This lawsuit challenges publicly-acknowledged
government mass-surveillance programs that over the
past 20 years have (1) intercepted, copied, and
searched the Internet communications, and (2) collected and searched the phone records, of hundreds of
millions of innocent Americans. The district court,
however, excluded under the state-secrets privilege
public evidence showing that the mass surveillance included petitioners' communications and communications records; it held that 50 U.S.C. § 1806(f)'s
procedures for using secret evidence in electronic-surveillance lawsuits did not displace the state-secrets
privilege; and it dismissed petitioners' claims under
the state-secrets privilege as nonjusticiable. The Ninth
Circuit affirmed in a cursory three-page decision. In
addition to its public dismissal order, the district court
issued a classified order never disclosed to petitioners
adjudicating their standing using secret evidence the
court ordered the government to produce pursuant to
section 1806(f) and 18 U.S.C. § 2712(b)(4). The Ninth
Circuit did not adjudicate petitioners' appeal of the
classified order.

This petition presents the following questions
closely intertwined with the issues pending before the
Court in U.S. v. Abu Zubaydah, No. 20-827, and FBI v.
Fazaga, No. 20-828.

1. May a district court use the state-secrets
privilege to exclude public evidence establishing a
plaintiff's standing to challenge government mass
surveillance and then dismiss the action under the
state-secrets privilege as nonjusticiable?

2. When pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2712(b)(4) and
50 U.S.C. § 1806(f) a district court has granted a plaintiff's discovery motion seeking evidence relating to
electronic surveillance and the government produces
the evidence to the court in camera and ex parte, may
the plaintiff rely on that secret evidence to establish
her standing or may the district court instead dismiss
the action under the state-secrets privilege as nonjusticiable?

3. On appeal, may a court of appeals refuse to review for error a district court's classified dispositive order never disclosed to the plaintiff-appellant?

Whether the state-secrets privilege can be used to exclude public evidence establishing standing and dismiss a case as nonjusticiable