Does a district court clearly and indisputably err in ordering production of sensitive technical documentation without applying the standards set forth in the parties' protective order and without considering the Executive Branch's national-security interests in the documentation at issue?

When parties enter into the civildiscovery process with an agreed -upon, court -endorsed set of guardrails in a protective order, they reasonably expect those rules to be followed and enforced. That did not happen here. The plaintiff below , a Chinese state -owned entity, sought unsecure paper copies of sensitive technical information about Petitioner s’ semiconductor chips. The discovery rules governing that request required t he plaintiff to show that the paper copies were reasonably necessary to the litigation and not excessive. When Petitioner s sought to enforce that rule, the district court abandoned the terms of the parties’ agreement and rubberstamped plaintiff’s request. In doing so, the court ignored the parties ’ agreedto limits on production of paper copies, the readily available alternative means for securely producing the same information, and the Executive Branch’s designation of that Chinese state -owned entity as posing “a significant risk of becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States .” The question presented is: Does a district court clearly and indisputably err in ordering production of sensitive technical docu-mentation without applying the standards set forth in the parties’ protective order and without considering the Executive Branch’s national -security interests in the documentation at issue?