Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/490/153
Timestamp: 2014-12-29 08:28:03
Document Index: 486811715

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 630', '§ 630', '§ 630', '§ 630', '§ 630', '§ 630', '§ 630', '§ 630', '§ 630', '§ 630']

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION, et al., Appellants v. Steven GARFINKEL, Director, Information Security Oversight Office, et al. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION, et al., Appellants v. Steven GARFINKEL, Director, Information Security Oversight Office, et al.
490 U.S. 153 (109 S.Ct. 1693, 104 L.Ed.2d 139)
AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION, et al., Appellants v. Steven GARFINKEL, Director, Information Security Oversight Office, et al.
Decided: April 18, 1989
[HTML] Patti A Goldsmith argued the cause for appellants. With her on the briefs were Alan B. Morrison, Paul Alan Levy, and Susan Z. Holik.
Deputy Solicitor General Merrill, Barbara L. Herwig, and Freddi Lipstein.
Section 630 of the Continuing Resolution for Fiscal Year 1988, Pub.L. 100-202, 101 Stat. 1329-432, enacted by Congress in 1987, prohibited the expenditure of funds in fiscal year 1988 for the implementation or enforcement of Form 189, Form 4193, or any other form that violated one of its five subsections.
In response to this statute, appellee Garfinkel ordered agencies to cease using Form 189, but several agencies nevertheless required approximately 43,000 employees to sign the form after § 630 was enacted. Brief for Appellants 10. The DCI, in contrast, continued to require employees to sign Form 4193, but attached a paragraph to the form stating that the nondisclosure agreement would "be implemented and enforced in a manner consistent with" the statute of which § 630 was a part. App. 26-27. Three months after § 630 became law, the DCI replaced Form 4193 with Form 4355, which eliminated the term "classifiable." National Federation of Federal Employees v. United States, 688 F.Supp. 671, 680, n. 11 (DC 1988).
The District Court for the District of Columbia concluded that appellant AFSA had standing to challenge the nondisclosure forms on behalf of its members, but that the Members of Congress lacked standing to challenge the use of the forms. 688 F.Supp., at 678-682. The court then assumed that "the Executive's actions since enactment of section 630 do not comply with the requirements of that legislation," id., at 683, and n. 16, because the DCI had continued to require employees to sign Form 4193 for three months after enactment of § 630 despite § 630's specific prohibition on the use of that form. Acknowledging that, during that time, the DCI had added a paragraph to Form 4193 stating that the agreement would be enforced in a manner consistent with § 630, the District Court nevertheless concluded that this action was not " 'true to the congressional mandate from which it derives authority,' " id., at 683-684, n. 16, quoting Farmers Union Central Exchange, Inc. v. FERC, 236 U.S.App.D.C. 203, 217, 734 F.2d 1486, 1500 (1984), and that review of the Executive's action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 706, "likely" would show that the Executive's action was contrary to law, 688 F.Supp., at 684, n. 16. Having thus skirted the statutory question whether the Executive Branch's implementation of Forms 189 and 4193 violated § 630, the court proceeded to address appellees' argument that the lawsuit should be dismissed because § 630 was an unconstitutional interference with the President's authority to protect the national security. Concluding that § 630 "impermissibly restricts the President's power to ulfill obligations imposed upon him by his express constitutional powers and the role of the Executive in foreign relations," id., at 685, the court entered summary judgment in favor of appellees.
Appellants took a direct appeal from the District Court's judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1252, and we noted probable jurisdiction, 488 U.S. 923, 109 S.Ct. 302, 102 L.Ed.2d 322 (1988). In spite of the importance of the constitutional question whether § 630 impermissibly intrudes upon the Executive's authority to regulate the disclosure of national security informationindeed, partly because of itwe remand this case to the District Court without expressing an opinion on that issue.
Events occurring since the District Court issued its ruling place this case in a light far different from the one in which that court considered it. Since issuing the decision that we now review, the District Court has ruled on the constitutional challenge presented by the cases with which the present one was consolidated, and has decided that the unadorned term "classifiable" used in Forms 189 and 4193 is unconstitutionally vague. See National Federation of Federal Employees v. United States, 695 F.Supp. 1196, 1201-1203 (DC 1988). The court further held that the DISOO's definition of the term "classifiable," see supra, at 1-2, would remedy this vagueness, and ordered appellees to notify employees either that this definition was in force or that no penalties would be imposed for the disclosure of "classifiable" information. 695 F.Supp., at 1203-1204. Appellees thereafter deleted the word "classifiable"a primary focus of appellants' challenge to Forms 189 and 4193from all nondisclosure forms, and replaced it with the definition given in the DISOO's regulation. They also furnished individualized notice of this change to employees who signed either Form 189 or Form 4193. 53 Fed.Reg. 38278 (1988); Motion to Affirm 13. According to appellants, however, appellees have notified only current employees of the refinement of the term "classifiable"; former employees, who signed Form 189 or 4193 but have left the employment of the Federal Government, have not received such notice. Brief for Appellants 15. The controversy as it exists today is, in short, quite different from the one that the District Court considered.