Vaughn Walker Dismisses Jewel

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In the abundant free time left over from the Prop 8 trial yesterday, Vaughn Walker dismissed the Jewel case, one of the last suits against the government for conducting widespread collection of telecomm data. EFF says they will appeal this decision.

Walker’s ruling basically judges that the plaintiffs in this case lack sufficient standing to sue the government.

Upon careful consideration of the allegations of both complaints, the court has concluded that neither the Jewel plaintiffs nor the Shubert plaintiffs have alleged facts sufficient to establish their standing to proceed with their lawsuit against the President, the NSA and the other high-level government officials named as defendants in these lawsuits.

Walker seems to say that this surveillance is appropriate for legislation, not the courts.

As the court noted in Hepting, “[w]hether styled as a constitutional or prudential limit on standing, the [Supreme] Court has sometimes determined that where large numbers of Americans suffer alike, the political process, rather than the judicial process, may provide the more appropriate remedy for a widely shared grievance.” Id at 1000, quoting FEC v Akins, 524 US 11, 23. This special species of standing problem is directly relevant here.

Stated more generally, “[s]tanding will be denied to one alleging only a generalized interest, shared by a large segment of the public. * * * The courts do not want to be viewed as a panacea of all of society’s ills, a task too large and often inappropriate for them to handle. If an injury is far-reaching, it is likely that a better solution would come from a political forum.” Charles H Koch, Jr, 33 Federal Practice and Procedure: Judicial Review of Administrative Action § 8413 at 452.

Walker specifically declined to rule on a bunch of issues central to other cases in Northern California.

Because the court GRANTS the United States’ motions to dismiss based on the specific standing grounds stated herein, the court declines to rule on the sovereign immunity, SSP and other issues raised in the United States’ motions.

I actually thought that Walker, having viewed the documents in al-Haramain, might have seen fit to apply the generalized descriptions in those filings to this case. I guess not.

All of which places all the more importance on the al-Haramain decision, which itself probably relies on the 9th Circuit’s decision in Jeppesen.

Obama Gorging Himself on Poison Fruit

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Okay, I still haven’t gotten through the IG Report on exigent letters. But Ryan Singel at Threat Level has–and he made a really disturbing find. Obama’s OLC (the one that Dawn Johnsen might have been leading if anyone had pressured Arlen Specter when he flipped parties) legalized the illegal use of exigent letters several weeks ago.

But in a surprise buried at the end of the 289-page report, the inspector general also reveals that the Obama administration issued a secret rule almost two weeks ago saying it was legal for the FBI to have skirted federal privacy protections.

The Obama administration retroactively legalized the entire fiasco via a secret ruling from the Office of Legal Counsel.

That’s the same office from which John Yoo blessed President George W. Bush’s Bush’s torture techniques and warrantless wiretapping of Americans’ communications that crossed the border.

In the report’s final and heavily censored section, it discloses that the Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion almost two weeks ago that it was legal for the FBI to obtain Americans’ phone records in the same manner that was harshly criticized by the inspector general’s report.

The inspector general also warned that the Office of Legal Counsel’s ruling needs to be considered by Congress.

Basically, it seems Obama attempted to make all the poison fruit based on these illegal searches legal by using the same tactic David Addington would–by having a lawyer at OLC make it okay.

The FBI's Non-Emergency Exigent Letters

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The WaPo has a story out describing how the FBI, from 2002 until 2006, used exigent letters to collect phone records without the proper underlying terrorist justification.

The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions.

[snip]

FBI officials told The Post that their own review has found that about half of the 4,400 toll records collected in emergency situations or with after-the-fact approvals were done in technical violation of the law. The searches involved only records of calls and not the content of the calls. In some cases, agents broadened their searches to gather numbers two and three degrees of separation from the original request, documents show.

MadDog has helpfully linked to a collection of all the emails included individually in the WaPo story.

There are a couple of details I find particularly interesting in this story. First,the exchange showing top FBI officials trying to collect phone records “related to a terrorist organization with ties to the US,” based on an underlying cable that FBI refused to share internally.

Separately, Kopistansky in the FBI general counsel’s office learned in mid-December 2004 that toll records were being requested without national security letters. She handled a request that originated from then-Executive Assistant Director Gary Bald, who had “passed information regarding numbers related to a terrorist organization with ties to the US” and obtained toll records, the memos show.

The communications analysis unit asked Kopistansky to “draw up an NSL” to cover the search, but she was unable to get superiors to tell her which open terrorism case it involved.

Call me crazy, but since we know the FBI and NSA were illegally wiretapping organizations like al-Haramain in 2004, you have to wonder whether this was an attempt to clean up poison fruit from earlier, even more illegal surveillance.

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China Google Attack and the Terrorist Surveillance Program

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thumb.phpAs you may know, there was quite a lot of buzz this week about Google potentially leaving China over the hacking of Google’s system. From MSNBC/Reuters:

Google, the world’s top search engine, said on Tuesday it might shut down its Chinese site, Google.cn, after an attack on its infrastructure it believed was primarily aimed at accessing the Google mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Unlike ordinary viruses that are released into cyberspace and quickly spread from computer to computer, the type of attack launched against Google and at least 20 other companies were likely handcrafted uniquely for each targeted organization.

It appears to be a problem that is quite deep according to an in depth article in MacWorld:

Google, by implying that Beijing had sponsored the attack, has placed itself in the center of an international controversy, exposing what appears to be a state-sponsored corporate espionage campaign that compromised more than 30 technology, financial and media companies, most of them global Fortune 500 enterprises.

The U.S. government is taking the attack seriously. Late Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement asking the Chinese government to explain itself, saying that Google’s allegations “raise very serious concerns and questions.”

But the Macworld article goes on to explain why the United States government may be taking this much more seriously than they let on:

“First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses – including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors – have been similarly targeted,” wrote Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond in a Tuesday blog posting.

“Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.”

Drummond said that the hackers never got into Gmail accounts via the Google hack, but they did manage to get some “account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line.”

That’s because they apparently were able to access a system used to help Google comply with search warrants by providing data on Google users, said a source familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press.

“Right before Christmas, it was, ‘Holy s***, this malware is accessing the internal intercept [systems],'” he said.

Uh, “account information”, “subject line”, “search warrants” and “intercept systems”. That ring a bell? This appears to indicate that the state-sponsored Chinese hackers have hacked into the portion of the Google infrastructure that deals with government warrants, intercepts, national security letters and other modalities pertinent to the Terrorist Surveillance Program. That, if true, could be very problematic, one would think.

Now, this is based upon information and belief, but it is my understanding that Google doesn’t store any gmail data in China, which means that this search warrant/intercept machine was located in the US, likely in Mountain View California

That is, if Google’s Mountain View HQ search warrant search interface/computer was hacked, we are probably talking about the same computer used by the Google Legal Department to perform queries in response to DOJ warrants, subpoenas, national security letters, and FISA orders.

Yeah, if that is the case it could be a problem.

The Lobbyists That Brought You Telecom Immunity

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Tucked into an article on GM CEO (and former AT&T CEO) Edward Whitacre’s promise that GM will return to profitability is this tidbit:

Last month, G.M. hired two former AT&T executives who had worked with Mr. Whitacre to run its Washington office.

Mr. Whitacre said he felt G.M. needed to improve its image with some lawmakers who had opposed its government bailout. “I think we need to take a new look at our relationship with Congress,” he said.

Whitacre retired from AT&T on June 3, 2007, just as the industry redoubled its efforts to win immunity for cooperating with the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretap program. So presumably, these two people are the same people who managed to win AT&T immunity for its crimes. Back on the job, buttering up Congress on cars.

Now, to be fair, I absolutely agree with Whitacre that some members of Congress opposed the GM bailout out of ignorance, particularly, of GM’s already-started efforts to turn around. As well as an overall ignorance of how the auto industry works (not that I’m confident that either Whitacre or these telecom lobbysts know anything about that yet).

That said, Whitacre seems to have tied Congressional support to reversing the decision on closing some of the GM dealers.

Mr. Whitacre also said he expected that “a large number” of G.M. dealers who had been jettisoned during bankruptcy were likely to be reinstated through an appeals process approved by Congress.

He said that G.M. made “some mistakes” when it cut more than 1,000 dealers, and that some would be welcomed back if they were reinstated through appeals.

Other dealerships that were cut might not get the same welcome, even if they win their appeals. “If they were a lousy dealer with a lousy storefront and they are put back, that wouldn’t be a good thing,” he said.

As I’ve explained before, the need to close dealers stems not only from a need to get rid of the “lousy” dealers, but also to trim a bloated dealer network to better compete with manufacturers that have newer, smaller dealer networks, like Toytoa and Honda. Yet Whitacre here seems to have given up that goal in an effort to placate Congress.

The best way to improve Congress’ (and consumers’) impression of GM is to improve the overall brand. And one thing contributing to GM’s crappy brand image (as well as its crappy profitability) is the fact that consumers expect to get huge rebates every time they walk into a GM dealer, which is partly caused by the bloated dealer network. That’s why you need lobbyists in Congress — to explain why GM needs to trim both lousy and average dealers if it wants to be competitive with the Japanese manufacturers. But it doesn’t look like that’s what Whitacre has in mind.

Note: I’ll be spending quite a bit of time early next week with GM folks at Detroit’s North American International Auto Show. Anything you want me to ask about your taxpayer-owned auto company?

Brandon Mayfield Gets Hosed By The 9th Circuit

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As Fatster noticed, the Ninth Circuit has ruled against Brandon Mayfield on his attempt to hold the PATRIOT Act declared unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

Mayfield was a former suspect in the 2004 Madrid train bombings. After the Madrid bombings, the Spanish National Police (“SNP”) recovered fingerprints from a plastic bag containing explosive detonators. The SNP submitted digital photographs of the fingerprints to Interpol Madrid, which subsequently transmitted them to the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. The FBI searched fingerprints in its system and, among other possibilities, produced Mayfield, an US citizen and lawyer from the Portland Oregon area, as an alleged match. FBI surveillance agents began to watch Mayfield and follow him and members of his family when they traveled to and from the mosque, Mayfield’s law office, the children’s schools, and other family activities. The FBI also applied to the Foreign Intelligence Security Court (“FISC”) for authorization to surreptitiously place electronic listening devices in the Mayfield family home; searched the home while nobody was there; obtained private and protected information about the Mayfields from third parties; searched Mayfield’s law offices; and placed wiretaps on his office and home phones. The application for the FISC order was personally approved by John Ashcroft, then the Attorney General of the United States.

The Spanish SNP, however, looked at the FBI evidence and found it lacking evidentiary credibility. In spite of this fact, the FBI submitted an affidavit to a US Federal court, stating that experts considered the identification of Mayfield 100% positive, intentionally failing to advise that the SNP had reached a diametrically opposite conclusion. As a result, Mayfield was arrested and held on a material witness warrant, and the public informed of his identity and supposed involvement in the bombings. Over two weeks later, the SNP conclusively matched the fingerprint to an unrelated Algerian citizen and Mayfield was absolved. Mayfield sued the US Government under numerous theories including that the PATRIOT Act was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. The government, being in an egregiously bad position, settled with Mayfield and even allowed the unusual provision that he could maintain the Fourth Amendment challenge to PATRIOT, but could only obtain declaratory relief, not monetary damages.

Mayfield pressed his complaint seeking a declaration that PATRIOT was unconstitutional under his stipulated facts, and the District Court of Oregon, in denying the government’s motion to dismiss and granting Mayfield’s motion for summary judgment, agreed with Mayfield and ruled in his favor. The government appealed to the 9th Circuit arguing that the trial court had no jurisdiction because Mayfield had already been compensated, that the court erred in finding PATRIOT unconstitutional and that other matters, in totality, placed the matter outside of the court’s power to award redress. These arguments were proffered by the government in spite of it having knowingly and specifically agreeing that Mayfield intended to raise and argue said issues and agreeing in their unusual settlement agreement to let him do so.

The usually enlightened 9th Circuit, this time took it upon itself to contrive and contort a way Read more →

In Honor of Obama’s Nobel “Peace Through War” Prize, Donate to the ACLU

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I was going to make this pitch somewhat differently. But as the jist of Obama’s “Peace through War” speech has sunk in today, I’ve just gotten more and more frustrated.

First some background. As Glenn points out, the ACLU is in a whole bunch of hurt right now after their biggest single donor told them that cash flow issues prevent him from donating for the foreseeable future.

As The New York Times reported yesterday, the ACLU this year, largely without warning, lost its single largest source of funding as a result of the financial crisis.  The loss of that individual donor, who had been contributing $20 million per year, was a major blow to the organization, “punching a 25 percent hole in its annual operating budget and forcing cutbacks in operations.”  That loss came on top of substantial fundraising losses last year from the financial crisis and the Madoff fraud, which had already forced the group to lay-off numerous employees and cut back substantially on its activities.  The lost donor made clear yesterday that he continues to support the ACLU’s work emphatically but is simply now financially unable to continue his support.

I agree with Glenn that the ACLU has been utterly critical over the last decade in fighting to sustain our Constitution and the rule of law. But this funding set-back puts their ability to maintain their leadership position on these issues in jeopardy. And it sure looks to me like we’re going to continue to need their services in the coming years.

So if you can afford to do so at all, please consider supporting ACLU.

Sotomayor Refuses to Give Government Privilege for Me But Not for Thee

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s first opinion, released yesterday, is interesting for several reasons. Clarence Thomas was a predictable asshole to her about her opinion. (h/t fatster) It was the first time anyone has used the phrase “undocumented immigrant” in a SCOTUS opinion.

But I’m interested in the Obama Administration’s unsuccessful attempt to get the Court to bail them out of troubles they’re having on national security cases like al-Haramain and Jeppesen.

The case, Mohawk v. Carpenter, concerned whether a District Court’s order allowing discovery that threatened the attorney-client privilege merited an immediate appeal. The Government submitted an amicus brief in the case, basically arguing that it did not. But at the same time, the Government tried to write an exception for itself, arguing that attorney-client privilege should not get to bypass the normal appeals process, but state secrets and presidential communications privileges should.

As noted above (pp. 11-12, supra), the collateral order doctrine does not categorically exclude all discovery orders irrespective of their nature or the interests that are at stake. This Court has recognized that important governmental interests, principally of constitutional and statutory significance, justify immediate appealability under the collateral order doctrine. See, e.g., Osborn, supra (Westfall Act certification); P.R. Aqueduct, supra (Eleventh Amendment immunity); Helstoski, supra (Speech or Debate Clause immunity). Although the attorney-client privilege does not meet that high bar, privileges such as those protecting Presidential communications and state secrets qualify for such treatment in light of their structural constitutional grounding under the separation of powers, relatively rare invocation, and unique importance to governmental functions.

The Presidential communications privilege, which draws its authority from the constitutional role of the Executive and “can be viewed as a modern derivative of sovereign immunity,” is well established. Northrop Corp. v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 751 F.2d 395, 398 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (citing Raoul Berger & Abe Krash, Government Immunity from Discovery, 59 Yale L.J. 1451, 1459 n.46 (1950)). “The privilege is fundamental to the operation of Government and inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution,” and it derives largely from the “necessity for protection of the public interest in candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions in Presidential decisionmaking.” United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 708 (1974). Unlike the attorney-client privilege (see pp. 15-17, supra), the Presidential communications privilege is invoked relatively rarely and only after authorization of senior Executive Branch officials.

[snip]

In addition to the Presidential communications privilege, this Court has long recognized a state-secrets privilege. That privilege may be invoked to avoid “a reasonable danger that compulsion of the evidence will expose military matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged.” United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 10 (1953). The state-secrets privilege, whose origins extend to early Anglo-American law, “performs a function of constitutional significance, because it allows the executive branch to protect information whose secrecy is necessary to its military and for eign-affairs responsibilities.” El-Masri v. United States, 479 F.3d 296, 303 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 128 S. Ct. 373 (2007) (emphasis added); cf. Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105, 107 (1876) (noting that in comparison to cases involving common-law privileges—including the attorney-client privilege—“[m]uch greater reason exists for the application of the principle [against maintenance of a suit resulting in disclosure of confidential matters] to cases of contract for secret services with the
government”). As a matter of practice, the privilege is invoked by a formal request “lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter, after actual personal consideration by that officer,” underscoring its unique significance to the functions of the Executive Branch and the restraints on its invocation. Reynolds, 345 U.S. at 7-8 (footnote omitted). In addition to their paramount “public importance” and “the need for their prompt resolution,” Nixon, 418 U.S. at 687, orders denying the applicability of the Presidential
communications and state-secrets privileges also satisfy the other traditional elements of the Cohen inquiry. First, an order requiring the disclosure of information over the government’s assertion of those privileges would conclusively resolve the issue. The Executive cannot be expected to persist in withholding information that a court has ordered to be disclosed; to suggest otherwise would be to invite the “unseemly” interbranch conflict that this Court declined to let unfold in Nixon. Id. at 692.

Second, neither the Presidential communications privilege nor state-secrets privilege turns on the merits of the action in which they arise, but rather on the nature of the constitutional prerogatives of the Executive Branch. Accordingly, when compared to the attorney client privilege (see pp. 17-21 supra), the governmental privileges are more readily severable from the merits of the underlying case. For example, the question whether disclosure of a state secret would endanger national security or diplomatic efforts is independent of the merits of the underlying action that seeks the disclosure. If information is properly deemed a state secret, then any assessment of the potential merits of the action or the disclosure’s impact on the merits is beside the point—the state secret cannot be divulged regardless. See Reynolds, 345 U.S. at 11 (state-secrets privilege cannot be overcome by “even the most compelling necessity”). The Court in Nixon, a criminal case where the asserted Presidential communications privilege reflected a “generalized interest in confidentiality,” engaged in a more case-specific inquiry, but only after finding appellate jurisdiction. 418 U.S. at 711.6 [my emphasis]

Now, it’s crystal clear what the Government was trying to do with the state secrets stuff. They were trying to dig themselves out of several holes in the 9th Circuit, by pushing the Court to back their argument that they can appeal an order to disclose evidence anytime a question of state secrets is involved. In particular, if I understand correctly (and please correct me if I’m wrong), this is what the Government tried to do in al-Haramain–appeal Judge Walker’s ruling that al-Haramain’s lawyers could have access to materials on their wiretapping so as to litigate the case.

Note, too, their claim that the Government would never refuse to turn over information after a Judge had ordered them to. Except that was precisely what they seemed to be preparing to do in al-Haramain, not just refusing to turn over information, but to take information already lodged with the Court Security Officer, along with filings that are the property of the Court, away from the Court.

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FBI Asks William Webster to Look Closer at Nidal Hasan Analysis

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The WaPo reports that the FBI has appointed William Webster to review the FBI’s response to Nidal Hasan’s actions leading up to the Fort Hood shootings.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has asked former director and retired federal judge William H. Webster to conduct an independent review of the bureau’s actions in advance of last month’s deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Tex., according to government officials familiar with the move.

But the most interesting thing about the report are the details it offers on the FBI’s analysis of Anwar al-Awlaki’s communications.

FBI agents in California already monitoring Aulaqi, whose violent rhetoric has inspired terrorist plots in Canada, Great Britain and the United States, forwarded two e-mails to the Washington task force, another government official confirmed. An analyst there took a few months to review the messages, before concluding they were innocent and in line with research Hasan had been conducting about Muslim soldiers and mental health issues, the official said.

Later e-mails between Hasan and the cleric were not sent to agents in Washington, but were reviewed by analysts in San Diego who determined they were in line with the earlier correspondence, the official added.

To sum up, the FBI maintains that Awlaki has “inspired” attacks plots [corrected per KenMuldrew] in Canada, the UK, and the US. Though this does not include a description of what “inspired” means.

It also reveals that the actual analysis of Awlaki’s communication–which we have reason to believe were collected under FISA surveillance–was initially done in CA (presumably, in San Diego). But the initial decision whether or not to pursue an investigation of Hasan based on the wiretaps was made in DC.

Not that I have any grand conclusions about that–but I do find it curious that the analysis of communications with Awlaki–whose last US-based location was in the DC area–was done in San Diego.

One more thing. What the WaPo doesn’t mention about Webster’s background is that, in addition to being a judge and a former FBI Director (and an Amherst grad), he’s also a former CIA Director and Chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Both of those roles would add another layer of expertise that may be useful for this review.

Update: I asked Tim Shorrock, author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, why they might be doing the analysis in San Diego. He said that the JTTF in San Diego is pretty substantial. Like me, he speculated that SAIC, which is located in San Diego, may be involved.

The most likely contractor would be SAIC, and not just because it’s based in San Diego. It has very close ties with the FBI and is a prime contractor on a massive FBI database called Investigative Data Warehouse. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been trying to shine some light on IDW through FOIA, and earlier this year released some of its findings: http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/investigative-data-warehouse-report

What’s Missing from the EFF Document Dump: Whitehouse’s Declassification Requests

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I’m still plugging away on the EFF Document Dump. But before I delve into the next chunk of emails, I want to note something that hasn’t, thus far, shown up in the document dump (and almost certainly should have been included in the communications between Congress and OLC): Two separate requests (or one extended one) on the part of Sheldon Whitehouse to declassify some of the underlying legal authorities for Bush’s illegal surveillance program.

On December 7, 2007, Whitehouse revealed three paraphrases of OLC opinions that Bush had relied on to authorize his surveillance program.

  • An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.
  • The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.
  • The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

Whitehouse made it clear–between the time SSCI approved its version of FAA on October 26, 2007 and the time the full Senate approved it on February 12, 2008–that these three OLC opinions authorized at least one earlier incarnation of Bush’s surveillance program (though it’s not clear whether they authorized the PAA or the totally illegal programs).

For years under the Bush Administration, the Office of Legal Counsel within the Department of Justice has issued highly classified secret legal opinions related to surveillance. This is an administration that hates answering to an American court, that wants to grade its own papers, and OLC is the inside place the administration goes to get legal support for its spying program.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was given access to those opinions, and spent hours poring over them. Sitting in that secure room, as a lawyer, as a former U.S. Attorney, legal counsel to Rhode Island’s Governor, and State Attorney General, I was increasingly dismayed and amazed as I read on.

To give you an example of what I read, I have gotten three legal propositions from these OLC opinions declassified.

These are the opinions, then, that the SSCI got to review as part of the negotiations over the PAA and FAA.

Then, on April 30, 2008, Whitehouse revealed he was still trying to get language from one OLC opinion similarly declassified, this one on exclusivity.

I’m doing it again with a piece of language that relates to exclusivity. There is a sentence that describes whether or not the FISA statute’s exclusivity provision is really exclusive enough for the OLC and that is, we’re still going through this process. I’d like to be able to tell you more about this.

This effort took place before the ultimate compromise bill was introduced on June 19, 2008 (it passed the Senate on July 9, 2008).

In other words, Whitehouse’s efforts–which surely include the OLC (though the OLC would almost certainly not have had final declassification authority)–were part of DOJ discussions with Congress about passing FAA. But they don’t show up in the OLC documents, or (as far as I have seen) in the EFF documents more generally.

Though there may be reasonable explanations (I’m going to do some follow-up on this point), it does seem a curious omission. Not least, because these four opinions (and therefore, presumably the discussions about declassifying some summary of them) are really keys to understanding much of the discussion in the emails. They explain both the discussions about 12333 and “2.5” authority, specifically regarding whether the government could wiretap Americans overseas. As well as some of the discussion about the debate over the exclusivity provision.