Opinion ID: 409582
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: International Electronic Communications

Text: 11 In addition to the surveillance activities carried out under the aegis of Operation CHAOS, plaintiffs complained of the CIA's practice of obtaining the contents of international communications (telephone, telegraph and radio transmissions) by submitting subjects' names on watchlists to the National Security Agency (NSA). NSA possesses the technology to scan the mass of signals transmitted through various communications systems and then to select out by computer those messages in which certain words or phrases occur. It is thereby possible for that agency to acquire all communications over a monitored system in which, for example, a person's name is mentioned. 23 Between 1967 and 1973, the FBI, the Secret Service, and military intelligence agencies, as well as the CIA, submitted the names of domestic individuals and organizations on watchlists to NSA, and ultimately acquired through NSA the international communications of over a thousand American citizens. 24 12 On a prior appeal, Halkin v. Helms (Halkin I ), 598 F.2d 1 (D.C.Cir.1978), 25 this court upheld a claim of the state secrets privilege by the Secretary of Defense and held that NSA was not required to disclose in discovery whether it had intercepted any of plaintiffs' communications. As a result of that ruling, plaintiffs' claims against the NSA and several individual officials connected with that agency's monitoring activities could not be proved, and the complaint as to those defendants was dismissed. Plaintiffs were left, however, with their claim that notwithstanding the practical bar to suit against NSA worked by the state secrets privilege, the CIA and the individuals responsible for submitting the watchlists to NSA could be held liable based on a presumption that the submission of a name resulted in interception of the named person's communications.