Friday round-up

For The Economist, Steven Mazie reports that at Wednesday’s oral argument in Carpenter v. United States, which asks whether the government must obtain a warrant for cell-site-location information, “[a]t least six justices seemed keen to widen the Fourth Amendment umbrella for the digital age, but no single way to do so emerged.” Additional coverage of the argument in Carpenter comes from Brandi Buchman at Courthouse News Service and Allison Grande at Law360 (subscription required). At The Atlantic, Jeffrey Rosen suggests that the case “may continue a welcome recent trend: Liberal and conservative justices on the Court, by broad bipartisan margins, are insisting on translating the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution into the digital age.” Tim Cushing unpacks the oral argument at Techdirt. Concurring Opinions offers two more oral-argument analyses, from Lior Strahilevitz here and Matthew Tokson here.

At Slate, Eric Segall explains why, as the Supreme Court prepares to consider Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in which the court will decide whether the First Amendment bars Colorado from requiring a baker to create a cake for a same-sex wedding, conservatives should not be surprised by the views of  “Justice Anthony Kennedy, the author of all of the court’s recent decisions upholding gay rights.” In an op-ed for The New York Times, Jennifer Finney Boylan argues that Masterpiece Cakeshop “is not about religious freedom – it’s about religious exemption.” At Keen News Service, Lisa Keen offers a rundown of the facts, issues, and people in Masterpiece Cakeshop, which will be argued next Tuesday. The National Constitution Center’s We the People podcast features a discussion of the case by legal experts on each side.

For WTVO/WQRF, via Mystateline.com, Scott Pickens reports that “[a]ttorneys for the Illinois Child Support Specialist who is suing his own union, AFSCME, have filed their first brief … in a case [that] could potentially significantly change the relationship between state government and public employee unions,” Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, in which the court will consider whether an Illinois law allowing public-sector unions to charge nonmembers for collective-bargaining activities violates the First Amendment. Additional coverage comes from Adam Lidgett at Law360 (subscription required). At his eponymous blog, Ross Runkel takes a look at the brief.

Briefly:

• The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal weighs in on Digital Realty Trust Inc. v. Somers, which involves the whistleblower protections of the Dodd-Frank Act, arguing that a ruling for the employee “would give executive agencies free rein to rewrite laws based on what they claim is Congressional intent.”
• At The Daily Caller, Kevin Daley reports that “[t]he Trump administration switched sides Wednesday in a case pending before the Supreme Court that could retroactively nullify tens of thousands of agency decisions,” Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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