Monday round-up
on Oct 29, 2012 at 9:07 am
This weekend’s coverage of the Court focuses on the two cases, Clapper v. Amnesty International USA and Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., slated for oral argument this morning. In addition, commentators continue to weigh in on the impact that the presidential election may have on the Court, and vice versa.
In the first case, Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, the Court will consider whether Amnesty International has standing under Article III to challenge the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a federal law that provides for large-scale electronic surveillance of international phone calls and emails. Lyle previewed the case for this blog last week; other coverage comes from Nina Totenberg of NPR, Warren Richey of The Christian Science Monitor, Garrett Epps of The Atlantic, and Ariane de Vogue of ABC News. At Slate, Eric Posner argues that Amnesty International is likely to lose, and “that’s a good thing.” The editorial board of The Washington Post weighs in on the case, suggesting that even if the Court rules in the government’s favor, Congress “need not be – and should not be – toothless in [its] oversight” when the amendments at issue come up for reauthorization.
In the the second case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., the Court will once again consider a question on which eight Justices – with Justice Kagan then recused – deadlocked in the 2010 case of Costco v. Omega: whether copyrighted works made and purchased abroad can then be bought and sold within the United States without the copyright owner’s permission. Previews come from Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr, Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, CNN‘s Bill Mears, Tim Devaney of The Washington Times, and Erin Geiger Smith of Reuters.
Finally, the discussion of the intersection between the presidential election and the Court continued this weekend with a video by Bloomberg Television, in which Bloomberg columnist Noah Feldman explores the opportunities that the winner of the election may have to set the Court’s future course. The Washington Post‘s Jonathan Bernstein argues that the Court is “the No. 1 thing at stake” in the election, while at Slate, Richard Hasen explains how an expansive reading of Bush v. Gore by federal courts in Ohio could give the president the edge in that state. At ProPublica, Suevon Lee provides an overview of each candidate’s views about the Court.
Briefly:
- Jonathan Stempel of Reuters previews Wednesday’s arguments in Florida v. Jardines and Florida v. Harris, two cases that both pose Fourth Amendment questions about dog sniffs.
- Lyle Denniston of this blog and Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed cover the filing of a new brief by the Justice Department that urges the Court to grant review in United States v. Windsor, the recent Second Circuit decision holding that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.
- Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal reports that retired Justice John Paul Stevens would like to amend the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause to nullify the Court’s federalism decisions in New York v. United States and Printz v. United States.
- At Reason, Damon Root highlights the Pacific Legal Foundation’s recent cert. petition in Hettinga v. United States; Root argues that the case demonstrates the judiciary’s troubling deference to government regulation. (Thanks to Howard Bashman for the link.)
- Mark Sherman and Jay Reeves of the Associated Press discuss the possibility that the Court will take up the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance requirement this Term.
- The Associated Press reports that Justice Sonia Sotomayor has announced that her memoir, My Beloved World, will go on sale in January.
- CNN‘s Bill Mears interviews John Jenkins, the author of a new biography of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist; Jenkins’s book, The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist, portrays the former Chief Justice as a “brilliant loner who used the court to advance his right-wing agenda.”
