Full opinion text
MacKINNON, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs appeal several orders of the district court which resulted in the dismissal of their complaint for legal and equitable relief on claims arising out of certain activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the period from 1967 to 1974. The complaint alleged violations of plaintiffs’ first, fourth, fifth and ninth amendments rights, and of section 102(d)(3) of the National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C. § 403(d)(3). For the reasons set forth below, the judgment of the district court is affirmed. I. Background Appellants are 21 individuals and 5 organizations who in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s were involved in various activities seeking to protest and secure an end to the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. The individual appellees are seven named persons and an unspecified number of John Does who at the time plaintiffs’ claims arose were officials of the CIA or were otherwise agents or employees of the United States government. The seven appellees referred to hereinafter as the “individual appellees” were sued for damages in their individual capacities. The appellees also include the heads of the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense and Secret Service, who were sued in their official capacities and with respect to whom plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief only. Plaintiffs filed suit in October 1975, after disclosures by the press and by the President’s Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States (the Rockefeller Commission) revealed that government agencies, including the FBI and the CIA, had conducted intelligence operations that resulted in surveillance of United States citizens who opposed the war in Vietnam. These operations included intelligence gathering activities both within and without the United States. Two such intelligence gathering programs are the focus of the present litigation. A. Operation CHAOS The first program, designated by the CIA as Operation CHAOS, was an intelligence-gathering activity conducted by the CIA originally at the request of President Johnson which sought to determine the extent to which foreign governments or political organizations exerted influence on or provided support to domestic critics of the government’s Vietnam policies. CHAOS was begun in 1967 by appellee Helms, who at the time was Director of Central Intelligence. Appellee Angleton, Chief of Counterintelligence for the CIA, selected appellee Ober to head what became known as the “Special Operations Group” of the CIA’s Counterintelligence staff. The Special Operations Group was responsible for the conduct of Operation CHAOS. Over the course of several years, Operation CHAOS produced six reports for the White House and some thirty-four reports for cabinet-level officials, dealing with the subject of foreign influence on the domestic antiwar movement. In the normal course of its operations, CHAOS also produced a steady stream of reports to the FBI and other agencies detailing the results of its various intelligence activities with respect to the antiwar movement. Discovery conducted by plaintiffs in the district court revealed that among the several thousand computerized files it maintained on Americans involved in various aspects of the antiwar movement, Operation CHAOS ultimately developed files on 15 of the individual appellants and the five appellant organizations. The gravamen of plaintiffs’ claims with respect to Operation CHAOS concerned the several known methods whereby the CIA compiled information on plaintiffs’ activities. First, CHAOS from the outset called upon CIA stations located abroad to report on the antiwar activities of U. S. citizens travelling in their areas. This reporting comprised both the routine provision of information thought by the local stations to be relevant to CHAOS requirements, and the gathering of particular intelligence at the specific request of the CHAOS office. Surveillance of Americans while abroad was conducted both through direct observation (“physical surveillance”) and with the aid of electronic eavesdropping equipment. CIA agents abroad also requested the assistance of friendly local intelligence agencies, or “liaison services,” in maintaining electronic and physical surveillance of American subjects. The use of local liaison services facilitated both the conduct of normal surveillance and “most important, [the] development of informants or . . . agent penetrations within suspect groups” operating on foreign soil with whom Americans may have had contact. Second, beginning in late 1969, the CHAOS office developed its own network of informants for the purposes of infiltrating various foreign antiwar groups located in foreign countries that might have had ties to domestic antiwar activity. Although the principal focus of such infiltration was foreign groups, it is now known that informants destined for such assignments were directed to infiltrate antiwar circles within the United States for the purpose of gaining knowledge of their operations and credibility as antiwar activists. In the course of these preliminary associations, CHAOS agents apparently supplied information on the activities of domestic antiwar groups, and this information was placed in the general CHAOS data base. Third, Operation CHAOS made use of the facilities of other ongoing CIA surveillance programs. These included: (1) the CIA letter-opening program, which was directed at letters passing between the United States and the Soviet Union, and involved the examination of correspondence to and from individuals or organizations placed on a “watchlist;” (2) the Domestic Contact Service, a CIA office which solicits foreign intelligence information overtly from willing sources within the United States; (3) the CIA’s “Project 2,” which was directed at the infiltration of foreign intelligence targets by agents posing as dissident sympathizers and which, like CHAOS, had placed agents within domestic radical organizations for the purposes of training and establishment of dissident credentials; (4) the CIA’s Project MERRIMAC, operated by the Office of Security, which was designed to infiltrate domestic antiwar and radical organizations thought to pose a threat to the security of CIA property and personnel; and (5) Project RESISTANCE, also a creature of the Office of Security, which gathered information on domestic groups without any actual infiltration From its inception, CHAOS also regularly received information from the FBI on that agency’s investigations of the domestic antiwar movement. B. International Electronic Communications In addition to the surveillance activities carried out under the aegis of Operation CHAOS, plaintiffs complained of the CIA’s practice of obtaining the contents of international communications (telephone, telegraph and radio transmissions) by submitting subjects’ names on “watchlists” to the National Security Agency (NSA). NSA possesses the technology to scan the mass of signals transmitted through various communications systems and then to select out by computer those messages in which certain words or phrases occur. It is thereby possible for that agency to acquire all communications over a monitored system in which, for example, a person’s name is mentioned. Between 1967 and 1973, the FBI, the Secret Service, and military intelligence agencies, as well as the CIA, submitted the names of domestic individuals and organizations on watchlists to NSA, and ultimately acquired through NSA the international communications of over a thousand American citizens. On a prior appeal, Halkin v. Helms (Halkin I), 598 F.2d 1 (D.C.Cir.1978), this court upheld a claim of the state secrets privilege by the Secretary of Defense and held that NSA was not required to disclose in discovery whether it had intercepted any of plaintiffs’ communications. As a result of that ruling, plaintiffs’ claims against the NSA and several individual officials connected with that agency’s monitoring activities could not be proved, and the complaint as to those defendants was dismissed. Plaintiffs were left, however, with their claim that notwithstanding the practical bar to suit against NSA worked by the state secrets privilege, the CIA and the individuals responsible for submitting the watchlists to NSA could be held liable based on a presumption that the submission of a name resulted in interception of the named person’s communications. C. History of the litigation 1. Discovery Since this action was filed in October 1976, the parties have fought the bulk of their dispute on the battlefield of discovery. Shortly after filing their complaint, plaintiffs sought the production of documents concerning (1) the conduct of Operation CHAOS in general, and (2) CHAOS surveillance of plaintiff individuals and organizations in particular. A large number of documents responsive to plaintiffs’ request were produced, but with portions claimed to disclose sensitive information redacted. Approximately 200 responsive documents were withheld in their entirety. Subsequently, as public reports further disclosed the extent of CIA domestic activities, plaintiffs in July 1977 sought additional discovery in the form of (3) requests for admissions that the CIA or foreign “liaison services” had conducted various types of surveillance against each plaintiff or against nonparty organizations to which plaintiffs belonged; (4) further interrogatories seeking more detailed justification of the redaction and withholding of documents previously requested; (5) a request for the production of documents concerning the conduct of operations MERRIMACK and RESISTANCE and any documents generated by those operations which concerned the plaintiffs; and (6) CHAOS documents concerning several plaintiffs who had moved to intervene in the litigation (and whose intervention was ultimately permitted). The CIA declined to supply all of the information requested by plaintiffs. With respect to the identification of plaintiffs who had been the subjects of surveillance under the CHAOS program or by virtue of watchlists submitted by the CIA to NSA, the CIA claimed that more than the limited disclosure already given would reveal the identities of covert sources and disclose the existence of liaison relationships with foreign intelligence services, and that therefore this information was privileged from discovery. The CIA declined on grounds of relevance to answer the interrogatories concerning surveillance of nonparty organizations to which plaintiffs belonged. It declined to answer plaintiffs’ interrogatories seeking more detailed explanations of the redactions in the documents it had produced, continuing to assert the adequacy of its number-and-letter coded explanations as to both the documents earlier produced and newly produced documents. Finally, it refused to disclose whether any plaintiffs’ names had been submitted on watchlists to NSA by the Special Operations Group. In January 1978, plaintiffs pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 37 filed a motion to compel the Director of the CIA to respond to plaintiffs’ interrogatories and requests for production of documents. The CIA responded with two affidavits by then-Director Stansfield Turner formally claiming that the requested information was protected from discovery by the state secrets privilege. The first affidavit was for the public record, and stated essentially that the identities of liaison services and casual and CIA-paid informers who had provided information to the CHAOS program would likely be revealed if further identification of particular instances in which plaintiffs had been subjected to surveillance was provided, and that such revelations of secrets of state would damage the national security. The second affidavit, classified “SECRET” by the agency, was submitted to the court in camera. It made the same claim of privilege, but “in somewhat greater detail.” In a memorandum opinion filed August 30, 1978, the district court upheld the CIA’s claim of the state secrets privilege and denied plaintiffs’ motion to compel. Placing heavy reliance upon the in camera affidavit of Director Turner, the court ruled that the claim of privilege met the procedural requirement set forth in United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 73 S.Ct. 528, 97 L.Ed. 727 (1953), and had “overwhelming support” on its merits. The court specifically accepted the CIA’s assertion of the privilege against plaintiffs’ demand for further explanation of redactions made in released documents. In February 1979, plaintiffs filed a further motion to compel discovery. This motion concerned the CIA’s refusal to provide, in response to plaintiffs’ original Rule 34 request for production, documents relating to Operation CHAOS that had been prepared for and used in the testimony of CIA officials before the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Defendants opposed this motion with letters from the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Clerk of the House (who is charged with the custody of House records), voicing the objection of those officers to disclosure of the testimony or background materials. The district court, crediting the objections, denied plaintiffs’ motions without opinion. A subsequent motion urging that notwithstanding the congressional officers’ objections, the documents were not privileged under the Speech or Debate Clause, U.S.Const.Art. I, § 6, was likewise denied. In the course of their efforts to obtain discovery from the CIA, plaintiffs also subpoenaed certain records of the President’s Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States (the “Rockefeller Commission”), which were in the possession of the Archivist of the United States. The Archivist made a significant portion of Commission materials available in the summer of 1979, but with redactions made at the .behest of the CIA. Plaintiffs filed a motion to compel the Archivist to comply fully with the subpoena. This motion was denied in May 1980 without opinion, presumably on the strength of an affidavit of an Assistant General Counsel of the CIA to the effect that the redactions by the Archivist corresponded to those made by the CIA of its CHAOS documents pursuant to the state secrets privilege which the district court had previously upheld. In addition to the foregoing attempts to conduct discovery through interrogatories and document production requests, plaintiffs sought to take the oral depositions of several past or present CIA officials named as defendants. In response, the CIA officials moved under Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(c) for a protective order limiting the depositions. Most prominently, the defendants urged that they be deposed only upon written interrogatories as provided for in Fed.R. Civ.P. 31. This procedure, it was argued, would permit the defendants to review their answers to questions so as to insure that no privileged information was divulged. The court rejected defendants’ proposed protective order, but entered an order requiring plaintiffs to serve their initial questions upon the deponents in writing and far enough in advance to permit the CIA to evaluate the need to assert the state secrets privilege with respect to matters inquired into. Questions objected to on national security grounds were not permitted to be asked at the oral depositions, and oral follow-up questions to the written questions were also confined to matters not objected to on national security grounds. Plaintiffs subsequently propounded written questions to be asked of several defendants, and defendants objected in part. The district court, because of its disposition of plaintiffs’ claims, never found it necessary to rule on the objections, and the depositions were never taken. 2. Disposition of plaintiffs’ claims (a) Individual defendants Seven of the present appellees are individuals who are or were officials of the CIA or the Department of Defense. These individuals were sued for damages based on asserted violations of plaintiffs’ rights under the Constitution, on the well-established theory that certain provisions of the Constitution provide direct actions for damages arising from their violation. The claims against these defendants were disposed of in two phases. Defendants Howard Osborn and James J. Angleton were, respectively, the CIA’s Director of Security and Chief of Counterintelligence Staff at the time plaintiffs’ claims arose. They moved in May 1978 to dismiss the complaint against them for lack of jurisdiction over their persons, on the theory that because they lived and worked in Virginia (where CIA headquarters is located), they lacked sufficient contacts with the District of Columbia to give the court power over them. After directing plaintiffs to adduce evidence showing both venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b) and personal jurisdiction under the District of Columbia long-arm statute, D.C.Code § 13-423, the court found the proffered evidence of contacts with the District insufficient and dismissed the complaint as to Osborn and Angleton in August 1978 for lack of jurisdiction. Former CIA Directors William Colby and Richard Helms, former Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger (also a former CIA director), Richard Ober (head of the CHAOS program) and Cord Meyer, Jr. (Assistant Deputy Director for Plans of the CIA), remained parties. With the district court’s ruling upholding the CIA’s claim of the state secrets privilege, however, it became clear that plaintiffs would be unable to adduce evidence to prove any of the details of their claims based on (1) physical and electronic surveillance by the CIA; (2) surveillance conducted by foreign intelligence (liaison) services; or (3) infiltration of plaintiff organizations or other groups to which plaintiffs belonged. Without access to documents identifying either the subjects of CHAOS surveillance or the types of surveillance used against particular plaintiffs, the likelihood of establishing injury in fact, causation by the defendants, violations of substantive constitutional provisions, or the quantum of damages was clearly minimal. Based on the plaintiffs’ evident inability to prove their claims, the five individual defendants moved for summary judgment on the claims except those involving letter-opening. The court, with plaintiffs’ concession that they could not prove a set of facts entitling them to relief, subsequently granted summary judgment in favor of the individual defendants. (b) Defendants sued in their official capacities The heads of the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense and Secret Service were sued in their official capacities for injunctive and declaratory relief. The plaintiffs sought thereby to prevent the government from any future surveillance of the sort alleged to have taken place in the course of Operation CHAOS. In June 1979, the agency heads filed a motion under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(b) and 12(b)(6) for summary judgment, or in the alternative for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, on all of plaintiffs’ claims for injunctive and declaratory relief. The grounds for this motion were that: (1) Operation CHAOS had been terminated in 1974; (2) the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, resistance to which had been the subject of CHAOS and related intelligence activities, had ended in 1973; (3) the CIA had not collected any information on plaintiffs since 1974; and (4) the promulgation in 1978 (in response to the Rockefeller Commission report) of Executive Order 12036, 3 C.F.R. 112 (1979), governing the gathering of intelligence about U. S. citizens, and the adoption of informal CIA directives implementing that Order, had eliminated any likelihood of future surveillance of the types that plaintiffs alleged had violated their rights. Plaintiffs opposed the government’s motion, claiming that the newly-signed Executive Order in fact continued to render them subject to surveillance by the various intelligence agencies, and that in any event, they were entitled to an injunction prohibiting future unconstitutional surveillance and a declaration that Operation CHAOS violated their rights. The court granted the motion of the agency heads on June 5,1980. With respect to the claims based on the submission by the CIA of watchlists to NSA, the court noted that our decision in Halkin I upholding the NSA’s state secrets privilege had prevented discovery of information that would disclose whether NSA had in fact intercepted plaintiffs’ communications, and had also rejected the claim that the inclusion of plaintiffs’ names on a NSA watchlist required the presumptive inference that their communications had been intercepted. The district court ruled that, as a result of being unable to demonstrate the actual interception of their communications, plaintiffs would be unable to prove any liability on the part of the CIA and its officials, and hence could not make out a case for injunctive or declaratory relief against the agency. The watchlisting claims were consequently dismissed. With respect to the claims based on Operation CHAOS, the district court rejected plaintiffs’ contention that there existed a likelihood of their being subjected to CIA surveillance in the future. “The Court believes that this is hypothetical or speculative harm which is insufficient to support the grant of declaratory or injunctive relief.” It therefore entered summary judgment in favor of defendants on all claims for injunctive and declaratory relief. (c) Dismissal of four plaintiffs for failure to make discovery All plaintiffs were served with some 240 interrogatories by the defendants in late 1976. These interrogatories sought, inter alia, information about plaintiffs’ political activities, the factual bases of the allegations contained in the complaint, the injuries sustained by plaintiffs, and the damages sought. After several stipulated time extensions, plaintiffs objected to the vast majority of the interrogatories. Two of the organizational plaintiffs ultimately dismissed filed timely answers to those relatively few interrogatories to which they did not object. The defendants then filed a motion to compel. In July 1977, the court entered an order ruling on plaintiffs’ objections and incorporating certain agreements as to the interrogatories that the parties had reached at the urging of the court. The court rejected plaintiffs’ objections based on the presence of information in public reports and many of the objections to relevance. It deferred plaintiffs’ obligation to answer questions relating to damages, plaintiffs’ legal theories, and “areas covered by the attorney-client privilege” until plaintiffs had made further discovery. Plaintiffs were given 14 days in which to answer the remaining interrogatories “or the claims asserted by such plaintiffs shall be dismissed with prejudice.” Plaintiffs failed to comply with that deadline, and were granted an extension of time to August 18,1977. The order extending the time for filing stated that upon failure to file timely answers, “this court will entertain briefs on the issue of what sanctions, if any, should be imposed . ...” Appellants Cora Weiss, American Friends Service Committee, Clergy and Laity Concerned, and Institute for Policy Studies failed to file their answers by August 18; a motion for further extension was denied. After a hearing, the court on May 24, 1978 granted CIA’s motion to dismiss the noncomplying plaintiffs. Plaintiffs’ motion in the interim for discovery sanctions against defendants based on similar lapses was denied. II. Issues on Appeal With judgment or a final order entered on all of plaintiffs’ claims, this appeal was filed. The errors urged by appellants fall essentially into three categories: (1) those concerning the merits of and the consequences flowing from the district court’s upholding of the government’s claim of state secrets privilege (including the restrictions on discovery necessitated by that ruling); (2) those concerning other restrictions of the plaintiffs’ discovery (the congressional materials, the submission of deposition questions in advance, and the sustaining of the CIA’s objections to the relevance of plaintiffs’ interrogatories); and (8) those concerning the availability of declaratory and injunctive relief for the constitutional violations plaintiffs alleged. Were the appellants to prevail on aspects of these assigned errors to the extent that appellees’ liability might be made susceptible of proof, the court would additionally face the questions raised by the district court’s dismissal of four of the plaintiffs as a discovery sanction and its dismissal of appellees Osborn and Angleton for want of personal jurisdiction. III. Discussion A. The State Secrets Privilege Plaintiffs, explicitly conceded in the district court that the successful invocation of the state secrets privilege by the Director of Central Intelligence made it impossible for them to go forward with their claims for damages based on statutory and constitutional violations occurring as a result of Operation CHAOS. Without access to the facts about the identities of particular plaintiffs who were subjected to CIA surveillance (or to NSA interception at the instance of the CIA), direct injury in fact to any of the plaintiffs would not have been susceptible of proof. Because the state secrets privilege, like other evidentiary privileges, operates to foreclose relief for violations of rights that may well have occurred by foreclosing the discovery of evidence that they did occur, it is a privilege “not to be lightly invoked.” United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 7, 73 S.Ct. 528, 531, 97 L.Ed. 727 (1953). Its invocation must be carefully considered to assure that the proper balance is struck between the interest of the public and the litigant in vindicating private rights and the public’s interest in safeguarding of the national security. We turn to that consideration. 1. General principles The starting point for any analysis of a claim of the state secrets privilege is United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 73 S.Ct. 528, 97 L.Ed. 727 (1953). That case establishes that secrets of state — matters the revelation of which reasonably could be seen as a threat to the military or diplomatic interests of the nation — are absolutely privileged from disclosure in the courts. Although the courts in evaluating claims of the privilege may take cognizance of the need for the information demonstrated by the party seeking disclosure, such need is a factor only in determining the extent of the court’s inquiry into the appropriateness of the claim. Once the court is satisfied that the information poses a reasonable danger to secrets of state, “even the most compelling necessity cannot overcome the claim of privilege . . . . ” Id. at 11, 73 S.Ct. at 533. Therefore, the critical feature of the inquiry in evaluating the claim of privilege is not a balancing of ultimate interests at stake in the litigation. That balance has already been struck. Rather, the determination is whether the showing of the harm that might reasonably be seen to flow from disclosure is adequate in a given case to trigger the absolute right to withhold the information sought in that case. A second inquiry may be posed once the government — whether as a party to the litigation or simply as the person having legal control over the information involved — has successfully invoked the privilege. The question then becomes whether the ease is to proceed as if the privileged matter had simply never existed, with the parties bearing the consequent disadvantages (or advantages) of this sudden disappearance, or instead should proceed under rules that have been changed to accommodate the loss of the otherwise relevant evidence. Such changes could compensate the party “deprived” of his evidence by, for example, altering the burden of persuasion upon particular issues, or by supplying otherwise lost proofs through the device of presumptions or presumptive inferences. In Halkin I, we declined the invitation to engage in such an alteration of the parties’ burdens. See 598 F.2d at 11. Insofar as that ruling represents the law of the case, we must likewise decline to do so here. See generally Salisbury v. United States, 690 F.2d 966 (D.C.Cir.1982). 2. Privilege questions raised by the present appeal Turning to the facts of the present case, we find the state secrets privilege involved in two of the errors urged by appellants. The first concerns the district court’s refusal to compel the defendants to answer interrogatories and produce documents relating to the conduct of Operation CHAOS. The second concerns the court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims for relief based on the CIA’s admitted submission of “watchlists” to NSA, on the ground that any interception of plaintiffs’ communications was privileged. As reviewed above, the government refused to respond to interrogatories or produce documents disclosing either the identities of plaintiffs who were subjected to CHAOS surveillance or the means of such surveillance. The claim of privilege was asserted in both the public and classified in camera affidavits of Stansfield Turner submitted in his capacity as Director of Central Intelligence. Appellants urge that the cláim of privilege was defective in several respects and that the district court’s denial of their motion to compel discovery was therefore an abuse of discretion. As the government argues, appellants’ “only objections to the district court’s upholding of the privilege are procedural.” Since that ruling resulted in maintaining the secrecy of the information sought, it is scarcely surprising that appellants have not chosen to contest the sensitivity of the information on its merits. Even had they the means and the desire to do so, our task would be no different, for the standard set down in Reynolds is itself purely a procedural framework for testing claims of privilege. Reynolds set forth three threshold requirements for claims of the state secrets privilege: that there be “a formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter, after actual personal consideration by that officer.” 345 U.S. at 7-8, 73 S.Ct. at 531-532 (emphasis added; footnotes omitted). It is undisputed that these requisites are met here. Beyond this, “the court must be satisfied from all the evidence and circumstances, and ‘from the implications of the question, in the setting in which it is asked, that a responsive answer to or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because injurious disclosure might result.’ ” Id. at 9, 73 S.Ct. at 532, quoting Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486-87, 71 S.Ct. 814, 818-819, 95 L.Ed. 1118 (1951) (discussing privilege against self-incrimination). We hold that the district court acted well within its discretion in finding the Director’s affidavits adequate to establish the reasonable danger of injury. We think that the additional showings appellants would require by analogy to claims of exemption under the Freedom of Information Act are both unnecessary and unwise. Appellants’ attack on the showing made by the CIA to justify the privilege with respect to CHAOS information is three-fold. First, appellants argue that the Director’s public affidavit was too vague to establish the privilege. Second, they contend that the court’s reliance upon the Director’s in camera affidavit improperly deprived them of an opportunity to litigate the privilege question. Third, with particular regard to the refusal to produce (and the redaction of) CHAOS documents, appellants argue that the government should have been compelled to supply a more detailed explanation of each withholding and redaction than the letter-and-number code provided. These contentions are considered in order. 1. The value of rules for determining the adequacy of the sort of affidavits involved here varies inversely with the breadth of such rules. As the court in Reynolds recognized, it is the circumstances in which a demand for information is made and the “implications of the [demand] in the setting in which it is asked,” 345 U.S. at 9, 73 S.Ct. at 532, that will provide the commonsense guide to resolving the adequacy question. We think that the Director’s public affidavit, read against the background of the widespread public disclosures about the conduct of Operation CHAOS on the one hand and the undeniable sensitivity of our diplomatic relations on the other, alone suffices to satisfy the requirements of the privilege. It is evident from the descriptions of the CHAOS program found in the Rockefeller Commission and Senate reports that the CIA’s conduct of Operation CHAOS extended to the surveillance of foreign citizens both here and abroad. It relied upon the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and upon the information supplied by CIA agents who were undercover both here and abroad. The Director’s public affidavit, while necessarily unspecific, set forth the grounds requiring secrecy in this context. It is self-evident that the disclosures sought here pose a “reasonable danger” to the diplomatic and military interests of the United States. Revelation of particular instances in which foreign governments assisted the CIA in conducting surveillance of dissidents could strain diplomatic relations in a number of ways — -by generally embarrassing foreign governments who may wish to avoid or may even explicitly disavow allegations of CIA or United States involvements, or by rendering foreign governments or their officials subject to political or legal action by those among their own citizens who may have been subjected to surveillance in the course of dissident activity. Similarly, the identities of CIA operatives who contributed information to CHAOS (both those hired by CHAOS itself and those attached to other departments within the agency) are self-evidently the sort of information which if disclosed could harm national security or diplomatic interests. Without considering the risk to the individuals involved, it is obvious that the exposure of one who acted — and indeed may still be acting — as a CIA operative here and abroad would pose a threat to our diplomatic and military interests. See Military Audit Project v. Casey, 656 F.2d 724, 749 (D.C.Cir.1981). Information that permitted one of the appellants to determine that he, she, or it had been the subject of surveillance might also be sufficient, when combined with knowledge of the individual’s other activities, to identify CIA operatives as having participated in activities abroad that were heretofore assumed free of such involvement, or as having had access to information previously assumed to have been secure. Appellants argue that some of the matters apparently claimed to be privileged are in fact matters of public knowledge, and therefore that the privilege claim must be assumed to be overbroad and suspect. They point to the “extensive body of literature revealing such information in books by former CIA officials which have been screened and approved by the CIA prior to publication.” This published matter offers little support for the contention. In Halkin I, we held that “[t]he government is not estopped from concluding in one case that disclosure is permissible while in another case it is not.” We need not even go that far here. Particularly in view of the fact that disclosure of an overseas CIA station’s existence is a far cry from disclosure of the activities carried on by that station (and whether they were carried on with the knowledge, acquiescence, or active participation of local intelligence agencies), we see no inconsistency in the CIA’s position. We reject, as we have previously, the theory that “because some information about the project ostensibly is now in the public domain, nothing about the project in which the appellants have expressed an interest can properly remain classified” or otherwise privileged from disclosure. Military Audit Project v. Casey, 656 F.2d 724, 752 (D.C.Cir.1981); cf. Hayden v. National Security Agency/Central Security Service, 608 F.2d 1381, 1388 (D.C.Cir.1979) (prior release of material did not bar agency from asserting FOIA exemption). 2. Because we find the Director’s public affidavit adequate to support the district court’s decision to uphold the claim of privilege we need not reach appellants’ contentions regarding the in camera affidavit. Specifically, we need not consider appellants’ claim that the court should have required a more complete articulation of the Director’s claim on the public record in order to permit full adversary development of the issue of its adequacy. Compare Philippi v. CIA, 546 F.2d 1009, 1013 (D.C.Cir.1976) (requiring fuller public submissions) with Military Audit Project v. Casey, 656 F.2d 724, 751 (D.C.Cir.1981) (“In national security cases, some sacrifice to the ideals of the full adversary process are inevitable.”); Hayden, 608 F.2d at 1387-88; and Halkin I, 598 F.2d at 7. Appellants offer no reasons to suspect the Director’s public affidavit of bad faith or inaccuracy. Cf. Allen v. Central Intelligence Agency, 636 F.2d 1287, 1298 (D.C.Cir.1980) (FOIA suit). Therefore, although the claim of privilege could in this instance have been upheld without reference to the in camera affidavit, the district court was free to satisfy itself of the credibility of the public affidavit by resort to the in camera submission. Cf. Salisbury v. United States, 690 F.2d 966 at 973-974 n. 3, (D.C.Cir.1982) (examination in FOIA action of in camera affidavit where public affidavit was adequate to support claim of Exemption 1). 3. Appellants are of the view that a claim of the state secrets privilege with respect to documents must be justified in accordance with the same procedures and the same ultimate burdens that obtain in cases seeking disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. They contend that the refusal of the CIA to produce CHAOS documents or more fully to explain the redactions made in those which were produced violated these requirements. We disagree. Appellants contend that the withholdings and deletions here should have been justified by a showing of the type required in FOIA cases by Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (D.C.Cir.1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 977, 94 S.Ct. 1564, 39 L.Ed.2d 873 (1974). Vaughn mandates that government agencies claiming one or more of the statutory exemptions from the FOIA submit “a relatively detailed analysis in manageable segments” that “eorrelate[s] statements made in the Government’s refusal justification with the actual portions of the document” sought to be withheld. 484 F.2d at 826-27 (footnote omitted). The customary means of complying with this mandate has been for the government to submit a “Vaughn index” itemizing each instance of claimed exemption, describing the document involved, and stating the specific exemption^) asserted to apply. The index may be supplemented with representative exhibits illustrating the nature of the documents and the context of redactions made, and in some eases with in camera submissions which make evident the need for confidentiality. We take note at the outset of the substantial effort already made by the Director in the case to provide the kind of specific explanation contemplated by Vaughn and its progeny. As stated above, the redactions made in documents provided in response to plaintiffs’ request were usually accompanied by coded explanations indicating the type of information deleted. The district court specifically found, in accordance with the language of Reynolds, that further explanation of the reasons for withholding information “is not required, nor is it by and large possible, in the context of the present suit.” We agree with appellees and the district court that further justification was not called for. First, the discovery sought here takes place in a context different from the statutory system of mandatory disclosure established by FOIA. Although the scope of civil discovery may well exceed the scope of FOIA-mandated disclosure in some instances, the nature of the decision to withhold information in the case of a claim of the state secrets privilege fundamentally differs from the decision to claim a FOIA exemption. The most important difference is that the claim of the state secrets privilege is a decision of policy made at the highest level of the executive branch after consideration of the facts of the particular case. The Reynolds requirements compel that it fulfill these requisites. Consequently, the risk of permitting relatively unaccountable “invisible” bureaucratic decisions as to the national security value of information (specifically, the decisions to classify information that trigger FOIA Exemption 1) to bar disclosure of information on a wholesale basis is not presented in a state secrets case. Second, the unique status of national security information under both FOIA and general civil discovery practice militates against requiring broader disclosure here. In their zeal to impose the requirements of Vaughn indexing beyond the FOIA context, appellants largely ignore the purposes Vaughn itself sought to serve. A Vaughn-type index of the withheld documents and redactions involved here would in fact serve little purpose. The raison d’etre of the Vaughn index is to permit a fuller adversarial examination of the justifications for withholding information which is presumed by statute to be available to the public. In cases where there is frequently doubt as to whether documents meet the threshold requirements of the asserted exemption — e.g., the “investigatory record compiled for a law enforcement purpose” threshold of Exemption 7 or the “medical or personnel files or similar files” threshold of Exemption 6 — the Vaughn index permits the court, with the assistance of the requesting party, to determine whether the information qualifies for exemption. However, as Vaughn itself recognized, where the only question is whether information has been deemed by the executive to be so sensitive as to pose a risk to national security were it disclosed, a more detailed statement of the characteristics of the withheld information would serve no useful end. The executive’s resolution of the issue in favor of secrecy terminates the inquiry under FOIA just as it does under the state secrets privilege. See Vaughn, 484 F.2d at 824. The innovation in Vaughn of the indexing requirement that now bears its name was, as that opinion will show, a response to cases other than those in which an actual executive determination of the need for secrecy had been demonstrated. Id. In this case, the information is of a sort “the factual nature of which was not disputed.” Id. Consequently, the rationale in Vaughn for imposing an indexing-and-explanation requirement — that the documents sought “do not indisputably fit within one of the exemptions to the FOIA,” id. — has no application to the information in the case at bar. In short, appellants argue for the expansion of the procedure that has no bearing in the first place on this case. The district court was on solid ground in refusing to compel production of documents on the basis of the Director’s claim as asserted in the public affidavit without resort to any more detailed justification. B. Availability of Relief 1. Watchlisting In Halkin I, we held that because the state secrets privilege barred proof of the fact that particular communications were intercepted by NSA, the district court could properly dismiss claims against the NSA defendants based on the acquisition of plaintiffs’ international communications. We are now presented with the related but not identical question whether the district court could also properly dismiss the claims for injunctive and declaratory relief against the CIA defendants based upon their submission of plaintiffs’ names on “watchlists” to NSA. Because we conclude that appellants are at present incapable of demonstrating that they have standing to challenge that practice, we affirm the district court’s judgment. The district court was of the view that as a result of the state secrets privilege holding in Halkin I regarding NSA interceptions, “plaintiffs cannot show any injury from having their names submitted to NSA because NSA is prohibited from disclosing whether it acquired any of plaintiffs’ communications.” Since a showing of “present or imminent future injury” was a “basic precept” of the relief sought, the court entered summary judgment for defendants on the claims for injunctive and declaratory relief with respect to future submission of watchlists to NSA by the agencies concerned with foreign intelligence. Appellants argue that this judgment was error. They contend that the very fact of submission of names to NSA, as to which no claim of state secrets privilege has ever been made, “creates a sufficient threat of injury to warrant injunctive or at least declaratory relief enforcing Fourth Amendment protections” even in the absence of proof that the submissions actually'resulted in the acquisition of communications to or from the named subjects. A contrary ruling, it is argued, would create a dangerous variant of the “silver platter” doctrine by permitting intelligence officials to insulate surveillance undertaken by others at their direction (i.e., as a result of their submission of names to. NSA) from fourth amendment scrutiny. Before considering the merits of this position, it is necessary to define precisely the nature of appellants’ argument. That argument proceeds as follows: if the warrantless interception of a plaintiff’s communications would violate the fourth amendment, then watchlisting — which creates a substantial threat of such interception— would also violate the fourth amendment, just as the use of “silver platter” evidence by federal prosecutors does by encouraging unlawful searches and seizures by state officers. The flaw in the argument is not in the validity of the if-then inference, but in the soundness of its premise. Manifestly, watchlisting by itself would never be a fourth amendment violation: the mere forwarding of a name by one agency to another involves no “search” or “seizure” triggering the constitutional limitation. Only the fact that the act of forwarding the name might lead to an unlawful search or seizure could make watchlisting constitutionally suspect. While appellants argue strenuously that watchlisting leads to interception, they fail to establish the critical second half of the premise, i.e., that the resulting interception would be unlawful. In short, the “if” underlying their argument — if interception would violate their fourth amendment rights, then watchlisting would do so also — is nowhere proved. Nor can it be proved. Our ruling in Halkin I is controlling on the point that the presence of one’s name on a watchlist cannot be presumed to establish that interceptions of one’s communications have occurred. Since it is the constitutionality of such interceptions that is the ultimate issue, the impossibility of proving that interception of any appellant’s communications ever occurred renders the inquiry pointless from the outset. The district court was therefore correct in applying Halkin I to the watch-listing claims against the CIA defendants. In holding that Halkin I concluded the watchlisting claims against the plaintiffs, the district court viewed the matter as one concerning the law of remedies: whether the inability to demonstrate the fact of acquisition barred an award of injunctive or declaratory relief against future submissions of names. While we do not disagree with this approach to the problem, we agree with appellees that a more serious flaw in appellants’ claims for such relief is the problem of justiciability they present. We hold that appellants’ inability to adduce proof of actual acquisition of their communications now prevents them from stating a claim cognizable in the federal courts. In particular, we find appellants incapable of making the showing necessary to establish their standing to seek relief. In Harrington v. Bush, 553 F.2d 190 (D.C.Cir.1977), this court discussed at length the constitutional requirement of standing. We stated: The first, and primary inquiry, concerns the existence of “injury in fact, economic or otherwise,” . . . This requirement is the irreducible constitutional minimum which must be present in every case. If the court finds that there is no injury in fact, “no other inquiry is relevant to consideration of standing.” 553 F.2d at 205 n.68 (citations omitted). The standing issue is now ripe for our consideration. “Although standing generally is a matter dealt with at the earliest stages of litigation, usually on the pleadings, it sometimes remains to be seen whether the factual allegations of the complaint necessary for standing will be supported adequately by the evidence adduced at trial.” Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bell wood, 441 U.S. 91, 115 n.31, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1615 n.31, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979). See Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 459 n.10, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 1215 n.10, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974); Public Citizen v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 565 F.2d 708, 718 n.22 (D.C.Cir.1977). In the present case, there can be little doubt that the complaint alleged facts — interception of plaintiffs’ private communications— which if proved would constitute an injury in fact, permitting plaintiffs to go forward in an effort to prove the truth of those allegations and any consequent liability of the defendants. United States v. American Telephone & Telegraph, 642 F.2d 1285, 1291 (D.C.Cir.1980). The sufficiency of those allegations must, however, be reevaluated in view of our ruling in Halkin I that evidence of the fact of acquisition of plaintiffs’ communications by NSA cannot be obtained from the government, nor can such fact be presumed from the submission of watchlists to that Agency. In this situation, it can only be concluded that appellants are incapable of demonstrating that they have sustained a violation of their fourth amendment rights. That conclusion compels the finding that appellants are without standing to assert the watchlisting claims set forth in their complaint. Appellants have alleged, but ultimately cannot show, a concrete injury amounting to either a “specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm.” Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 14, 92 S.Ct. 2318, 2326, 33 L.Ed.2d 154 (1972). Although the contours of the CIA activity giving rise to appellants’ claims are spelled out in considerable detail in the record of this case and in the public reports on that activity, as we held in Harrington v. Bush, supra, a litigant is “required to allege that he has suffered some specific harm, not that the injury emanates from some specific source.” 553 F.2d at 211 (emphasis added). “It is the nature of the injury, and not the source, that is the primary focus of concern when dealing with the question of standing.” Consequently, the absence of proof of actual acquisition of appellants’ communications is fatal to their watchlisting claims. In terminating appellants’ action on grounds that may make it extremely difficult ever to pursue similar claims, it is important to stress the dimensions of the question appellants ask us to resolve in passing on the constitutional status of watchlisting. The constitutionality of warrantless electronic surveillance of United States citizens in connection with foreign intelligence operations is a question that has been specifically reserved for decision by the Supreme Court. United States v. United States Distinct Court, 407 U.S. 297, 308, 321-22, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 2132, 2138-2139, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972). Were we to permit appellants to litigate the merits of that question in the district court, the focus of the proceedings would necessarily be upon “the ‘reasonableness’ of the search and seizure in question, and the way in which that ‘reasonableness’ derives content and meaning through reference to the warrant clause.” Id. at 309-10, 92 S.Ct. 2132-2133; see id. at 315, 92 S.Ct. at 2135. The valid claim of the state secrets privilege makes consideration of that question impossible. Without evidence of the detailed circumstances in which the CIA forwarded appellants’ names to NS A, the contents of communications intercepted as a result (in particular, whether the communications were sent or received by appellants or simply mentioned them), the duration of the appellants’ stays on the watchlists, and like matters — in short, “the essential information on which the legality of executive action [in foreign intelligence surveillance] turns” —it would be inappropriate to resolve the extremely difficult and important fourth amendment issue presented. Determining the reasonableness of warrantless foreign intelligence watchlisting under conditions of such informational poverty, armed only with the fact that the CIA at some point submitted a watchlist without obtaining a warrant, would be tantamount to the issuance of an advisory opinion on the question. See Chagnon v. Bell, 642 F.2d 1248, 1263 (D.C.Cir.1980) (dictum). With no hope of a complete record and adversarial development of the issue, we cannot authorize such inquiry. The limits upon our consideration of such claims were stated by the Supreme Court in Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War: Concrete injury, whether actual or threatened, is that indispensable element of a dispute which serves in part to cast it in a form traditionally capable of judicial resolution. It adds the essential dimension of specificity to the dispute by requiring that the complaining party have suffered a particular injury caused by the action challenged as unlawful. This personal stake is what the Court has consistently held enables a complainant authoritatively to present to a court a complete perspective upon the adverse consequences flowing from the specific set of facts undergirding his grievance. Such authoritative presentations are an integral part of the judicial process, for a court must rely on the parties’ treatment of the facts and claims before it to develop its rules of law. Only concrete injury presents the factual context within which a court, aided by parties who argue within the context, is capable of making decisions. Moreover, when a court is asked to undertake constitutional adjudication, the most important and delicate of its responsibilities, the requirement of concrete injury further serves the function of insuring that such adjudication does not take place unnecessarily. This principle is particularly applicable here, where respondents seek an interpretation of a constitutional provision which has never before been construed by the federal courts. 418 U.S. 208, 221-22, 94 S.Ct. 2925, 2932-2933, 41 L.Ed.2d 706. Because here, as in Schlesinger, “it can only be a matter of speculation whether the claimed violation has caused concrete injury to the particular complainant[s],” id. at 223, 94 S.Ct. at 2933, appellants’ watchlisting claims were properly dismissed. Although “[ujnder this analysis there may indeed be illegal or unconstitutional actions which will go unchallenged in a federal court due to the lack of a proper party to [bring suit],” that is the result required here. As in the other cases in which the need to protect sensitive information affecting the national security clashes with fundamental constitutional rights of individuals, we believe that “[t]he responsibility must be where the power is.” New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 728, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 2148, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971) (Stewart, J., concurring). In the present context, where the Constitution compels the subordination of appellants’ interest in the pursuit of their claims to the executive’s duty to preserve our national security, this means that remedies for constitutional violations that cannot be proven under existing legal standards, if there are to be such remedies, must be provided by Congress. That is where the government’s power to remedy wrongs is ultimately reposed. Consequently, that is where the responsibility for compensating those injured in the course of pursuing the ends of state must lie. United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 179, 94 S.Ct. 2940, 2947, 41 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974). 2. Executive Orders 12036 and 12333 Appellants also sought declaratory and injunctive relief directed at foreign intelligence activity under Executive Order 12036, 3 C.F.R. 190 (1979). The district court rejected that claim on the basis of the fact that the plaintiffs “have not alleged injury or the threat of injury by surveillance undertaken pursuant to the Executive Order,” and so lacked standing to attack that Order. Although that Order has been superseded by E.O. 12333 (1982), appellants suggest in their reply brief that since the more recent Order if anything permits expansion of the scope of foreign intelligence activity, their arguments should be considered notwithstanding the change in the nature of the beast they attack. The result reached by the district court was clearly the proper one. For still more clearly than in the case of watchlisting, it is apparent that appellants here urge nothing more than a “generalized grievance” against the intelligence-gathering methods sanctioned by the President. Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 220-21, 94 S.Ct. 2925, 2931-2932, 41 L.Ed.2d 706. There is no allegation that any intelligence has been or is about to be gathered via the means allegedly permitted under the current order, much less an allegation of an injury in fact of any immediacy to any appellant. This claim is squarely controlled by Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 92 S.Ct. 2318, 33 L.Ed.2d 154 (1972). There, plaintiffs claimed that the mere existence of any Army program to gather intelligence on domestic civil disorders resulted in a “chilling” of their first amendment rights of speech, association and petition — precisely the injury asserted to arise in this case under the Executive Order. Reversing a decision of this court which held the plaintiffs entitled to pursue their claim, the Supreme Court ordered the action dismissed as non justiciable. Appellants’ claim here, like those at issue in Laird, “is that they disagree with the judgments made by the Executive Branch with respect to the type and amount of information [needed] . . . and that the very existence of the . . . data gathering system produces a constitutionally impermissible chilling effect upon the exercise of their First Amendment rights.” 408 U.S. at 13, 92 S.Ct. at 2325. As the Court held there, “[allegations of a subjective ‘chill’ are not an adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm. . . . ” Id. at 13-14, 92 S.Ct. at 2325-2326. See also National Student Association v. Hershey, 412 F.2d 1103 (D.C.Cir.1969). The fact that appellants may have been subjected to surveillance under the policies of previous administrations cannot supply the missing causal link between that injury and the policies now under attack. Since the first amendment claim asserted against the Executive Order must be dismissed as nonjusticiable, it follows a fortiori that the fourth amendment challenge to the Order must likewise be dismissed. Although the fourth amendment has been read as furnishing either a coextensive or a narrower scope of protection for private political activity compared to that provided by the first, it is apparent that the fourth amendment provides no broader protection counselling a more liberal reading of the injury-in-fact requirement than is appropriate in first amendment cases. Consequently, a failure of standing for