised on 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (1970), which requires over a $10,000 amount in controversy, see, e. g., Sullivan v. Murphy, 156 U.S.App.D.C. 28, 50, 53, 478 F.2d 938, 960, 963, cert. denied, 414 U.S. 880, 94 S.Ct. 162, 38 L.Ed.2d 125 (1973); under a statutory theory, appellants could recover not only actual damages (with minimum liquidated damages computed at the rate of $100 per day for each day of violation), but also punitive damages and attorney's fees, and appellees could interpose only a narrow and specific good faith defense.216 This statutory remedy, however, is limited by 18 U.S.C. § 2520 (1970) to eavesdropping that is "in violation of this chapter (Title III)."217 We must therefore determine whether appellees' actions violated the statute as well as the Constitution.
Section 2511 of Title III declares that "(e)xcept as specifically provided in this chapter," interception of "any wire or oral communication" is illegal. In granting appellees' motion for summary judgment, Judge Pratt found as a matter of law that Title III "has no application and cannot be invoked with respect to electronic surveillances conducted pursuant to the President's national security powers." 363 F.Supp. at 943.218 This conclusion was predicated on the belief that it was mandated by Mr. Justice Powell's opinion in Keith. See id. at 942-943. However, although there is some apparent merit to Judge Pratt's position, we find that the opinion in Keith, which did not specifically address itself to the issue sub judice, offers only ambiguous guidance as to the proper resolution of our problem.
After noting the "comprehensive" nature of Title III, the Supreme Court in Keith addressed the Government's argument that Section 2511(3), the so-called "national security proviso" of Title III,219 was a congressional affirmation or recognition of presidential authority to conduct warrantless domestic security surveillances. See 407 U.S. at 302-303, 92 S.Ct. 2125. Rejecting that contention,220 the Court found the language of the Act to be "essentially neutral" and determined that "Congress simply left presidential powers where it found them." Id. at 303, 92 S.Ct. at 2130. "Congress only intended to make clear that the Act simply did not legislate with respect to national security surveillances." Id. at 306, 92 S.Ct. at 2131. Besides relying on the language and context of the proviso, the Court grounded its interpretation on the legislative history of Section 2511(3).221 Finally, opining that one "could hardly expect a clearer expression of congressional neutrality," and concluding that the floor debate on the section "explicitly indicates that nothing in § 2511(3) was intended to expand or to contract or to define whatever presidential surveillance powers existed in matters affecting the national security," id. at 308, 92 S.Ct. at 2132, the Court held that "the statute is not the measure of the executive authority asserted in this case." Id. (emphasis added). The Court thereupon proceeded to scrutinize the constitutional validity of warrantless electronic surveillance based on domestic threats to the national security. Having concluded that such warrantless surveillance was unconstitutional, the Court reiterated its earlier statements that "our decision (that a warrant was required does not) rest on the language of § 2511(3) or any other section of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. That Act does not attempt to define or delineate the powers of the President to meet domestic threats to the national security." Id. at 322, 92 S.Ct. at 2139.222
Although not necessitated by its decision, later in its opinion the Court indicated, as it had in upholding the warrant requirement in such prior cases as Camara v. Municipal Court, supra, that the standards and procedures under the warrant requirement need not be the same in all cases. Introducing this discussion, it specified that "we do not hold that the same type of standards and procedures prescribed by Title III are necessarily applicable to this case." 407 U.S. at 322, 92 S.Ct. at 2139 (emphasis added). Adumbrating some of the "potential distinctions between Title III criminal surveillances and those involving domestic security," id., the Court suggested that
Congress may wish to consider protective standards for the latter which differ from those already prescribed for specified crimes in Title III. * * * It may be that Congress, for example, would judge that the application and affidavit showing probable cause need not follow the exact requirements of § 2518 but should allege other circumstances more appropriate to domestic security cases; that the request for prior court authorization could, in sensitive cases, be made to any member of a specially designated court * * * and that the time and reporting requirements need not be so strict as those in § 2518.
Id. at 322-324, 92 S.Ct. at 2139.
In contrast to Judge Pratt, we believe these statements are susceptible of at least two alternative interpretations. To be sure, the Keith language could be interpreted as totally ousting Title III whenever national security surveillance is involved. The broad language early in the opinion could support that position, and the later discussion on warrant standards could be construed as indicating that although Title III requirements do not currently apply, Congress could regulate national security wiretaps if it so desired. Nevertheless, another interpretation of Keith would support the applicability of Title III in all cases where a warrant is required.
Under this latter interpretation, the early language of Keith223 would only refer to the question whether the Executive was free of the warrant requirement in conducting national security surveillance; the later discussion of warrant standards and procedures would be construed as indicating that although Title III requirements do currently apply where the President must comply with the warrant requirement, Congress could provide less rigorous procedures that would still be constitutionally acceptable. This interpretation is reinforced by the fact that the early discussion was written as a response to the Government's argument that Section 2511(3) affirmatively recognized and approved Executive power to conduct warrantless national security surveillances, which was the only question actually presented in Keith. The Court was not forced by the circumstances of that criminal prosecution224 to decide whether, given the constitutional requirement that a warrant be obtained for domestic security surveillance, it should be obtained in compliance with Title III.225 And although the Court ambiguously commented on that problem, it apparently deliberately cast the discussion in terms of "standards and procedures," see 407 U.S. at 322, 92 S.Ct. 2125, which are provided and available in Title III. This was in marked contrast to its discussion of the applicability of Title III to the warrant question, which was cast in terms of presidential "powers," as to which the Court found Congress had asserted its "neutrality."226
Since we do not believe the Keith case227 held the standards and procedures of Title III to be inapplicable when a purported national security surveillance is involved,228 we must look to the language and legislative history of Section 2511(3) to determine congressional intent in its enactment. Section 2511(1) unequivocally declares that "(e)xcept as specifically provided in this chapter," interception of "any wire or oral communication" is illegal.229 Section 2511(3), however, only states that "(n)othing contained in this chapter * * * shall limit the constitutional power of the President" to take the actions he deems necessary in the field of national security.230 Since Section 2511(3) is merely a disclaimer that "constitutional" actions by the President are not to be invalidated under the statute, it is reasonable to assume that Congress intended to prohibit "unconstitutional" Executive surveillance, which would therefore be "in violation of this chapter" within the comprehension of the damages provision of Title III.231 Thus, even if the procedures of Title III were inapplicable to national security wiretapping, the remedies of Title III should apply to unconstitutional exercises of presidential power.
An analysis of the legislative history of Title III also indicates that it would be reasonable to interpret Section 2511(3) as a statement that the question reserved in Katz232 should be left for judicial resolution, but that, to the extent the President does not have the constitutional power to engage in warrantless surveillance activities, the procedures and remedies of Title III are fully operative. This interpretation is fully consistent with the Keith Court's understanding of the legislative history of Section 2511(3) and the two-decade struggle in Congress concerning wiretap legislation.
In the colloquy between Senators McClellan, Holland, and Hart, which the Keith Court cited as the definitive statement of congressional intent in enacting Section 2511(3),233 it is interesting to focus on a paragraph the Keith Court considered crucial, but which it quoted only in part.234 Senator Hart, summarizing the interchange concerning Section 2511(3), stated:
(A)s I think our exchange makes clear, nothing in section 2511(3) even attempts to define the limits of the President's national security power under present law, which I have always found extremely vague, especially in domestic security threats, as opposed to threats from foreign powers. As I recall, in the recent Katz case, some of the Justices of the Supreme Court doubted that the President has any power at all under the Constitution to engage in tapping and bugging in national security cases without a court order. Section 2511(3) merely says that if the President has such a power (to tap and bug without a court order), then its exercise is in no way affected by title III.235
Moreover, the interchange had begun with Senator Hart's query as to whether the second sentence of Section 2511(3) was granting the President unlimited and readily abusable authority "in areas that do not come within our traditional notions of national security." 114 Cong.Rec. 14750 (1968). In particular, he was troubled by the fact that the statute might be interpreted as allowing the President to authorize installation of a wiretap on "an organization that is advocating the withholding of income tax payments," see id. at 14751,236 merely because the President believed such an organization posed a clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government. In effect, Senator Hart was inquiring as to the substantive scope of Section 2511(3), not what procedures would apply in areas covered by the proviso.237 In response, Senator Holland reassured him that the provision was "simply saying that nothing herein shall limit such power as the President has under the Constitution. If he does not have the power to do any specific thing, we need not be concerned." Id. (emphasis added).238
Given the otherwise comprehensive nature of Title III, we believe that the statements of Senators Hart and Holland indicate that Congress was primarily concerned with avoiding any legislative expression about an inherent Executive power to wiretap without a warrant, and the substantive scope of such a power if it in fact existed.239 It would thus appear that Congress merely intended that if the judiciary ascertained that the President had the constitutional power to wiretap without a warrant for certain purposes and in certain circumstances, the statute would not apply to them.240 That is, the applicability of the statute was contingent upon further judicial pronouncements, and the procedures and remedies of the statute were to completely occupy the wiretapping field except to the extent the President's powers were rendered constitutionally immune from the warrant procedure of the Fourth Amendment.
Moreover, this interpretation of the scope of Title III is particularly plausible in light of the ebb and flow of proposed legislation in the wiretapping field over the prior 20 years. As we indicated above,241 there was no constitutional prohibition against non-trespassory wiretapping until 1967, although Section 605 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 prohibited use of evidence derived from such surveillance in criminal prosecutions. During this period, numerous bills were introduced in Congress to authorize wiretapping and use of any evidence and fruits obtained therefrom; however, they were all defeated because of bitter divisiveness over the question whether Congress should enact, as a statutory precondition to admissibility, a requirement that prior judicial approval be obtained for the surveillance.