The U.S. Supreme Court case American Foreign Service Association et al. v. Garfinkel, Director, Information Security Oversight Office, et al., 1988 revolved around the issue of whether a directive issued by President Reagan that required all federal employees to sign non-disclosure agreements was constitutional or not. The plaintiffs argued that this directive violated their First Amendment rights and constituted an illegal prior restraint on speech. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the case as being unripe for judicial review because it was based on hypothetical future harm rather than actual injury suffered by the plaintiffs due to enforcement of these agreements. The court held that until there is concrete application and interpretation of such directives causing real harm to individuals' freedom of speech rights, no justiciable controversy exists warranting intervention by courts.

In the dissenting opinion for American Foreign Service Association et al. v. Garfinkel, Director, Information Security Oversight Office, et al., Justice Blackmun argued that the case should not have been dismissed as moot because there was a reasonable expectation that the same issue could recur in future situations involving executive orders and their implementation by federal agencies. He believed that this controversy fell within an exception to the general rule against deciding moot cases because it was capable of repetition yet evading review due to its inherently transitory nature. Furthermore, he disagreed with majority's interpretation of Executive Order 12356 on national security information classification system; instead asserting that it did indeed impose new substantive standards which required congressional approval under Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Thus, he would have allowed plaintiffs' FACA claim to proceed.