A newsletter by Reuters and Westlaw |
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A major U.S. surveillance law, Section 702, expires June 12, amid debate over warrant rules and President Trump’s planned appointment of a political loyalist as acting Director of National Intelligence. Here’s what to know:
What does it do?
It allows U.S. agencies to collect communications of non-U.S. persons abroad for foreign intelligence. Agencies (FBI, NSA, CIA) can search this data for Americans’ communications without a warrant, a central criticism.
Why is it contentious?
Bipartisan critics want a warrant requirement to search Americans’ data, while supporters say it is a vital law for national security and should remain unchanged. Why does it matter?
At stake is whether warrantless searches of Americans’ communications should continue. Even if Congress misses the deadline, intelligence collection may not fully stop, but legal uncertainty will grow. The outcome will shape how far U.S. surveillance powers can reach into Americans’ data. Read more here. |
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SCOTUS: The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue rulings in pending, argued cases.
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IP: Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters, will attempt to convince the 3rd Circuit to uphold a judge's decision that defunct legal-research rival Ross Intelligence was not permitted by U.S. copyright law to copy its content to build a competing AI-based legal platform. 3rd Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, sitting by designation on the district court, rejected Ross' fair-use theory, a key defense for tech companies in a series of copyright cases brought by authors, record labels, visual artists and others over the use of their material to train AI systems. The ruling was the first on fair use in the AI context. Read the ruling here.
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First Amendment: The 8th Circuit will hear arguments over the constitutionality of a 2023 Arkansas law that threatens criminal sanctions on library workers for making any materials deemed “harmful” available to minors, including those with LGBTQ+ themes. The district court issued a PI blocking the law. Read that order here.
- AI: Perplexity AI will ask the 9th Circuit to reverse a California court decision that had blocked it from using its AI-powered "agentic" shopping tool on Amazon's platform.
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Health: The 9th Circuit will also hear appeals from three manufacturers of flavored vaping products challenging FDA marketing denial orders. They claim the FDA retroactively changed its application standards and arbitrarily denied products that had been on the market.
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Government: U.S. District Judge John Bates in D.C. will hold a motion hearing in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s unilateral cancellation of the bipartisan Digital Equity Act's competitive grant program. Read the complaint.
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Crypto: Liu Zhou, the self-described "mastermind" behind cryptocurrency firm MyTrade, is slated to be sentenced after pleading guilty to engaging in a scheme to manipulate the market for digital tokens, including one created at the FBI's behest to help ferret out fraud in the crypto sector.
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SEC: The SEC is expected to vote on whether to propose changes to Wall Street regulations requiring execution of stock trades at the best available price, which critics accuse of increasing costs and causing market distortion.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes. |
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