2017 Supreme Court Term: A Preview, & More from CRS
The October 2016 term of the US Supreme Court was widely seen as “diminished both with regard to volume and content” compared to prior years. But the upcoming term is likely to be different.
“With the Court already accepting over 30 cases, many of which raise difficult questions in various areas of law, the October 2017 term has the potential to be one of the most consequential in years,” said the Congressional Research Service in a new report previewing some of those cases.
For example, “In a case that could decide whether cell phone users have a protected privacy interest in the trove of location data held by their wireless carriers, the Court in Carpenter v. United States will examine whether the government’s warrantless collection of historical cell phone location data is constrained by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.” See Supreme Court October Term 2017: A Preview of Select Cases, September 19, 2017.
See also Supreme Court October Term 2016: A Review of Select Major Rulings, September 15, 2017.
Other new and updated Congressional Research Service reports that provide informative background on current topics of public policy interest include the following.
Patent Law: A Primer and Overview of Emerging Issues, September 21, 2017
Chevron Deference: A Primer, September 19, 2017
EPA’s Role in Emergency Planning and Notification at Chemical Facilities, September 18, 2017
Confederate Symbols: Relation to Federal Lands and Programs, September 20, 2017
Normalization of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet, CRS Insight, September 20, 2017
Hurricanes and Electricity Infrastructure Hardening, CRS Insight, September 20, 2017
Wastewater Infrastructure: Overview, Funding, and Legislative Developments, September 22, 2017
Oil Spills: Background and Governance, updated September 15, 2017
Turkey: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief, updated September 19, 2017
Kurds in Iraq Propose Controversial Referendum on Independence, CRS Insight, updated September 18, 2017
Lebanon, updated September 20, 2017
The State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report: Scope, Aid Restrictions, and Methodology, September 19, 2017
Serbia: Background and U.S. Relations, September 19, 2017
Iran’s Nuclear Program: Tehran’s Compliance with International Obligations, updated September 18, 2017
Redeploying U.S. Nuclear Weapons to South Korea: Background and Implications in Brief, September 14, 2017
As the United States continues nuclear modernization on all legs of its nuclear triad through the creation of new variants of warheads, missiles, and delivery platforms, examining the effects of nuclear weapons production on the public is ever more pressing.
“The first rule of government transformation is: there are a lot of rules. And there should be-ish. But we don’t need to wait for permission to rewrite them. Let’s go fix and build some things and show how it’s done.”
To better understand what might drive the way we live, learn, and work in 2050, we’re asking the community to share their expertise and thoughts about how key factors like research and development infrastructure and automation will shape the trajectory of the ecosystem.
Recognizing the power of the national transportation infrastructure expert community and its distributed expertise, ARPA-I took a different route that would instead bring the full collective brainpower to bear around appropriately ambitious ideas.