Opinion ID: 795411
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Bench Trial and the District Court's Decision

Text: 16 Two weeks after the Program commenced, plaintiffs sued to halt it. During discovery, plaintiffs requested that the NYPD produce confidential data reflecting the number and location of checkpoints deployed since the Program's inception. The District Court conditioned discovery of that information on a showing of need. Instead of attempting to establish that need at an evidentiary hearing, plaintiffs elected to proceed to trial but reserved their right to reopen the record. 17 The bench trial lasted two days. Of the evidence elicited, most relevant to this appeal is the testimony of three defense expert witnesses: David Cohen, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence, Michael Sheehan, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Counter-Terrorism, and Richard C. Clarke, former Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Security Group of the National Security Council. Because each witness offered nearly identical opinions as to the Program's efficacy, and supported their opinions with nearly identical reasons, we summarize their testimony in one piece. Before doing that, we pause briefly to note the basis of each witness's expertise, as their credentials are essential to understanding why the District Court credited their testimony. 18 Cohen served for 35 years in the analysis and operations divisions of the Central Intelligence Agency. Early in his career, he established the CIA's first terrorism analysis program. When he later became the Deputy Director of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, he oversaw the CIA's entire analysis program on a daily basis, including its preparation of political, military, and economic assessments for the President and his senior national security advisors. Later, as the Director of the Directorate of Operations, he bore responsibility for the agency's worldwide counter-terrorism operations. At that time, he created the CIA's Al Qaeda Osama bin Laden unit. In 2002 he joined the NYPD and assumed responsibility for its intelligence programs. 19 Like Cohen, Sheehan has considerable counter-terrorism experience. He began his career as a member of a counter-terrorism unit in the U.S. Army's Special Forces. He served under two Presidents as the National Security Council's Director of International Programs, and later served as the State Department's Ambassador-at-Large for Counter-Terrorism. In 2003 he joined the NYPD, where he commands its counter-terrorism division and its contingent of the F.B.I. joint terrorism task force. In his current post, he bears responsibility for critical infrastructure protection. 20 Clarke also possesses substantial counter-terrorism experience. For seven years he served in the Department of State, holding the positions of Assistant Secretary for Politico-Military Affairs and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence. For the following 11 years he held a number of positions on the National Security Council, including Chair of its Counter-Terrorism Security Group, National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-Terrorism, and Special Advisor to four Presidents. 21 The expert testimony established that terrorists place a premium on success. Accordingly, they seek out targets that are predictable and vulnerable—traits they ascertain through surveillance and a careful assessment of existing security measures. They also plan their operations carefully: they rehearse [the attack], they train it, they do dry runs. In light of these priorities, the Al Qaeda Manual advises that terrorists traveling on a mission should avoid security check points along the way. 22 The witnesses also testified that the Program's flexible and shifting deployment of checkpoints deters a terrorist attack because it introduces the variable of an unplanned checkpoint inspection and thus throws uncertainty into every aspect of terrorist operations—from planning to implementation. Terrorists don't want to be in a situation where one of their bombs doesn't go off, because on the day that they chose to go in subway station X, there were police doing searches. That unpredictability deters both a single-bomb attack and an attack consisting of multiple, synchronized bombings, such as those in London and Madrid. 23 Because the Program deters a terrorist from planning to attack the subway in the first place, the witnesses testified, the fact that a terrorist could decline a search and leave the subway system makes little difference in assessing the Program's efficacy. Similarly, the precise number of checkpoints employed on any given day is relatively unimportant because the critical aspects of the Program are that it is random and routine, the combination of which creates an incentive for terrorists to choose ... an easier target. Finally, the testimony established that each of the City's counter-terrorism programs incrementally increases security and that taken together, the programs address the broad range of concerns related to terrorist activity and have created an environment in New York City that has made it more difficult for terrorists to operate. 24 After the close of testimony, plaintiffs renewed their request for discovery of data reflecting the number of subway station checkpoints established throughout the City since the Program's inception. The District Court ordered defendants to produce the data for in camera inspection. See MacWade, 2005 WL 3338573, at . After that inspection, the District Court entered the data in the record under seal, allowed plaintiffs' lead counsel to view it, and ordered sealed any documents revealing or tending to reveal it, such as post-trial submissions. 25 After taking those submissions under consideration and hearing closing arguments, the District Court issued an opinion in which it concluded that the Program was constitutional pursuant to the special needs exception. In its analysis, the District Court determined that the Program served a special need because it aimed to prevent, through deterrence and detection, a terrorist attack on the subways. Id. at . 26 Having established that the Program served a special need, the District Court proceeded to balance several factors. It concluded that the government interest in preventing a terrorist attack on the subway was of the very highest order. Id. at . As to the Program's efficacy, the District Court credited the expert testimony of Sheehan, Cohen, and Clarke in concluding that the Program was a reasonable method of deterring (and detecting) a terrorist bombing on the subway. Id. at . Although the District Court concluded that scrutinizing the sealed NYPD checkpoint data was neither necessary or probative, id. at , it reviewed the data and concluded, in relevant part, that: (1) the Program was ongoing; and (2) with one exception, the NYPD established checkpoints on a daily basis between July 22, 2005 and November 6, 2005. Id. at -14. 27 Finally, the District Court resolved that the searches were narrowly tailored and only minimally intrude[] upon privacy interests. Id. at -20. Accordingly, the Court concluded that on balance the Program was constitutional, denied plaintiffs' application for declaratory and injunctive relief, and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. Id. at . This appeal promptly ensued.