Opinion ID: 351551
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Facts Culminating in Our Earlier Opinion

Text: 5 The facts as of our prior opinion, set forth in 551 F.2d at 385-88, may be summarized briefly. 6 The purpose of the Subcommittee's investigation was to examine the nature and extent of warrantless wiretapping in the United States for asserted national security purposes, and to determine whether legislation was required to curb possible abuse of that power. In carrying out warrantless taps authorized by the Attorney General, the FBI used AT&T facilities leased lines to carry tapped communications to its monitoring stations. It obtained these lines through request letters addressed to AT&T which specified a target line to be tapped, identified by telephone number, address, or numerical designation. 7 In furtherance of the investigation, a subpoena, issued on June 22, 1976, required AT&T to turn over to the Subcommittee all national security request letters. Thereupon, the Justice Department sought to negotiate with Subcommittee Chairman Moss an alternative means of satisfying the Subcommittee's needs which would, at the same time, minimize the risk to national security posed by the possibility of public disclosure of request letters pertaining to foreign intelligence surveillance. 1 Negotiations focused upon the possibility of substituting for these request letters expurgated copies of the backup memoranda upon which the Attorney General had based his decisions to authorize the warrantless taps. All information in these memoranda that would identify the targets of the taps would be replaced by generic descriptions. The Subcommittee agreed to an initial canvass of two years, 1972 and 1975. These memoranda, providing information as to the purpose and nature of the tap, would probably have been more useful to the Subcommittee than the request letters themselves. 8 The stumbling block in the negotiations was the means of verifying the accuracy of the executive's classification of surveillance as domestic or foreign, and of the generic descriptions. The Subcommittee proposed that three of its staff members conduct verification by examining the original memoranda corresponding to a subsample of the edited memoranda. They would inspect the original memoranda at the FBI, but would be permitted to take notes back to the Subcommittee. The White House rejected this proposal, in view of the House rule giving any member of the House access to such notes. 2 9 The White House proposed that Chairman Moss, rather than the Subcommittee staff, inspect the subsample of unedited memos. This was rejected by the Subcommittee. 10 The executive's final proposal, made by President Ford to Chairman Moss, was that the Attorney General would conduct the verification. If the Subcommittee were dissatisfied, it could appeal to the President. Chairman Moss rejected this proposal. 11 On July 22, after negotiations had broken down, the Justice Department sued to enjoin AT&T from complying with the Subcommittee subpoena. Chairman Moss intervened as a defendant. The District Court granted the injunction and Chairman Moss appealed. 12 Rather than attempt to resolve the dispute at that time, this court remanded to the District Court, with the suggestion that the parties attempt to negotiate a settlement. We indicated at that time what appeared to be the outlines of a possible settlement, 551 F.2d at 395 & n. 18: Subcommittee access to edited backup memoranda seemed likely to satisfy the Subcommittee's needs more readily than access to the request letters, without posing so serious a risk to national security. Verification of the accuracy of classification and generic descriptions might be done by Subcommittee staff members, with disputes to be resolved by the District Court after in camera inspection of the edited and original memoranda.