Dorf on Law

Mostly law-related musings by Cornell Professor Michael Dorf and some of his lawyer/professor friends

Monday, June 23, 2008

Tea Leaves and Smoking Guns

Nothing very exciting from the Supreme Court today. I recommend Scotusblog for updates, now and always. As Tom Goldstein notes there, the only remaining undecided case on the docket from the March argument calendar is DC v. Heller, the Second Amendment case. The only Justice who hasn't announced a majority opinion from March is Justice Scalia. Thus, Justice Scalia likely is the author of the majority (or perhaps the plurality) opinion in Heller, which means that it should soon be possible to pack a pistol in DC.

The next day that opinions come down will be Wednesday. The Court is almost sure to wrap up its term by the end of the week.

Posted by Mike Dorf

posted by Michael C. Dorf @ 11:22 AM  

1 Comments:

  • At 1:46 PM, Blogger egarber said…

    Sorry to get slightly off topic, but I'm trying to vet my own understanding of the latest FISA compromise coming out of the House. If anybody is up to date, let me know if I have the basics right:

    1. The "compromise" grants telecom companies immunity, provided they can prove the administration told them the wiretapping was "legal."

    2. The adminstration now must seek individualized warrants for approval if the target is a US person overseas. I *think* there is already a warrant requirement if a U.S. person is targeted domestically.

    3. For non U.S. persons who are targets, the AG can continue surveillance without court approval, which means that notwithstanding (2), Americans will likely be caught in the warrantless net (since they only receive protection as "targets").

    4. The law specifically declares itself to be the sole source of executive authority in this area. This was an effort to blow holes through the inherent authority argument under Article II. (My guess is that we'll see a doozie of a presidential signing statement on this one).

    I know there are a bunch of other provisions, relating to when the FISA court reviews procedures, making sure pure foreign communications (when U.S. telecom circuits happen to be in the mix) are outside of the scope, etc. But I'd appreciate any corrections / validation. There is a lot of confusing muck out there about all this.

    thanks!

     

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