Opinion ID: 613956
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Panel Decision Creates a Circuit Split

Text: The most obvious reason why plaintiffs cannot show that they are subject to actual or imminent FAA interception is because that statute does not direct that any foreign intelligence surveillance be conducted; it merely authorizes the executive to undertake such surveillance pursuant to specified statutory requirements and protections. This is not to suggest that the executive will not exercise FAA authority. I assume that it will. I further assume that the FAA authorizes dragnet surveillance. Nevertheless, neither plaintiffs nor this court can know the extent to which the executive will seek or the FISA court authorize the exercise of such surveillance authority. That is the point Judge Lynch ignores in his mistaken identification of a palpable contradiction between the preceding two sentences and any concern with plaintiffs' standing. Lynch, J., Op., ante at [170 n. 9]. In fact, any decisions to seek or grant FAA surveillance authority depend, among other things, on national security priorities, available resources, alternative means of surveillance, and, of course, Congress's mandate that all FAA surveillance be conducted in compliance with the Fourth Amendment. In these variable circumstances, plaintiffs cannot show that their foreign contacts are certain to be targeted for FAA surveillance. Much less can they show that their own FAA interception is certainly impending. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 564 n. 2, 112 S.Ct. 2130. Rather, they can only speculate. Those of our sister circuits to have confronted challenges to other programs authorizing, but not directing, intelligence surveillance have uniformly found that plaintiffs lacked standing precisely because they could not demonstrate actual or imminent interception under such schemes. See United Presbyterian Church v. Reagan, 738 F.2d at 1380 (Scalia, J.) (stating that even if plaintiffs may be at greater risk than the public at large to being targeted for surveillance, such risk falls far short of the `genuine threat' of harm required to support standing); [18] accord Al-Haramain Islamic Found., Inc. v. Bush, 507 F.3d at 1205 (holding that despite plaintiff's formal designation as global terrorist organization subject to NSA surveillance, threat of such surveillance was too speculative to support standing); 18 ACLU v. NSA, 493 F.3d at 667 (Batchelder, J.) (holding that plaintiffs who adduced no evidence that NSA actually intercepted (or will actually intercept) any of their conversations could not rely on a possibility  of future interception to establish standing (emphasis in original)); id. at 689 n. 2 (Gibbons, J., concurring) (distinguishing between persons demonstrably subject to challenged policy, and persons who merely fear that policy may be enforced against them, in concluding that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge warrantless NSA surveillance program that might target persons with whom they regularly communicated). The panel dismisses these cases as not binding on this court. See Amnesty Int'l USA v. Clapper, 638 F.3d at 149. True enough, but the fact remains: their reasoning comports with the Supreme Court's holdings in Lyons, Laird, and Laidlaw, whereas the panel's does not. [19] The court should convene en banc to eliminate the unnecessary circuit split created by the panel decision.