Opinion ID: 2451
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Resolution on State-Secrets Grounds

Text: If we have not been fully persuasive in arguing that a Bivens remedy should not be denied in this case, we hope we have made it abundantly clear that the question is a complex and difficult one. And that underlies our principal cause for dissent. We think it improper for the Court to take the twisting road to a categorical conclusion that no plaintiff has a private right of action in these circumstances and circumstances like them, when, by a brief order, we could take steps that would likely permit the case to be resolved on its particular facts without new and strained declarations of law. The majority makes a thinly veiled reference to the recognition of a Bivens action as alacrity or activism. Supra, at 574. The irony of its making that assertion while reaching out unnecessarily to decide a difficult issue related to separation of powers principles should not be lost. Activism in the defense of liberty, we gather, is no vice. The state secrets privilege is a common law evidentiary rule that allows the government to withhold information from discovery when disclosure would be inimical to national security. Zuckerbraun v. Gen. Dynamics Corp., 935 F.2d 544, 546 (2d Cir.1991). In some cases, the effect of an invocation of the privilege may be so drastic as to require dismissal, as when a proper assertion of the privilege precludes access to evidence necessary for the plaintiff to state a prima facie claim. Id. at 547. We share what we think to be the majority's intuition that this case would likely turn largely, if not entirely, on decisions of national security and diplomacy that the executive branch has already assured us it has good reason to keep out of public view. Indeed, the government, while arguing before us en banc seeking affirmance on the Bivens issue, could hardly have been clearer: [I]t seems like at the core of your concerns and perhaps your colleagues' concerns is you don't have more information. And that might be the result of the fact that the district court did not rule on the state secrets issue, so all the classified declarations are not in the record, and if this court felt it could not address our Bivens special factors argument at this stage, and I think it can ... then I respectfully suggest this court do a limited remand for the district court to review the state secrets issue. The government would have to update the declarations, because much time has passed, but allow the government to do that, have the district court rule on the state secrets issues and then this Court could have this declaration before it if it thought it needed to do that. Tr. 58-59 (Cohn). And: Your Honor, if this Court is talking simply about a limited remand, to send this case back simply for the limited purpose of the district court examining the state secrets issue first [if the court won't address Bivens otherwise], I think there's a lot of sense to that, your Honor. Id. at 62-63 (Cohn). Recognizing that the government, like Arar and his counsel, would prefer a ruling on the merits, we nonetheless think we should be taking the government up on its alternate suggestion. Doing so would likely allow us to avoid giving sweeping answers to difficult questions of law that we are not required to ask. And it would, by well-established procedure, address what the majority cites as additional special factors counseling hesitation in recognizing a Bivens right of action.  In particular, the majority notes these factors: Judicial consideration of the issues relating to rendition involves particular sensitivities because of the need to discover much classified material, supra at 576, including those relating to the national security apparatus of at least three foreign countries, as well as that of the United States, supra at 576.  Cases in the context of extraordinary rendition are very likely to present serious questions relating to private diplomatic assurances from foreign countries..., and this feature of such claims opens the door to graymail. Supra at 578; see also supra at 579 (The risk of graymail is itself a special factor which counsels hesitation in creating a Bivens remedy.). These are factors that the state-secrets privilege was designed to address. [32] We are not without precedent here  similar both factually and procedurally. In El-Masri v. United States, 479 F.3d 296 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 373, 169 L.Ed.2d 258 (2007), the issue was an alleged special rendition by U.S. agents of a German citizen from Macedonia to a U.S.-controlled prison in Afghanistan for the purpose of abusive interrogation. The plaintiff had brought suit, inter alia, pursuant to Bivens, for violation of his due process rights against former CIA director George Tenet, among others. The Fourth Circuit explained: The United States intervened as a defendant in the district court, asserting that El-Masri's civil action could not proceed because it posed an unreasonable risk that privileged state secrets would be disclosed. By its Order of May 12, 2006, the district court agreed with the position of the United States and dismissed El-Masri's Complaint. Id. at 299-300. The district court, in summarizing its order, had said, It is important to emphasize that the result reached here is required by settled, controlling law. [33] El-Masri v. Tenet, 437 F.Supp.2d 530, 540 (E.D.Va.2006). The Fourth Circuit agreed and affirmed. El-Masri, 479 F.3d at 300. [34] The majority cites the possibility of graymail as a special factor counseling hesitation. But as another decision of the Fourth Circuit points out, the state-secrets privilege protects this interest too, by provid[ing] a necessary safeguard against litigants presenting the government with a Hobson's choice between settling for inflated sums or jeopardizing national security. Sterling v. Tenet, 416 F.3d 338, 344 (4th Cir.2005). [35] In Arar's case, the government followed essentially the same procedure as it had in El-Masri. The district court here (prior to the district court and court of appeals decisions in El-Masri ) decided the case on Bivens grounds instead. We think that to have been mistaken.