Cite as 551 F.3d 1004 (Foreign Int.Surv.Ct.Rev. 2008)
sons); cf. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 23–24, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (upholding pat-frisk for weapons to protect officer safety during investigatory stop).
The question, then, is whether the reasoning of the special needs cases applies by analogy to justify a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for surveillance undertaken for national security purposes and directed at a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power reasonably believed to be located outside the United States. Applying principles derived from the special needs cases, we conclude that this type of foreign intelligence surveillance possesses characteristics that qualify it for such an exception.
For one thing, the purpose behind the surveillances ordered pursuant to the directives goes well beyond any garden-variety law enforcement objective. It involves the acquisition from overseas foreign agents of foreign intelligence to help protect national security. Moreover, this is the sort of situation in which the government’s interest is particularly intense.
The petitioner has a fallback position. Even if there is a narrow foreign intelligence exception, it asseverates, a definition of that exception should require the foreign intelligence purpose to be the primary purpose of the surveillance. For that proposition, it cites the Fourth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Truong Dinh Hung, 629 F.2d 908, 915 (4th Cir.1980). That dog will not hunt.
This court previously has upheld as reasonable under the Fourth Amendment the Patriot Act’s substitution of “a significant purpose” for the talismanic phrase “primary purpose.” In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d at 742–45. As we explained there, the Fourth Circuit’s “primary purpose” language—from which the pre-Patriot Act interpretation of “purpose” derived—drew an “unstable, unrealistic, and confusing” line between foreign intelligence purposes and criminal investigation purposes. Id. at 743. A surveillance with a foreign intelligence purpose often will have some ancillary criminal-law purpose. See id. The prevention or apprehension of terrorism suspects, for instance, is inextricably intertwined with the national security concerns that are at the core of foreign intelligence collection. See id. In our view the more appropriate consideration is the programmatic purpose of the surveillances and whether—as in the special needs cases—that programmatic purpose involves some legitimate objective beyond ordinary crime control. Id. at 745–46.
Under this analysis, the surveillances authorized by the directives easily pass muster. Their stated purpose centers on garnering foreign intelligence. There is no indication that the collections of information are primarily related to ordinary criminal-law enforcement purposes. Without something more than a purely speculative set of imaginings, we cannot infer that the purpose of the directives (and, thus, of the surveillances) is other than their stated purpose. See, e.g., United States v. Chem. Found., Inc., 272 U.S. 1, 14–15, 47 S.Ct. 1, 71 L.Ed. 131 (1926) (“The presumption of regularity supports the official acts of public officers, and, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have properly discharged their official duties.”).
We add, moreover, that there is a high degree of probability that requiring a warrant would hinder the government’s ability to collect time-sensitive information and, thus, would impede the vital national security interests that are at stake. See, e.g., Truong Dinh Hung, 629 F.2d at 915 (explaining that when the object of a surveillance is a foreign power or its collaborators, “the government has the greatest need for speed, stealth, and secrecy”). [redacted text] Compulsory compliance
