Supreme Court (SCOTUS)
323 Articles

Supreme Court Denies EPIC Petition for Mandamus on the Telephony Metadata Program
Without comment or dissent. No surprise. As expected, then, the action turns to the several cases that have been filed in district court, two of which are being argued this…

My New Paper on Standing and Secret Surveillance
Our good friend (and separation-of-powers maven) Peter Shane from (the) Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law is hosting a “virtual” symposium on NSA…

Bond v. United States and a Plain Statement Rule
The old adage, “bad facts make bad law,” threatens to reassert itself in an especially damaging fashion in Bond v. United States, a case now before the Supreme Court in which…

Observations on the Oral Argument in Bond
In light of the current efforts of the United States to ensure that even Syria, a nonparty to the treaty, strictly complies with the prohibitions of the Chemical Weapons Convention–and…

The Charles Taylor Appeal & The Scope of Accomplice Liability
I earlier flagged the release of the Charles Taylor appeals judgment. This post deconstructs the opinion more closely in light of the Perišić precedent and also addresses the…

The Government’s Initial Supreme Court Filing on the Section 215 “Telephony Records Program”
On Friday the government filed its brief in opposition to the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s mandamus petition to the Supreme Court, No. 13-58, in which EPIC is challenging…

Charles Taylor Verdict Today: New Standard of Liability for Aid to Rebel Forces?
The Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) today unanimously upheld the conviction and 50-year sentence of former Liberian President Charles Taylor for aiding…

Are Internet Backbone Pen Registers Constitutional?
Between Edward Snowden’s ongoing leaks and a series of frankly unprecedented disclosures by the government itself, the public now knows quite a bit about the NSA’s…

Debate: Metadata and the Fourth Amendment – A Reply to Jennifer Granick
This post is the second in a series from Just Security‘s Jennifer Granick and Guest Author Orin Kerr debating the constitutionality of the NSA’s telephony metadata…

The Deeper Lesson from Terrorist Expatriation Proposals
[Note: The following post is derived from remarks prepared for last Friday’s symposium on “Citizenship, Immigration and National Security After 9/11,” sponsored by the Fordham…

Debate: Metadata and the Fourth Amendment
This post is the first in a series of posts from Just Security‘s Jennifer Granick and Guest Author Orin Kerr debating the constitutionality of the NSA’s telephony metadata…