Thursday round-up

CORMAC EARLY OCT 25, 2012 9:22 AM

With the Court’s November sitting beginning next week, coverage focuses on next Monday’s argument in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, in which the Court will consider whether copyrighted works purchased abroad can be resold within the United States without the copyright owner’s permission.  At Slate, John Villasenor summarizes the issues raised by the case, and he concludes that the Court might “make copyright law even more restrictive.”  Andrew Albanese of Publishers Weekly reports on efforts by library associations to support petitioner Supap Kirtsaeng, while Marketa Trimble contends at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog that the statutory language at issue allows the Court to make a free policy choice between different principles of copyright exhaustion.

The Court will also hear argument on Monday in Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, in which it will consider whether plaintiffs challenging warrantless wiretapping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act of 2008 have standing, when they cannot prove that they will be monitored.  Writing at Politico, Bill Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe argue that the Court should find standing and allow the courts to determine the constitutionality of warrantless wiretapping.  Josh Bell of the ACLU’s Blog of Rights also has commentary on the case.

Briefly:

• Justice Kennedy delivered the annual Joseph Story lecture at the Heritage Foundation yesterday. Video of the event is available from C-SPAN. (Thanks to Howard Bashman for the link.)
• Damon W. Root of Reason argues that “the stakes [in the presidential election] are high when it comes to the future of the Supreme Court.”
• Emily Phelps of the Constitutional Accountability Center discusses the Court’s decision not to overturn a Ninth Circuit stay that left in place Montana’s limits on political contributions to candidates for state office, which Conor also covered in yesterday’s round-up.
• At Balkinization, Neil Siegel argues that the Chief Justice was right on the taxing power but wrong on the commerce power in his opinion in the health care case.
• The Room for Debate page of The New York Times hosts a debate on whether to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. FEC.
• Tom Barnidge reports on a recent question-and-answer session with Justice O’Connor in San Francisco for the Mercury News.
• Stephanie Mencimer profiles Tom Goldstein for The Atlantic, which also features a video interview of Goldstein by Garrett Epps.
• Hannah Ellis of the Tennessee Journalist reports on a recent visit by Justice Kagan to the University of Tennessee College of Law.

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