Applicability of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Notification Provision to Security Clearance Adjudications by the Department of Justice Access Review Committee

CourtDepartment of Justice Office of Legal Counsel
DecidedJune 3, 2011
StatusPublished

This text of Applicability of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Notification Provision to Security Clearance Adjudications by the Department of Justice Access Review Committee (Applicability of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Notification Provision to Security Clearance Adjudications by the Department of Justice Access Review Committee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Applicability of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Notification Provision to Security Clearance Adjudications by the Department of Justice Access Review Committee, (olc 2011).

Opinion

APPLICABILITY OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE

ACT’S NOTIFICATION PROVISION TO SECURITY CLEARANCE

ADJUDICATIONS BY THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

ACCESS REVIEW COMMITTEE

The notification requirement in section 106(c) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act generally applies when the Department of Justice intends to use information obtained from electronic surveillance against an aggrieved person in an adjudication before the Access Review Committee concerning the Department’s revocation of an employee’s security clearance.

Compliance with the notification requirement in section 106(c) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in particular Access Review Committee adjudications could raise as-applied constitutional questions if such notice would require disclosure of sensitive national security information protected by executive privilege.

June 3, 2011

MEMORANDUM OPINION FOR THE CHAIR AND

MEMBERS OF THE ACCESS REVIEW COMMITTEE

Section 106(c) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”), 50 U.S.C. § 1806(c) (2006), requires the Government to notify an “aggrieved person”—that is, a person who was the target of electronic surveillance or whose communications or activities were subject to electronic surveillance, see id. § 1801(k)—whenever the Government intends to use “against” that person any information “obtained or derived from [such] electronic surveillance of that aggrieved person” in any “trial, hearing, or other proceeding in or before any court, department, officer, agency, regulatory body, or other authority of the United States.” You have asked whether this notification requirement applies when the Department of Justice intends to use information obtained from such electronic surveillance against an aggrieved person in an adjudication before the Access Review Committee (“ARC”) concerning the Department’s revocation of an employee’s security clearance.1 In accord with views we received from the Department’s Justice Management and National Security Divisions, we conclude that the notification requirement generally applies to such adjudications.2 But, as we explain below, compliance with the notification requirement in particular ARC adjudications could raise as-

1 See Memorandum for David Barron, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Mari Barr Santangelo, Chair, Access Review Committee, et al., Re: Request for Opinion (Jan. 26, 2010) (“Request for Opinion”). 2 See E-mail for Daniel L. Koffsky, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Stuart Frisch, General Counsel, Justice Management Division, Re: ARC request (Apr. 2, 2010); E-mail for Daniel L. Koffsky, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Todd Hinnen, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Law and Policy, National Security Division, Re: NSD Views Regarding the Applicability of 1806’s Notification Provision to Access Review Committee Proceedings (Mar. 31, 2010). We also received views from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) that did not take issue with the position that section 106(c) applies to ARC adjudications, but that raised other, related issues, two of which we respond to below in note 3 and at pages 7-8. See Memorandum for the Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Valerie Caproni, General Counsel, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Re: Request for an OLC Opinion Dated January 26, 2010 by ARC (Aug. 9, 2010) (“Caproni Memo”). Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 35

applied constitutional questions if such notice would require disclosure of sensitive national security information protected by executive privilege. I.

Section 106(c) of FISA provides:

Whenever the Government intends to enter into evidence or otherwise use or disclose in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding in or before any court, department, officer, agency, regulatory body, or other authority of the United States, against an aggrieved person, any information obtained or derived from an electronic surveillance of that aggrieved person pursuant to the authority of this subchapter, the Government shall, prior to the trial, hearing, or other proceeding or at a reasonable time prior to an effort to so disclose or so use that information or submit it in evidence, notify the aggrieved person and the court or other authority in which the information is to be disclosed or used that the Government intends to so disclose or so use such information.

50 U.S.C. § 1806(c). Section 106(e), in turn, provides that the aggrieved person “may move to suppress the evidence obtained or derived from such electronic surveillance on the grounds that—(1) the information was unlawfully acquired; or (2) the surveillance was not made in conformity with an order of authorization or approval.” Id. § 1806(e).

You have asked us to assume, for purposes of our analysis, that a Department component has revoked an employee’s security clearance; that the loss of security clearance caused the component to discharge the employee; that the employee has appealed the component’s security- clearance revocation decision to the ARC; and that, in the course of the ARC adjudication, the Department intends to justify the clearance revocation with the use of information it has “obtained . . . from an electronic surveillance” of communications that involved the employee.3 Id. § 1806(c). Accordingly, we will assume that the employee in question would be an “aggrieved person” under section 106(c),4 and that the Government would use “information obtained . . . from an electronic surveillance of” that aggrieved person “against” that person in the ARC adjudication. Id.

The function of a security clearance for a Department employee is to designate the employee as someone who is eligible to be afforded access to classified information, in accordance with the standards set forth in part 3 of Executive Order 12968, 3 C.F.R. 391, 397

3 Because the circumstances you posit involve the use of information obtained directly from the electronic surveillance in question, we need not address the language in section 106(c) that also makes the section applicable when information has been “derived from” electronic surveillance. 4 Section 101(k) of FISA defines an “aggrieved person” as a “person who is the target of an electronic surveillance or any other person whose communications or activities were subject to electronic surveillance.” 50 U.S.C. § 1801(k). In other words, “aggrieved person[s]” include only those persons targeted by the surveillance and others who are parties to communications subject to surveillance; as explained in a FISA House Report, “[t]he term specifically does not include persons, not parties to a communication, who may be mentioned or talked about by others.” H.R. Rep. No. 95-1283, pt. I, at 66 (1978).

Applicability of FISA’s Notification Provision to Security Clearance Adjudications

(1996). See 28 C.F.R. § 17.41(a)(1) (2010). Executive Order 12968 provides in relevant part that eligibility for access to classified materials may be granted only to those employees

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