Blog Round-Up

With good reason, the agreement between Senator Specter and the Bush Administration over the Terrorist Surveillance Program has been the talk of the legal blogosphere lately. The bill (which can be read in its entirety here) has some interesting implications for several pending cases that had previously looked like they were headed to the Supreme Court.

Steve Vladeck over at Prawfsblog has some thoughts about the bill here (thanks to Dan Markel for the heads-up this morning).

Jack Balkin also weighs in at Balkinization, and he is not impressed. His post, titled “Specter Gives Up the Game — The Sham NSA Bill,” can be read here.

Orin Kerr is intrigued by Section 9 of the bill which he calls, “a major reorientation of the role of Congress in foreign intelligence monitoring away from the 1978 framework of FISA.” His post, which also puts the bill in the context of Hamdan, can be found here.

At Concurring Opinions, Eduardo Penalver has some comments (here) on the ultimate resolution of the Kelo case that was decided at the end of the 2004 Term of the Court.

Finally, Jack Balkin also has a post highlighting a report that “shows links between public opinion and free speech protections.” Just what those links are can be found here.