Showing 1291–1300 of 2202

• 9/23/1980

  Environmental Protection Agency Overflights and Fourth Amendment Searches

  Routine overflights of industrial plants by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), conducted at lawful altitudes and employing commercially available visual aids, do not constitute searches under the Fourth Amendment. Considering the comprehensive nature of the federal environmental regulatory scheme, corporate businesses may have no legitimate expectation of privacy against EPA observations for the purpose of detecting emissions into the air or discharges into water. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24611/download.

  9/23/1980

• 9/23/1980

  Whether the Federal Communications Commission may monitor radio frequencies on behalf of law enforcement agencies and whether a violation of law applicable to such monitoring by FCC personnel would give rise to a private cause of action

  In this memo, the OLC concluded that the FCC could engage in routine monitoring of radio frequencies in order to investigate violations of the Communications Act of 1934, but could not undertake monitoring at the behest of law enforcement agencies. Additionally, the OLC found that “a private cause of action may lie against the FCC and its personnel for violations of laws applicable to such monitoring.”

  9/2/2022

• 9/17/1980

  Litigating Authority of the Regional Fishery Management Councils

  The legislative history and general statutory framework of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 indicate that Congress did not intend the Regional Fishery Management Councils to have litigating authority independent of the Department of Justice, so as to enable them to challenge in court a decision by the Secretary of Commerce taken under the FCMA and relating to the establishment of the Councils and their functions. The Councils have neither express statutory authority nor that freedom from executive control that would give rise to some inference supportive of their having independent litigating authority. The general rule against inter-agency and intra-agency lawsuits arises not only from a desire for centralized control of litigation, but also from the constitutional principle that disputes between entities subject to the control of the President should be resolved within the executive branch. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24606/download.

  9/17/1980

• 9/16/1980

  Congressional Power to Provide for the Vesting of Iranian Deposits in Foreign Branches of United States Banks

  Congress has the power under Article I, § 8 of the Constitution to authorize the peacetime vesting of assets of a foreign government in the control of foreign branches of American-owned and incorporated banks, at least insofar as such power may be enforced by courts of the United States. The Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not prohibit the United States from effecting uncompensated seizures of the assets of foreign nations. While United States courts will ordinarily make every effort to construe statutes to accord with our treaty obligations and general international law principles, Congress may, by clearly expressing its intent to do so, legislate in derogation of international law or contrary to prior treaty obligations. Therefore, a United States court would likely enforce a vesting order directed at overseas deposits of a foreign government that was clearly authorized by Congress notwithstanding contrary treaties or principles of international law. Congress could provide for the seizure in this country of Iran's overseas deposits by permitting vesting orders to be served against the New York office of the banks involved; however, foreign courts may refuse to give effect to what would appear to be the United States' uncompensated extraterritorial appropriation of non-enemy assets in any suit brought by Iran to recover its deposits. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/22391/download.

  9/16/1980

• 9/16/1980

  Presidential Authority to Settle the Iranian Crisis

  The President has the constitutional and statutory authority to enter an executive agreement with Iran which settles American citizens' claims against Iran; claimants who receive less than the stated value of their claims should not be able to recover additional compensation from the United States government on the theory that the settlement constituted a taking under the Fifth Amendment. The President may, through orders issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), free currently blocked Iranian assets and effect their return to Iran, notwithstanding the existence of court orders of attachment for bidding the removal of Iranian funds from the banks holding them, by revoking the existing general license for the attachments under the Iranian Assets Control Regulations and licensing Iranian withdrawals from the blocked accounts. Since private banks may refuse to honor withdrawal licenses after the attachments are revoked for fear of liability under state law to the attachment claimants, funds held by federal banking entities should be relied on as the source of any amounts promised to be returned forthwith to Iran. Foreign branches of American banks are subject to orders issued under authority of the IEEPA and, once withdrawal licenses are issued, there should be no legal impediment to Iranian withdrawals from previously blocked accounts as long as previously licensed setoffs are observed. If creditors of Iran seek to attach these accounts through actions in foreign courts, it is likely that those courts would allow their own domestic claimants a special priority. The President may, under existing law, take several kinds of actions to assist Iran in effecting the return of the former Shah's assets in the United States. These actions include blocking the assets under the IEEPA to facilitate a census and prevent their removal, undertaking to aid Iran in its litigation to recover the assets, informing the court of our position on foreign sovereign immunity and act of state doctrines, or taking an assignment of its claims from Iran. However, vesting the Shah's assets in the government would require new legislative authority and even then would give rise to a takings claim for just compensation by the Shah's estate. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/22386/download.

  9/16/1980

• 9/10/1980

  General Accounting Office Request for Documents of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

  The General Accounting Office Act of 1980 gives the General Accounting Office (GAO) new power to enforce its requests for information from executive branch agencies, but does not limit or expand GAO's underlying statutory authority to obtain such information. In requesting documents of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), GAO acts as an agent of the Congress and therefore has the benefit of the same protection against an executive agency's assertion of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemptions as does the Congress and its committees. Accordingly, FEMA may not assert FOIA exemption (b)(5) as a basis for declining to release documents to GAO. The executive branch may, in appropriate circumstances, exercise its constitutional authority to decline to release information in order to safeguard the discharge of its functions. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24601/download.

  9/10/1980

• 9/9/1980

  Department of Justice Views on the Constitution Adopted by the Constitutional Convention of the Virgin Islands

  The following memorandum, initially drafted in the Office of Legal Counsel at the request of the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs, presents the Department of Justice's views on certain provisions of the constitution adopted by the 1980 constitutional convention of the Virgin Islands. This constitution was approved by Congress for submission to the people of the Virgin Islands by Pub. L. No. 97-21, 95 Stat. 105 (1981), but was subsequently rejected in a referendum. As of the date of publication of this volume, the Virgin Islands do not have a constitution. The following analysis of the provisions of the rejected constitution discusses important and recurring constitutional and legal issues arising in the context of federal-territorial relations. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24596/download.

  9/9/1980

• 9/4/1980

  Settlement Authority of the United States in Oil Shale Cases

  The Attorney General has authority to settle cases even when the agency charged with administering the underlying law would not have that authority. In settling a case, the Attorney General is not bound by whatever litigating position the Department of Justice has heretofore taken in the case, nor is he bound by each and every statutory requirement that Congress may have imposed upon some other agency head in administering that agency's program; at the same time, there may be some forms of settlement that would be foreclosed, as where the settlement would result in action plainly at variance with Congress' intent. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24591/download.

  9/4/1980

• 8/27/1980

  Representation of White House Employees

  The following memorandum opinion discusses the propriety, under applicable laws and regulations, of providing legal representation at government expense to White House employees in connection with pending investigations by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Its conclusions are summarized in its second paragraph. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24586/download.

  8/27/1980

• 8/18/1980

  Applicability of the Federal Advisory Committee Act to the National Endowment for the Humanities

  The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requires that the names of members of the Humanities Panel of the National E ndowment for the Humanities (NEH) be made available to the public by subgroup, but does not require that such disclosure occur until after the particular subgroup's work has been completed. The privacy exemption to the open meeting requirement of the Government in the Sunshine Act, made applicable to federal advisory committees by the 1976 amendments to FACA, may permit closing some portions of meetings of subgroups of the Humanities Panel at which individual grant applications are discussed; however, the NEH has the responsibility to determine in advance what portions of subgroup meetings will not fall within an exemption to FACA's openness requirement, and to assure that those portions are closed to the public. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24581/download.

  8/18/1980