This was fatal to the litigation - the court dismissed the suit because the plaintiffs would not be able to establish the prima facie case that the electronic surveillance was unlawful without the privileged information.
The government moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that pleading in response to it "would reveal important military and state secrets respecting the capabilities of the NSA for the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence".
As part of Minaret and Shamrock the watchlists included names of 1200 US citizens provided by the Bureau of Narcotics, the CIA, FBI, Secret Service and military intelligence, concerning investigations in the areas of terrorism, executive protection, international narcotics trafficking and possible foreign influence over domestic organizations.
They write:[5] It requires little reflection to understand that the business of foreign intelligence gathering in this age of computer technology is more akin to the construction of a mosaic than it is to the management of a cloak and dagger affair.
Thousands of bits and pieces of seemingly innocuous information can be analyzed and fitted into place to reveal with startling clarity how the unseen whole must operate.The "utmost deference" standard established in Halkin has been influential and is applied under the mosaic theory of intelligence gathering (stated above) even to "seemingly innocuous information".