Opinion ID: 1356581
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Glomar Response to Requests for Information Gathered Pursuant to the TSP

Text: Plaintiffs first argue that Glomar may be invoked only to preserve the secrecy of a covert intelligence program or secret intelligence sources and methods, Appellants' Br. 12, and that the NSA inappropriately provided a Glomar response in this case because the TSP is no longer a secret program in light of the government's public acknowledgment of its existence and purpose following its controversial disclosure by the news media and ensuing public controversy. Whether the Glomar doctrine may be invoked in response to a FOIA request for records obtained under the TSP is also an issue of first impression for our Court. We now hold that, as a general rule, (1) an agency may provide a Glomar response to FOIA requests for information gathered under a program whose existence has been publicly revealed, and may do so specifically with respect to information gathered under the TSP, and (2) that such a response will be reviewed in the same manner as any other Glomar response to a FOIA request. The government's decision to make public the existence of the TSP does not alter the rationale for allowing an agency to provide a Glomar response namely, to prevent the sort of harm that a FOIA exemption is designed to prevent. The record is clear that, although the general existence of the TSP has been officially acknowledged, the specific methods used, targets of surveillance, and information obtained through the program have not been disclosed. President Bush announced that he had authorized the NSA to intercept the international communications of people with known links to Al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. President Bush's Address, supra. Additionally, CIA Director [6] Michael Hayden noted that the general procedures the NSA implements in conducting electronic surveillance were also applicable to the TSP. He also indicated that, under the TSP, the NSA was targeting communications where one party is outside of the United States. General Michael V. Hayden, What American Intelligence & Especially the NSA Have Been Doing To Defend the Nation, Address to the National Press Club (Jan. 23, 2006), available at http://www.dni.gov/speeches/20060123_ speech.htm (last visited Dec. 22, 2009). However, at no time have the President or other members of the national government in either the Bush or Obama Administrations publicly confirmed or denied that particular persons were targeted or subject to surveillance. The Glomar doctrine is applicable in cases where to answer the FOIA inquiry would cause harm cognizable under a[ ] FOIA exception, Gardels, 689 F.2d at 1103in other words, in cases in which the existence or nonexistence of a record is a fact exempt from disclosure under a FOIA exception. An agency is therefore precluded from making a Glomar response if the existence or nonexistence of the specific records sought by the FOIA request has been the subject of an official public acknowledgment. If the government has admitted that a specific record exists, a government agency may not later refuse to disclose whether that same record exists or not. See Wolf v. CIA, 473 F.3d 370, 378-79 (D.C.Cir.2007); cf. Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. v. Dep't of the Navy, 891 F.2d 414, 421 (2d Cir.1989). Here, although the public is aware that the TSP exists, the government has found it necessary to keep undisclosed the details of the program's operations and scope the subject of plaintiffs' FOIA request in this case. The fact that the public is aware of the program's existence does not mean that the public is entitled to have information regarding the operation of the program, its targets, the information it has yielded, or other highly sensitive national security information that the government has continued to classify. Indeed, the fact that the TSP's existence has been made public reinforces the government's continuing stance that it is necessary to keep confidential the details of the program's operations and scope. We therefore hold that, as a threshold matter, and as a general rule, an agency may invoke the Glomar doctrine in response to a FOIA request regarding a publicly revealed matter. An agency only loses its ability to provide a Glomar response when the existence or nonexistence of the particular records covered by the Glomar response has been officially and publicly disclosed. We hold, in particular, that an agency may invoke the Glomar doctrine with respect to the TSP, at least with respect to those aspects of the program that have not been the subject of such disclosures. Accordingly, we now turn our attention to the question of whether the NSA in this particular case has met its burden to justify its Glomar response.