Opinion ID: 4465383
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: ..,Incidental Collection

Text: The primary type of Section 702 collection we must address here involves incidental collection. The government was targeting, within the meaning of Section 702, the accounts of individuals located abroad who were reasonably believed to be agents of terrorist organizations. In collecting communications from those accounts, the government collected e-mails between Hasbajrami and In reviewing Hasbajrami's suppression motion, the district court focused on this incidental collection, ultimately concluding that a warrant was not required and the government's actions were reasonable. On appeal, Hasbajrami and the amici argue that the Fourth Amendment bars the incidental collection of e-mails of individuals, like Hasbajrami, located in 47 the United States. First, they argue that surveillance of individuals in the United States is per se unreasonable if it is conducted without a warrant. They also focus on the specific attributes of warrants - the particularity requirement, the need for a neutral judicial forum and a finding of probable cause - and argue that Section 702,. the targeting and minimization procedures, and FISC oversight do not provide a substitute procedure sufficient to satisfy the Fourth Amendment. According to Hasbajrami, the broad scope of Section 702's surveillance and the government's failure to seek a warrant or its equivalent render the program unconstitutional as applied to him and therefore requires the suppression of evidence acquired under the program. We disagree. In addressing the issues before us, we adopt an approach similar to that employed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Mohamud, 843 F.3d 420 (9th Cir. 2016). We must first decide whether a warrant is required for the government's incidental collection of the communications of United States persons. We conclude that a warrant is not required for such collection. But [e]ven if a warrant is not required, a search is not beyond Fourth Amendment scrutiny; for it must be reasonable in its scope and manner of execution. Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. 435, 448 (2013); see also 48 Mohamud, 843 F.3d at 441. We further conclude that the incidental collection of Hasbajrami's e-mails was reasonable.
We conclude that a warrant is not required based on two well-established principles of Fourth Amendment law. First, the Fourth Amendment does not apply extraterritorially to the surveillance of persons abroad, including United States citizens. Second, law enforcement officers do not need to seek an additional warrant or probable cause determination to continue surveillance when, in the course of executing a warrant or engaging in other lawful search activities, they come upon evidence of other criminal activity outside the scope of the warrant or the rationale justifying the search, or the participation of individuals not the subject of that initial warrant or search. First, the Fourth Amendment (and, in particular, its warrant requirement) does not apply extraterritorially. See United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990). In Verdugo-Urquidez, agents from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, working alongside Mexican law enforcement, raided without a warrant properties in Mexico owned by the defendant. Id. at 262-63. The agents believed that the defendant was the leader of a narcotics smuggling ring and they seized 49 documents and a tally sheet detailing quantities of drugs possessed and transported. Id. Prior to trial, the defendant sought suppression of the evidence, arguing that the agents should have sought a warrant before searching his property. Id. at 263-64. The Supreme Court held that suppression of the evidence was not required, because the Fourth Amendment does not apply to extraterritorial actions by law enforcement, at least where the [the defendant] was a citizen and resident of Mexico with no voluntary attachment to the United States, and the place searched was located in Mexico. Id. at 274-75. Under these circumstances, the Court held, the Fourth Amendment ha[d] no application. Id. at 275. This Court has since extended Verdugo-Urquidez's holding to conclude that the Warrant Oause of the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the surveillance of United States citizens abroad. See In re Terrorist Bombings, 552 F.3d 157, 171 (2d Cir. 2008). The defendant in that case, a United States citizen with a home in Kenya, had urged the suppression of the evidence resulting from the ... [electronic] surveillance of his Kenyan telephone lines'' because it was not authorized by a valid warrant or, alternatively, because the surveillance was 50 unreasonable. Id. at 160. This Court held that the Fourth Amendment's Warrant Clause has no extraterritorial application and that foreign searches of U.S. citizens conducted by U.S. agents are subject only to the Fourth Amendment's requirement of reasonableness. Id. at 171. \Ve determined that the searches in that case were ultimately reasonable and therefore suppression of the evidence was not required. Verdugo-Urquidez and In re Terrorist Bombin&s make it dear that the Fourth Amendment does not requirl:! the government to obtain a warrant before collecting the e-mails of foreign individuals abroad. Nor can there be any question that the electronic surveillance of foreign individuals located abroad who are reasonably believed to hold themselves out as agents and - of terrorist organizations targeting the United States is reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Efforts to monitor the activities of such individuals to detect and forestall possible te rrorist attacks on this country present a paradigm case of a compelling government interest. The protections extended by the Fourth Amendment to foreign individuals abroad, if any, are minimal and plainly outweighed by the paramount national interest in preventing foreign attacks on our nation and its people. 51 But while the warrantless surveillance of foreign individuals abroad under the circumstances that existed here presents no cognizable constitutional problem, we must nevertheless still consider what protections the Fourth Amendment provides individuals located within the United States who communicate with the foreign individuals abroad lawfully targeted under Section 702. The second Fourth Amendment principle implicated by incidental collection speaks directly to that concern. The Fourth Amendment generally is not violated when law enforcement officers, having lawfully undertaken electronic surveillance, whether under the authority of a warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement, discover and seize either evidence of criminal activity that they would not have had probable cause to search for in the first place, or the relevant conversations of an individual they did not anticipate or name in a warrant application. See, e.g., United States v. Donovan, 429 U.S. 413,427 & n.15 (1977) (noting, as to domestic wiretaps, [i]t is not a constitutional requirement that all those likely to be overheard engaging in incriminating conversations be named.); United States v. Figueroa, 757 F.2d 466,472 (2d Cir. 1985) (More particularly, the mere fact that Title III allows interception of 52 conversations of 'others as yet unknown' do es not render the statute unconstitutional on its face as authorizing a general warrant.''). This line of cases has come to be known as the incidental overhear doctrine. See, e.g., Suppression Decision, 2016 WL 1029500 at 9 (noting that [ c]ourts have long dealt with the issue of incidental interception of non-targeted persons' communications and collecting cases). Courts have repeatedly held that law enforcement agents do not need to obtain a separate warrant to collect conversations of persons as to whom probable cause did not previously exist with individuals whose oral or wire communications are being collected through a lawful wiretap or bug, where those conversations on their face contain evidence of criminal activity.17 See, e.g., Donovan, 429 U.S. at 427 & n.15; Figueroa, 757 F.2d at 472; see also In re Certified Question of Law, 858 F.3d 605 (FISA Ct. Rev. 2016) (finding incidental collection of content information reasonable where warrant was obtained only for non-content dialing information); United States v. 17The incidental overhear doctrine is closely related to the plain view doctrine applied in connection with physical searches. See, e.g., Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 465-67 (1971) (describing plain view doctrine and noting that [t]he doctrine serves to supplement the prior justification - whether it be a warrant ... , hot pursuit, search incident to lawful arrest, or some other legitimate reason for being pr esent unconnected with a search directed against the accused - and permits the warrantless seizure.}. 53 Stewart, 590 F.3d 93, 129 (2d Cir. 2009) (concluding. in challenge to Title I FISA surveillance, that [b]ecause Stewart's co-conspirators were targeted pursuant to proper procedures, the Fourth Amendment did not require that Stewart also be identified or described as a target in order for her intercepted conversations to be used in a criminal prosecution.'') (internal citation omitted). Combining these two Fourth Amendment principles, the government may lawfully collect, without a warrant and pursuant to Section 702, the e-mails of foreign individuals located abroad who reasonably appear to constitute a potential threat to the United States and, once it is lawfully collecting those e- mails, it does not need to seek a warrant, supported by probable cause, to continue to collect e-mails between that person and other individuals once it is learned that some of those individuals are United States citizens or lawful permanent residents, or are located in the United States. Accord Mohamud, 843 F.3d at 441; see also United States v. Mohammad, 339 F. Supp. 3d 724, 748-49 (N.D. Ohio 2018) (applying Verdugo-Urquidez and rejecting Fourth Amendment challenge to Section 702 surveillance where, despite marriage to United States citizen, defendant lived abroad at time of offense); United States v. Muhtorov, 187 F. Supp. 3d 1240, 1258 (D. Colo. 2015) (rejecting facial and as applied challenge to 54 incidental collection under Section 702 and concluding that a warrant was not acquired and search as reasonable). That is the case even if the government would have needed, but did not have, a warrant or probable cause had it sought to collect the e-mails of the American third party in the first instance. Cf. In re Certified Question, 858 F.3d at 604 (framing constitutional issue as whether incidental content collection rendered primary dialing information collection unreasonable, not whether warrant would have been required for content collection in its own right). Objecting to this conclusion, Hasbajrami and amici advance several arguments seeking to apply the warrant requirement to Hasbajrami's case. Each is unavailing. First, they argue that Verdugo-Urquidez does not control the outcome here because Section 702 collection occurs in the United States. Practically speaking, Section 702 surveillance could occur only within the United States, as the agencies can compel only ISPs located in the United States to provide e-mails. But Fourth Amendment doctrine relating to wire or electronic communication does not focus on the location where the communication takes place. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), the seminal Supreme Court 55 decision on the interception of such communication, holds that a person's privacy interest in his or her communications does not depend on whether the government ph ysically intrudes into a physical space in which that person has a property interest or an expectation of physical privacy. What matters, and what implicates the protection of the Fourth Amendment, is the expectation of privacy in the communications themselves, and therefore a warrant is required to seize even those communications made in a public telephone booth. Conversely, by the same reasoning, a person who does not have a Fourth Amendment-protected privacy interest in his communications, such as a foreign national resident abroad, does not acquire such an interest by reason of the physical location of the intercepting device. At least where the communication is collected essentially in real time as it occurs, the targeted communication, whether conducted over telephone wires or via the internet, occurs in the relevant sense where the person whose calls or e-mails are being intercepted is located, regardless of the location of the means used to intercept it. Second, Hasbajrami argues that the surveillance cannot be properly considered incidental where the government can or even does expect to collect conversations with people with ties to the United States or located within its 56 borders. While we have concerns, expressed below, about the potential scope of Section 702 surveillance, those concerns are less applicable where, as here, collection and review are occurring nearly contemporaneously and that collection is ancillary to lawful surveillance of a permitted target. In the nahlre of law enforcement, there is always a possibility that the collection of evidence against a person who there is already probable cause to believe is involved in criminal activity or who is otherwise legitimately subject to surveillance will also develop information about others not previously reasonably suspected of wrongdoing. There is no contention here that the Section 702 surveillance was undertaken as a pretext to collect the communications of Hasbajrami, or of any other identified United States person or person located in the United States. That the overall practice of surveilling foreigners abroad of interest to the legitimate purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information may predictably lead to the interception of communications with United States persons no more invalidates that practice, or requires the government to cease its surveillance of the target until a warrant is obtained, than the general foreseeability of intercepting communications with previously unknown co~conspirators undermines the inadvertent overhear doctrine in ordinary domestic criminal wiretapping. 57 11 Finally, Hasbajrami and amid seek to distinguish the incidental overhear line of cases, noting that in those cases there was already an initial warrant supported by probable cause. They agree, however, that the incidental overhear cases simply stand for the proposition that the government need not obtain multiple warrants to intercept protected communications. Brief of Amici Curiae American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation at 15, United States v. Hasbajrami, No. 15-2684 (2d Cir. Oct. 23, 2017} (emphasis in original). That is exactly the point here: once that initial surveillance is rendered lawful by a warrant, a FISC order, or some other exception to the warrant requirement, an additional warrant is not necessary in order to collect the calls or e-mails of third parties. As the district court recognized, once the surveillance was lawful in the first place -whether it is the domestic surveillance of U.S. persons pursuant to a warrant or the warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. persons who are abroad - the incidental interception of non-targeted U.S. persons' communications with the targeted persons is also lawful. Suppression Decision, 2016 WL 1029500 at 9. The reason why the initial surveillance was lawful does not matter to this conclusion. 58 Accordingly, the incidental collection of United States persons' e-mails during lawful foreign intelligence surveillance of foreigners located abroad is not per se unreasonable because the collection is done without a warrant. B. Incidental Collection of E-mails under Section 702 is Reasonable Even absent a warrant requirement, however, the government's action must still be reasonable, at least insofar as it affects United States persons, to be consistent with the Fourth A mendment. King, 569 U.S. at 448. To determine whether a search is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, we examine the totality of the circumstances to balance, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual's privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate government interests. ln re Terrorist Bombings, 552 F.3d at 172 (internal quotation marks omitted). For the purposes of Hasbajrami's appeal, we may assume that a United States person ordinarily has a reasonable expectation in the privacy of his e-mails sufficient to trigger a Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry when the government undertakes to monitor even foreign communications in a way that can be expected to, and in fact does, lead to the interception of communications with United States persons. See, e.g., United States v. Warshak, 631 F.3d 266, 285-86 59 (6th Cir. 2010) (analogizing between letters and e-mails and finding reasonable expectation of privacy). In other words, we can assume that the government may not eavesdrop, without reasonable justification, on the conversations of United States persons (even abroad) with foreign nationals, simply because the United States person is interacting with a foreigner. Even assuming that a United States person might be understood to take some risk that the person with whom he or she is communicating is under surveillance, it does not follow that an American communicating with a foreign national must take the risk that the person with whom he is communicating is subject to unreasonable, or indiscriminate, electronic surveillance, or that communicating with foreigners subjects the American national himself or herself to continuing surveillance. But such a privacy interest can be outweighed by the government's manifest need to monitor'' the communications of foreign agents of terrorist organizations operating abroad, and this need outweighs that interest in privacy and makes the incidental collection of communications between such foreigners and United States persons reasonable. In re Terrorist Bombings, 552 F.3d at 172. Even in the context of conventional warfare, identifying domestic agents of foreign powers is a principal concern of intelligence-gathering. The need to 60 identify potential domestic co�conspirators of hostile foreign persons or groups is even greater in the context of informal non-state terrorist organizations and movements. The recruitment of persons inside the United States or the placement of agents here to carry out terrorist attacks is one of the very threats that make it vital to surveil terrorist actors abroad. The communications of terrorist operatives abroad with persons inside the United States is thus of particular importance, and at least as important as monitoring the communications of foreign terrorists abroad among themselves. 18 The logic of this conclusion is dear and compelling. If it is reasonable - and indeed necessary to the national security - for intelligence agencies to monitor the communications of suspected forei gn terrorists abroad, the need to keep track of the potential threat from abroad does not lessen because some of the suspect's contacts turn out to be American nationals, or foreign nationals located within the United States. And when the conversations being monitored 18The same reasoning defeats any argument that such monitoring should be limited to the acquisition of forei gn intelligence, and that communications collected for that purpose should not be made available to domestic law enforcement agencies. There is little point in having intelligence agencies collect information abroad if those agencies are not able to share what they learn with domestic law enforcement when the information they acquire points to ongoing or impending criminal activities inside our borders. 61 constitute evidence of criminal conspiracies between the foreign operative and someone located within the United States, the urgency becomes greater, not less. The logic of the plai n view and inadvertent overhear cases fully applies: when an officer executing a lawful search or electronic surveillance warrant, or otherwise engaged in a lawful search, comes upon evidence of a previously unsuspected crime, or learns of the involvement of a previously unsuspected individual, the officer is not required to stop and obtain a new warrant to seize the item or to continue monitoring the phone line for which the warrant was obtained. The seizure of evidence of a crime in plain view without a warrant is a reasonab le seizure. In the same way., when evidence of a potential crime involving an American comes to light during the lawful surveillance of a foreign operative abroad, it is entirely reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment for the government to continue monitoring the conversations of that operative with the American as well as with his or her other associates. 1'.I 19 Of course, if the government wishes to expand the investigation to monitor the communications of the newly discovered United States-connected suspect, it - would be required to obtain a conventional Title III or traditional PISA warrant 62 In balancing Hasbajrami's privacy interest with the government's concern for national security, then1 we conclude that the totality of the circumstances here weighs in the government's favor. The incidental collection of communications between targeted foreigners abroad and United States persons or persons in the United States is thus reasonable. For similar reasons, when the intelligence information properly collected raises reasonable grounds to believe that a crime is being committed or planned in the United States, dissemination of the information to a domestic law enforcement agency such as the FBI is also reasonable. In summary, the district court reached the correct conclusions regarding incidental collection: the initial targeting of individuals without ties to the United States and located abroad is lawful; there is no need for a wanant in order to collect incidental communications by United States persons to and from those individuals; and both the collection of such communications and the dissemination of information from such collection about potential criminal actions within the country to domestic law enforcement are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Were such incidental collection the only Section 702 material relevant to Hasbajramts motion, we would simply affirm the district 63 court's ruling. But, as the record rurrently stands, we must also consider additional issues.