Opinion ID: 613956
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Plaintiffs Fail to Demonstrate Redressability

Text: Having recast the standing standard to allow plaintiffs to carry their injury burden by reference to self-incurred costs, and their causation burden by demonstration of a not-irrational fear of FAA interception, the panel addressed the final constitutional requirement, redressability, in a footnote. Acknowledging that the element had received little attention from the district court or the parties, the panel nevertheless found it satisfied, explaining that plaintiffs' injuries, i.e., their costs, stemmed from a reasonable fear of FAA interception and if a court grants their requested reliefan injunction prohibiting the government from conducting surveillance under the FAAthe feared surveillance would no longer be permitted and therefore would, presumably, no longer be carried out. Amnesty Int'l USA v. Clapper, 638 F.3d at 140 n. 24. The requirement cannot be dismissed so easily. To demonstrate redressability, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (internal quotation marks omitted); accord Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. at 181, 120 S.Ct. 693. Under the panel's analysis, the relevant injury is not FAA interception, but plaintiffs' professional costs. Thus, to carry their burden on redressability, plaintiffs had to adduce evidence that enjoining FAA surveillance would relieve them of the need to incur such costs. Such a conclusion cannot withstand scrutiny. Plaintiffs' theory of standing is predicated on the assertion that their foreign contacts are likely to be targeted for FAA surveillance because they are people the U.S. government believes or believed to be associated with terrorist organizations, political and human rights activists who oppose governments that are supported economically or militarily by the U.S. government, and people located in geographic areas that are a special focus of the U.S. government's counterterrorism or diplomatic efforts. Amnesty Int'l USA v. Clapper, 638 F.3d at 127 (internal quotation marks omitted). But if the United States intelligence community is as inclined to monitor such persons' communications as plaintiffs assert, then enjoining the FAA will merely eliminate one of several means for achieving that objective. It will not shield plaintiffs or their contacts from the universe of alternative electronic surveillance options available to the government. After FISA's original enactment, warrantless radio surveillance of international communications carried by satellite and wire surveillance of international communications performed on foreign soil or offshore continued to be conducted outside that statutory regime, as long as United States persons located in this country were not specifically targeted. [22] Thus, even if FAA surveillance were enjoined, the government could still conduct surveillance by other means, such as FISA-exempt NSA surveillance programs or, in certain cases, FISA itself. Whether or not these alternatives would be more difficult or time-consuming is not the point. The critical fact is that plaintiffs would not know whether such alternative surveillance was being conducted with respect to contacts whom plaintiffs assert are of obvious foreign intelligence interest. See generally ACLU v. NSA, 493 F.3d at 671 (Batchelder, J.) (concluding that enjoining NSA warrantless surveillance of terrorists and their affiliates would not redress plaintiffs' fears of interception because of likelihood that FISA court would authorize such interceptions). Moreover, the United States is hardly the only government conducting electronic surveillance. Even without the FAA, then, plaintiffs would confront a real possibility that their foreign contacts, particularly those believed to be associated with terrorist organizations or opposed to established governments, would be prime targets for surveillance by other countries, including their own. [23] Thus, neither their fear of interception nor their need to incur costs to avoid such interception would be redressed by enjoining FAA surveillance. Apparently, the government made this point at oral argument on appeal. See Amnesty Int'l USA v. Clapper, 638 F.3d at 129 n. 13 (observing that government professed itself `puzzled' as to why the plaintiffs had not been just as nervous about being monitored before the FAA was enacted as they are now). The panel, however, concluded that the government could not question the genuineness of plaintiffs' assertions as to the impact of the FAA on their work because it had failed to submit contrary evidence or to seek a hearing in the district court. See id. I am not convinced. A standing determination is not a debate round, where an unchallenged point, however unsubstantiated, is scored for its proponent. See generally Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 581, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (observing that standing requirements ensure that legal questions ... will be resolved, not in the rarified atmosphere of a debating society, but in a concrete factual context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the consequences of judicial action (internal quotation marks omitted)). Rather, as earlier noted, a federal court is under an independent obligation to consider standing, even when the parties do not call it into question. Arizona Christian Sch. Tuition Org. v. Winn, 131 S.Ct. at 1454; see Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 129 S.Ct. at 1152. That obligation requires an especially rigorous inquiry into self-serving assertions unsupported by specific facts. Indeed, the obligation applies with particular force where, as here, the injury to be redressed is self-inflicted, making it appropriate to consider whether, if the fear is genuine, it would persist even if the relief sought were granted. The concerns raised by the panel's redressability analysis only reinforce the need to review this case en banc. I emphasize, however, that such review, if conducted in accordance with established Supreme Court precedent, would never reach the issue of redressability. Plaintiffs' standing claim fails at the injury step of analysis because they have not demonstrated that they are subject to actual or imminent FAA interception.