Opinion ID: 185451
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Alias Finding

Text: 15 NCRI launches a two-pronged attack on the Secretary's designation of it as an alias for the PMOI. Its first argument is a three-step analysis forwarding the proposition that the Secretary's alias designation of NCRI has no support in the record. Brief of NCRI at 6. The first step of its reasoning is the generally uncontroversial proposition that Article III [of the Constitution] forbids courts from rubberstamping Executive decisions. Id. at 7. In support of this premise of its syllogism, counsel reminds us that the courts have rejected interpretations of statutes that cast Article III judges in the role of petty functionaries ... required to enter as a court judgment an executive officer's decision but stripped of capacity to evaluate independently whether the executive decision is correct. Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 426 (1995). While there will be unreviewable Executive decisions, and legitimate differences of opinion as to which decisions fall within the rubberstamp category condemned in Gutierrez, and which are simply unreviewable decisions, see generally id. at 448-49 (Souter, J., dissenting), we can accept the Council's general proposition for purposes of this discussion and move to the further steps of its three-part analysis. 16 In applying the rubberstamping premise to the present designation of the NCRI as an alias of the PMOI, the Council draws from the Act and from our application of it in People's Mojahedin the principle that designations under the Act must survive a review in which the court determines that the designation has substantial support in the administrative record taken as a whole or in classified information submitted to the court, 8 U.S.C. 1189(b)(3)(D), and is not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law. Id. 1189(b)(3)(A). 2 Again, the basic proposition, being drawn from the words of the statute, may be assumed. Although the Council's brief disputes our prior application of the test in People's Mojahedin and seems to invite us to overrule that decision, this panel has no power to do so, even if we were inclined to accept the invitation. See, e.g., LaShawn A. v. Barry, 87 F.3d 1389, 1395 (D.C. Cir. 1996)(en banc) (One three-judge panel ... does not have the authority to overrule another three-judge panel of the court.); United States v. Kolter, 71 F.3d 425, 431 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (This panel would be bound by [a prior] decision even if we did not agree with it.). 17 Proceeding from the two premises--that the AEDPA does not require this Court to rubberstamp the Secretary's decision, and that the process of reviewing without rubberstamping involves applying the substantial-record-support and arbitrary-and-capricious standards--the NCRI concludes that we must set aside the designations, as there is no support in the 1999 SAR [Summary of Administrative Report] for the fundraising allegation. Brief of NCRI at 12. However, that conclusion depends upon our accepting not only the first two steps of the syllogism, but also the Council's factual proposition that the only difference between the 1999 alias designation and the 1997 review in which the Secretary did not designate the Council as an alias of the PMOI is an FBI agent's hearsay declaration concerning the use of the National Council of Resistance name in fundraising for the PMOI in the United States. It is at this point that the Council's reasoning conspicuously founders, even if we uncritically accept the first two steps. 18 First, we can neither confirm nor deny that the agent's declaration is the only difference in the record support between the 1997 and 1999 records. We may under the AEDPA consider the entire record before us including any classified submissions under 1189(b)(1)(2). In fact, the substantial support test relied upon by the Council expressly empowers us to set aside the designations only if they lack[ ] substantial support in the administrative record taken as a whole or in classified information submitted to the courts under paragraph (2). 8 U.S.C. 1189(b)(3)(D). As we recognized in People's Mojahedin, we will not, cannot, in a case under this statute lay out the 'facts.'  182 F.3d at 19. As we further recognized in that decision, our only function in reviewing a designation of an organization as a foreign terrorist organization is to decide if the Secretary, on the face of things, had enough information before her to come to the conclusion that the organizations were foreign and engaged in terrorism. Id. at 25. We see no greater function for our review of the alias designation. We have, as the statute mandates, reviewed the administrative record taken as a whole and the classified information submitted to the court. We conclude that the Secretary's designation of the National Council of Resistance as an alias for the PMOI does not lack substantial support and that designation is neither arbitrary, capricious, nor otherwise not in accordance with law. 19 The Council argues that we must nonetheless strike down the alias designation in 1999 because the State Department in 1997 determined that the NCRI was not an alias of PMOI. In the Council's view, this new designation is barred by the principle that when an executive agency switches position, it must provide a reasoned explanation for the change. Brief of NCRI at 16 (citing Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Ass'n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29 (1983)). Again, the principle of law offered by the Council is incontrovertible, but it does not apply to this case. If the Secretary had taken the 1997 record and reached a different conclusion, presumably she would have to offer us some reason for the change. Whether this reason would have to be disclosed to the appellants is arguable given the role of classified material in reviews under this statute but she might at least have been required to explain to the court the reason for the change. However, the Secretary was not acting on the same record. There is no logical reason for concluding that there has been no change in either the facts or the Secretary's knowledge of the facts between the 1997 refusal to designate and the 1999 designation. In short, on the record at hand, we cannot find that the Secretary erred in her application of the statute. We therefore must affirm that designation unless the Secretary overstepped either statutory or constitutional authority. 20
21 The Council's second argument is that the Secretary has made no statutory finding that the NCRI meets the three elements for designation as a foreign terrorist organization: That is, that the Council is (1) a foreign terrorist organization, (2) engaging in terrorist activities that (3) threatens the national security of the United States. People's Mojahedin, 182 F.3d at 19 (construing 8 U.S.C. 1189). Only in one sense is this true. That is, the Secretary did not expressly find that the NCRI is that sort of organization doing those sorts of things under its own name. The Secretary did, however, find that the PMOI is a foreign organization engaging in terrorist activities to threaten the national security of the United States, and that the NCRI and the PMOI are one and the same. This is tantamount to finding that the NCRI itself meets those criteria. Logically, indeed mathematically, if A equals B and B equals C, it follows that A equals C. If the NCRI is the PMOI, and if the PMOI is a foreign terrorist organization, then the NCRI is a foreign terrorist organization also. 22 The Council argues, without citation of authority, that because the statute does not expressly allow for an alias designation, the rationale followed by the Secretary in the present case is beyond her statutory power. Again, this argument fails. It is true that the Secretary, like any federal agency, has no power, no capacity to act except by delegation of authority ... from the legislature. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n v. Nat'l Mediation Bd., 29 F.3d 665, 670 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (en banc). It is also true that Congress did not expressly empower the Secretary to use the alias rationale. It is further true, however, that the delegation from Congress may be either expressed or implied. Id. Here, the power to designate an organization as a foreign terrorist organization if it commits the necessary sort of terrorist acts under its own name implies the authority to so designate an entity that commits the necessary terrorist acts under some other name. 23 It would simply make no sense for us to hold that Congress empowered the Secretary to designate a terrorist organization--so as to block any funds which such organization has on deposit with any financial institution in the United States, to bar its representatives and many or most of its members from entry into the United States, and to prevent anyone in the United States from providing material resources or support the organization--only for such periods of time as it took such organization to give itself a new name, and then let it happily resume the same status it would have enjoyed had it never been designated. If the Secretary has the power to work those dire consequences on an entity calling itself Organization A, the Secretary must be able to work the same consequences on the same entity while it calls itself Organization B. We cannot presume that Congress intended so vain an act as the Council's argument would have us conclude. Cf. First National City Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U.S. 611 (1983) (Cuban bank established by Cuban government as separate judicial entity would not be so treated due to the relationship between the bank and the Cuban government). 24 As this is the last of the statutory arguments advanced by either petitioner, the designations before us must stand, unless they fail on constitutional grounds.