US High Court Tosses Ninth Circuit Ruling in State-Secrets Case

The US Supreme Court on Monday vacated and remanded a Ninth Circuit decision that federal authorities said would significantly undermine the state-secrets doctrine if allowed to stand.

The state-secrets privilege guards against disclosure of information where such disclosure might harm national security interests.

The government wanted the high court to substantively address “whether dismissal of a claim after assertion of the state-secrets privilege requires a district court to adjudicate the merits of the claim using the privileged information where the privileged information is relevant to a defense.” But it said it would alternatively settle for a remand based on intervening events.

The high court’s order instructs the Ninth Circuit to remand the case to the district court for reconsideration in light of recent factual developments in the case and the government’s motion to dismiss.

The government said that a key confidential informant recanted assertions of religion-based targeting.

The underlying Ninth Circuit decision revived some claims in a lawsuit challenging an allegedly discriminatory FBI surveillance program notwithstanding the court’s finding that some of the information the government pointed to was privileged.

Although the government properly asserted the privilege, the appeals court said dismissal of the proposed class action claims was premature because the government hadn’t shown that excluding the privileged information would “deprive it of a valid defense” or that further litigation unacceptably risked disclosing state secrets.

The government argued that once a court determines the privilege was properly invoked, the information should be excluded, not “affirmatively used to adjudicate the merits.”

The respondents—three members of Muslim communities in Southern California—claim that the FBI paid an informant—Craig Monteilh—to gather information about Muslims as part of a counter terrorism investigation known as “Operation Flex.” The “dragnet surveillance” program targeted Muslims solely because of their faith, they claim.

The government says Monteilh’s testimony was essential to their case because without it, they can’t substantiate their claim that the FBI targeted them solely based on their religion.

According to the government, Monteilh now says he orchestrated the lawsuit as revenge after the FBI allowed him to be arrested and imprisoned once his role with Operation Flex ended.

The respondents are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law

The case is FBI v. Fazaga, U.S., No. 25-430, 4/6/26.