Executive Disorder: Supreme Court Edition

Summary

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It Could Happen Here — Executive Disorder: Supreme Court Edition

Date: July 2, 2026
Hosts: Garrison Davis, James Stout, Robert Evans, Mia Wong
Producer: Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This Supreme Court edition of It Could Happen Here delivers an in-depth breakdown of the U.S. Supreme Court’s major rulings issued during the week of June 24 to July 1, 2026. The hosts—Garrison Davis, James Stout, Robert Evans, and Mia Wong—chronicle significant decisions related to campaign finance, trans rights, immigration, birthright citizenship, electoral law, executive power, gun rights, and digital privacy, situating them within ongoing political and societal collapse. The hosts combine legal analysis, historic context, and their signature candid style, offering both critical and at times sardonic commentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Miscellaneous Major News Items

• Military Immigration Judges: The Department of Defense plans to involuntarily activate reserve lawyers as immigration judges, raising concerns about the militarization of immigration policy.
• Venezuela Earthquakes: Catastrophic 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes devastate La Guaira and Caracas; over 5,000 confirmed missing, including many recently deported from the U.S.
• Iraq Politics & DOJ Antitrust: Iraqi military raids politicians over corruption; DOJ and 17 state AGs sue egg producers for price manipulation, linking food monopolies to larger social issues.
  • "People are like, you know, the cost of eggs has become a meme... But this is just straight up oligopoly behavior." — Robert Evans [03:29]
• Trump Crypto Income: President Trump earns $1.4B from crypto, including $600M from meme coins and $500M via his platform, leading to allegations of corruption that barely make a dent in the news cycle.
  • "Something that would have destroyed a presidency 10 years ago is like a 12-hour news story now." — Robert Evans [04:58]

2. Election & Progressive Politics

• Colorado Redistricting: State Supreme Court blocks redistricting ballot measures that would benefit Democrats, while the DSA’s Milot Quiros wins a congressional primary against a 30-year incumbent [06:00].
• NYC Progressive Policies: Mayor Mamdani launches a $15M fund to support trans youth access gender-affirming care and implements the city’s first two-year rent freeze for stabilized apartments.

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Major Supreme Court Rulings

3. Campaign Finance Deregulation [07:00]

• 6-3 Decision: Conservative majority strikes down limits on coordinated party spending in political campaigns, overruling a 2001 precedent and making future campaign finance reform more difficult.
  • "This will allow political parties to spend vastly more money... utilizing candidates' low advertising rates." — Garrison Davis

4. School Sports & Transgender Athletes [07:48]

• 6-3 Decision: Court upholds state bans on trans girls in girls’ school sports, ruling Title IX’s "sex" refers to "biological sex" (sex assigned at birth).
  • "The ruling itself does not mandate a ban... Rather, Title IX claims cannot be used to oppose bans on trans athletes." — Garrison Davis [10:15]
• Clarence Thomas's Concurrence: Described as openly transphobic and not adding to the legal argument [11:31].
  • "He just took the chance to show he was a bigot." — Robert Evans

5. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — Immigration [11:44]

• SCOTUS Ruling: Upholds executive power to terminate TPS without judicial review, impacting Syrian and Haitian nationals.
  • "They didn't say Noam followed the law... They said whether she did or did not…cannot be challenged in court." — James Stout [12:59]
• Concerns: Deportations to unsafe countries, no pathway to citizenship for TPS holders.
  • "Not having it is much worse." — James Stout

Notable Quotes

• "TPS was temporary. It was never meant to be permanent status...Your time is expired." — Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) [16:42]

6. Asylum & Border Policy: Mullen v. El Otolado [17:47]

• Ruling: Upholds "metering" (restrictions on asylum seekers at the border); only those physically inside the U.S. may apply.
  • "This decision will kill people... disastrous human rights consequences." — Robert Evans [24:10]
  • "An alien standing in Mexico does not arrive in the United States by attempting and failing to set foot in the country." — Opinion excerpt [21:13]

7. Birthright Citizenship: Trump v. Barbara [25:34]

• 6-3 (majority) / 5-4 (constitutionality) Decision: Children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants retain U.S. citizenship; Trump's executive order to revoke it is ruled illegal.
  • "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens..." — 14th Amendment quoted [26:23]
  • "A plain text understanding of this is all you really need." — Robert Evans [28:18]
• Judicial Dynamics: Kavanaugh suggests Congress could amend the law for exceptions; some Justices signal potential routes for lawmakers to circumvent the Constitution’s intent.

8. Mail-In Voting Law [35:34]

• 5-4 Decision: Upholds Mississippi’s model, allowing absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted up to five days later.
  • "Glad that that's at least still a 5-4." — Mia Wong [35:51]
• Majority Opinion (Barrett): Ballots do not have to be received by Election Day; the act of voting must occur by then, but receipt is up to state law.
  • "Plaintiffs do not contend that everything must occur on that day." — Amy Coney Barrett [36:00]

9. Executive Power & Federal Agencies (Special segment by Mia Wong) [41:33]

• Trump v. Slaughter: President can now fire heads of independent executive agencies (e.g., FTC) at will, voiding a 90-year precedent.
  • "The court gives the President a power unknown even to the English crown..." — Sonia Sotomayor, dissent [43:38]
• Trump v. Cook: Exception for the Federal Reserve; SCOTUS preserves Fed Board independence, citing financial stability and tradition.
  • "I would not go down that road...destabilizing the U.S. economy just so we can further mull over an issue..." — Brett Kavanaugh, concurrence [48:41]
• Host Commentary: Roberts Court’s logic is inconsistent, aligned with conservative policy objectives rather than coherent legal theory.
  • "It's absolute legal gibberish that only makes sense when you take into account what is actually going here." — Mia Wong [46:18]

10. Gun Rights – Property and Drug Use [50:34]

• June 25 Ruling: Strikes down Hawaii's “vampire rule” law requiring explicit permission to bring concealed firearms onto private businesses.
  • "Instead, they severely burdened the ordinary exercise of the right to bear arms by forcing peaceful people to seek permission..." — Firearms Policy Coalition [53:16]
• Substance Use & Firearms: Unanimous decision, curtails federal law barring gun ownership for “regular users” of controlled substances (e.g., marijuana), requiring case-by-case assessment.
  • "You just don't have civil rights." — Mia Wong, summarizing the implication [58:37]
  • "This exists in large part to allow cops to fuck with people." — Robert Evans [58:18]

11. Digital Privacy & Geofence Warrants [59:13]

• 6-3 Ruling: Accessing location data through geofence warrants is a Fourth Amendment search, requiring probable cause and particularity.
  • "Cell phone location information is not truly 'shared'...a person can hardly help but generate a trail of location data." — Justice Kagan [63:10]_
  • "Police officers invade a cell phone user's reasonable expectation of privacy when they access location history." — Justice Kagan [65:10]_
• Limits: Supreme Court did not decide if the applied search was “reasonable” or if the good faith exception applied—the Appeals Court will rule.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be, like, a 12-hour news story..." — Garrison Davis quoting J.D. Vance [05:19]
• "We have created a de facto incentive to enter the United States between ports of entry... This decision will kill people." — Robert Evans [23:38]
• "A box of chocolates—you never know what you're gonna get with Neil Gorsuch." — James Stout [35:18]
• "The court gives the President a power unknown even to the English crown against which the founders revolted..." — Justice Sotomayor, dissent [43:38]
• "I would not risk destabilizing the U.S. economy just so that we can further mull over an issue..." — Justice Kavanaugh [48:41]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:14–06:33] Major non-SCOTUS news & political context
• [06:33–11:38] Campaign finance, Title IX & trans bans
• [11:44–17:47] TPS & immigration law developments
• [17:47–24:23] Asylum/meters & border rulings
• [25:34–35:34] Birthright citizenship decision and impact
• [35:34–41:33] Mail-in voting decision
• [41:33–50:34] Executive power: Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook
• [50:34–59:13] Gun rights: Hawaii law and substance use rulings
• [59:13–End] Digital privacy, geofence warrants, and implications

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Tone and Style

Throughout the episode, hosts employ an engaging, irreverent, but deeply knowledgeable style, combining legal expertise, historical context, and biting wit. Critical analysis is paired with clear explanations accessible to non-lawyers, and the conversation is peppered with dark humor and candid assessments of the U.S. political and judicial situation.

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Conclusion

This Supreme Court wrap-up captures the upheaval, uncertainty, and immense stakes of recent judicial decisions in 2026. The hosts highlight the accelerating normalization of corruption, emboldening of executive power, ongoing attacks on marginalized groups, and note the few, if faint, victories for basic democratic process and civil rights. The episode serves as both documentation and warning—detailing the judicial foundation being laid for the next stage of American collapse or transformation.

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Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[B]

I'm Jake Brennan, and on the Disgraceland podcast I explore the wild lies of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison. Or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of. Or that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bundy. Listen to Disgraceland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

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[C]

Refreshers contain caffeine

[A]

Call Zone Media.

[D]

This is It Could Happen Here Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by James Stout and Robert Evans. This is the Supreme Court edition. That's right, this episode we're covering supreme court rulings from June 24 to July 1 and a few other news items that happened in that duration. And let's start with some of those smaller miscellaneous news items before getting to the long series of Supreme Court rulings which this episode will focus on.

[A]

Yeah, so starting with court stuff, I guess. It appears the Department of Defense is planning to involuntarily activate reserve lawyers to serve as immigration judges, according to an article in Bloomberg Law for some context to voluntary activation, you can still opt for that. It's to do with the nature of their contracts as reservists, like how those, how that time adds up to their military retirement and stuff. But in this case, it seems that it is also planning on activating people who have not indicated that they are interested in doing this. Secondly, a horrific pair of shallow earthquakes rated at 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter Trail struck Venezuela last week, destroying whole high rise buildings. La Guaira and Caracas were particularly hard hit. I actually saw a video of the street where I used to live with people who are very clearly dead lying in the road. Which sucks. Days later, people are still trapped under the rubble. The death toll is already in the thousands with over 5,000 missing. It will be very hard for us to get like an accurate death toll out of the Venezuelan Government. Among the missing are more than 100 recently deported Venezuelans who were sent by the USA back to Venezuela. They were staying in a hotel and that hotel collapsed. This week the Iraqi military also raided politicians inside the Green Zone seized a bunch of cash and cited an ongoing anti corruption effort. And the Department of Justice Antitrust division, together with 17 state attorney generals has filed a civil suit against a number of egg producers for their alleged unlawful manipulation of egg prices.

[D]

This was really interesting. I read through some of the court docs here and this is definitely worth, worth a closer look at some point.

[A]

This is something I'd like to cover in the future actually. Like people are like, you know, the cost of eggs has become a meme or whatever. But like this is, this is, this is just straight up like oligopoly behavior. Yeah, yeah. They are colluding to increase the price of something and like this became a political issue.

[D]

This was one of Trump's main campaign items.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. They knew that. As they continue to collude to do this. Right. I think it does bear discussing within the context of the way that we obtain our food in this country and the people who have control over the things that a lot of people feel that they need to get through every day. Right. Like, I think this isn't the sort of silly throwaway thing that some people think it is.

[D]

Definitely. According to an ethics disclosure released last Tuesday, President Trump has made more than $1.4 billion from his crypto businesses last year making over 600 million from Trump branded meme coins and 500 million in income from his crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, which also partnered with the UFC Freedom 250 event to pay the fighters in crypto on the World Liberty financial platform. The peanut farm comes comes to mind considering.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

$1.4 billion in Trump branded meme coins.

[A]

It's kind of hard to write these corruption stories. I was looking into one recently about some federal contracting and like something that would have destroyed a presidency 10 years ago is like a 12 hour news story now.

[E]

Not even sometimes.

[D]

This is something that like J.D. vance was just like talking about, just like openly.

[A]

Like last week Vance joked about this.

[D]

Yeah, it was that quote. I think Nixon's historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance and deservedly so. I joked that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hour news story.

[F]

There you go.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy. Unquote.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I mean what a.

[D]

Just laying it, laying it all.

[A]

Yeah. What a thing to say. On the record. Yeah. Jesus.

[D]

The Colorado Supreme Court has blocked three redistricting ballot measures that would help Democrats pick up House seats in the state. Also In Colorado, the DSA has continued its winning streak with 29 year old Democratic Socialist Milot Quiros who won the primary in the first congressional district beating the 30 year long incumbent by 10 points. This incumbent has been serving as the House Rep longer than this Democratic socialist challenger has been alive.

[A]

The first district in Colorado as well. Like they will go Democrat.

[D]

Oh yeah.

[A]

Barring like centrist Dems running a spoiler which is always a thing they could do. This person will go to Congress joining

[D]

the now growing kind of informal Democratic socialist caucus there.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Mayor Zoran Mamdani has announced more details about the $15 million allocated to help trans youth access gender affirming care. The city is launching a text call line to help connect people with care and services and a direct care access fund for providers of youth gender affirming care to quote, help ensure New Yorkers can continue to access medically necessary care. Unquote. That's from the Mayor's office. Currently, New York City clinics like Callen Lord, Planned Parenthood and the H and H City Municipal Hospital System all provide care to trans youth. But the fight continues to restore youth care services at nyu, Langoon and Mount Sinai. Also speaking of Mamdani, the Mayor's newly appointed rent guidelines board approved a first ever two year rent freeze for rent stabilized units in the city. Let's now get to the Supreme Court starting with two shorter summaries and not shorter because they're less important just because we have a lot to cover and we'll probably cover these stories more in depth in the Future. In a 6 to 3 ruling, the Conservative Supreme Court justices struck down a law limiting how much money political parties can spend on campaigns in coordination with candidates. Citing the First Amendment. This order overruled the court's 54 decision back in 2001 which upheld campaign finance limits. Essentially this will allow political parties to spend vastly more money while utilizing candidates low advertising rates that are not awarded to Super PACs. This will also make it harder to do campaign finance reform or super PAC reform based on this interpretation of the First Amendment, meaning that court reform might be what is necessary to change something like this in the Future. In another 6:3 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld state bans on trans girls participating in girls school sports. Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion finding that the constitution and Title 9 allows for school sports to be separated by sex and that the quote unquote sex in title nine, quote, cannot possibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex, unquote, because that was the, quote, unquote, ordinary meaning of the word when Title 9 passed in the 70s. And quote, unquote, biological sex is related to sex assigned at birth.

[A]

In this ruling, do they actually say

[D]

that they do tie biological sex to sex assigned at birth? Yeah.

[A]

So they're not proposing, like, a chromatonality definition.

[D]

Not in my reading of the ruling that I see chromosomes.

[A]

Because they also cited the IOC definition. Right. Which is a distinct thing from sex aside at birth. The IOC definition considers chromosomality and then also androgen sensitivity. So, like, we're, I guess, approaching a situation where someone could be eligible for the Olympics but not eligible for high school sports. I haven't read the entirety of this decision. I need to, but I've read three other ones yesterday.

[D]

In the second paragraph, it states that biological, sexual is, quote, sex assigned at birth.

[A]

Okay. So, yeah, we are approaching, like, a disparate situation with IOC understandings of sex, which is not, I guess, a particularly new thing. Like, we had Maria Jose Martinez Patino was, Was disqualified from. She would have been an Olympic athlete in the, in the, in the 80s based on, like a, A, A misunderstanding of how chromosonality works. I guess you'd have to have the person who would, who would split that difference. Right. For like, a national organizing body to then decide how they would deal with that person competing. Nonet just fucking sucks for.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

For lots of young people.

[D]

Yeah. I mean, and biological sex, even as a category, is itself, like, constructed. This has actually no concrete basis in biology.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Justice Sotomer, Kagan and Jackson agreed that the state bans don't violate Title 9, though on a narrower basis than the conservative majority. But the three liberal judges dissented under the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. Now, like, importantly, the ruling itself does not mandate a ban. Right. The court's not saying that schools must ban trans athletes, but rather that Title 9 claims cannot be used to oppose bans on trans athletes from participating in school sports. This is a narrow, limited ruling. It's kind of like the least bad out of all of the potential bad outcomes. The Court declined to rule on whether states that have trans inclusive rules for school sports are themselves in violation of Title 9, and declined to rule on the degree to which trans people in general have protections under the equal protection clause. Clarence Thomas's concurrence, Very, very ugly. Just like flatly, like, transphobic. Way more so than Kavanaugh's majority opinion. I could read it, but it's just like, it's just ugly stuff. Like it's, it's he's just a bigot

[A]

and it doesn't add anything to like the legal opinion. Agree. Just like took the chance to show he was a bigot. Yeah.

[D]

Like I said, we will definitely cover this in more detail in the near future, but that requires some like careful focus and reporting.

[A]

Yeah. So I want to start I guess with temporary protected Status tps. Right. So the case in front of the Supreme Court concerned the Trump administration's attempt to remove the TPS of Syrian and Haitian nationals. I think we need to begin by addressing a lot of the misinformation and misunderstanding here. TPS is a renewable non permanent status with no pathway to permanency. It can last between six and 18 months and it's renewed currently by the DHS secretary. Right. That power passed to them when DHS began overseeing immigration. It was created in 1990 and at its core it's supposed to be a way of protecting people who are in the United States when disaster befalls their this country of citizenship. If you are in the U.S. when they declare a TPS, you can apply, get granted a work permit. The longest that will last is 18 months and two months before it runs out. DHS has to determine if they will reauthorize it or not. So some folks, for instance from El Salvador have been in the US for decades on tps. But they have no permanency, they have no sense of stability. It is very hard for them to like make progress in many areas that would be easy for citizens or even permanent residents or visa holders.

[E]

Right.

[A]

Because of that lack of the ability to plan to become citizens. So they wanted to pass to permanency. Like there are a couple of ways to do that. But they might have to risk leaving and coming back on another status, which many of them are not willing to do. I wrote about the Venezuelan TTPS in my first Daring Gap series. So people want to hear an immigration lawyer. Actually immigration lawyer from one of the cases we're going to talk about next explaining that than it can. The TPS as ruled by Sanchez vs Mayorkas is not the same as lawful admission to the country. Right. People have frequently been claiming I've seen that the Haitian TPS pertain to the 2010 earthquake. This is not correct. This was in the courts in the first Trump administration would be the simplest way of saying it. The current TBS pertains to a 2021 killing of juvenile Moise and the subsequent violence thereafter. Right. So it came about under the Biden administration. If people want more context. At the time I was writing op EDS for NBC and I will include one that I wrote in the show notes at the time of the announcement in 2021, they were exceptionally clear that they did not want more Haitian people coming to the US like genuinely some of the most repugnant language I've seen from the executive branch outside of this administration. In one instance, Mayorkas said, those who attempt to travel to the United States after this announcement will not be eligible for TPS and may be repatriated. There were some more explicit and in my mind, uglier statements. Again, I've catalogued those in previous writings. You can read it. This case pertained to whether an administration could terminate a TPS without going through interagency review, something court records show they didn't do in case of the Haitian tps. The court heard that argument and effectively said that the courts could not challenge the failure of DHS to do do that. They didn't say that Noam followed the law or followed the procedures that she should have followed to cancel this dps. They said that whether she did or did not do that cannot be challenged in court. One of the other challenges here was that the Haiti decision was motivated by race. The court addressed this and I'm just going to quote from the opinion here. Political discourse by prominent public figures is increasingly couching terms that would have scandalized the public just a short time ago. And the statement cited by the Mayotte respondents, especially those concerning Haiti and Haitian immigrants to this country, exemplify this development. But whatever one may think of the cited statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti's TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people. Ironically, both Doe and Mayotte respondents identify a strong race neutral explanation of these official statements. The present administration general stance on immigration, and it's obvious antipathy towards past administration CPS policies. So what they're saying there is like this wasn't based on race. I hate all immigrants. Right? Or hey, everyone on tps. I do want to point out that it was not so very long ago that the President spoke about Haitian people eating dogs and cats. Here is Mark Wayne Mullen answering a question about this.

[F]

The temporary protective status is over. They have to go home now. They don't have to go to the country that they came from. If they're not feeling safe, they can go someplace else, but they cannot stay here. Your TPS temporary protective status is over. So we will help assist you in leaving. If you would like, we'll buy you an airline ticket, we'll give you $2,600 to reestablish yourself someplace else. If you don't want to go back to the country you came from. But you have to leave and we're going to assist you in doing so. And if you choose not to, then we'll pick you up and force you to leave.

[A]

That was yesterday. Here's him answering a question about DPS today. So today's Wednesday. For those listening later.

[C]

Are you going to be going after Haitians living in the country, Syrians living in the country?

[D]

What's the path forward?

[F]

Well, I hate when it's phrased going after individuals. The fact is, TPS for certain individuals under the court ruling, they no longer have status. TPS was temporary. It was never meant to be permanent status. You had an opportunity while you were here to possibly try to change your status. Now that the court ruling has went out, you no longer have that option. You have to go back to a country that either take you or back to the country you came from. And if you deport yourself, which we will give you $2,600 plus a plane ticket to go home, you have the opportunity at that point to fill out it legally for a visa or another way to come back in this country. But you have to enter. You have to come in through our immigration systems and follow our laws. Not illegally, but if we have to arrest you and deport you, that option of coming back in this country is off the table. So we would encourage everybody that that felony TPS that is no longer temporary protected status for you. Your time is expired.

[A]

So previously this self deportation had barred people from coming back. I need to check exactly what program he's talking about there. Maybe it's something that I haven't come across. Right. But what he's suggesting there is that people could leave to a third country. They would have to find a third country that would accept them. That that is less and less likely to happen in this global climate. This is very bad. Especially the people like we know in Syria, there has been intercommunal violence ever since the end of the civil war. Right. And the installation of the Syrian Transitional Government. It is still not a safe place. Haiti remains a place where people, especially people who are going back with a bunch of cash from the United States, are likely to be targeted. This is really bad. TPS is an important program. It did not give people permanency. It could have been much better, but not Having it is much worse. Talking of things that are much worse, I want to move on to Mullen versus El Otolado. People will be familiar with AOL if they'd listen to my previous work. I've interviewed a lot of people from AOL over the years. This case pertains to asylum and United States law regarding asylum. The law says anyone who is in or arrives in the USA may apply for asylum. Of course, CBP can inspect people seeking admission to the usa. In practice, what this means is that asylum seekers have metered that this process of physically preventing people entering the USA so that they cannot then arrive in the USA and apply for asylum is called metering. Right. There have been various types of metering over the years. The 9th Circuit had previously held that when someone encounters U.S. border officials, they may apply for asylum in practice. The difference here is between entering a port of entry versus having to have passed through a port of entry or around a port of entry. Port of entry is the thing with the like. I'm thinking of the San Ysidro one, but like the big revolving doors, right? Where the CBP people stand, where the. Where the blue cbp, blue shirt CBP stands. CBP has previously said that they did this for capacity reasons, but those capacity claims have been contradicted by reports of their own Office of the Inspector General. Effectively, the Supreme Court has blessed the practice of metering asylum applications by saying that people have to have arrived in the USA versus arriving at the border. This is being portrayed as a very, very straightforward decision. Let me read from the opinion here. An alien standing in Mexico does not arrive in the United States by attempting and failing to set foot in the country. An alien, quote, arrives in the United States only when he crosses the border. The ina, it's the Immigration Naturalization Act. Thus neither entitles an alien standing in Mexico to apply for asylum, nor requires an immigration officer to inspect him. They later said metering does not permanently bar any alien from arriving and applying for asylum, despite the fact that many migrants have died and will die or suffer tremendous harm due to the practice. They go on to say last respondents argument that the government might someday prevent all potential arriving asylum applicants from reaching the point where they could file an application addresses a hypothetical future policy, not the rescinded metering policy at issue, which merely delayed entry to improve conditions at certain points of entry. Let's listen now to this clip of Stephen Miller. So America's doors are closed fully to a cyber signals. That's not a hypothetical future policy that Stephen Miller saying. It Right, Yeah.

[D]

That's absurd.

[A]

That's very clearly what was going to happen. You're being deliberately naive. It's obscene to say that that's a hypothetical.

[D]

It's not like you're just like, flatly laying out the mechanism in which all asylum seekers can be denied the chance to even ask for asylum by just magically saying, no, you're actually not talking to us when you're talking to us at the border.

[A]

Yeah. And like, I want to address this, like, standing in Mexico claim. Right. Because they're standing at the port of entry. So this building, quote unquote, in Mexico is paid for by the United States. It contains armed United States personnel. Are we therefore invading Mexico? Have we therefore seized Mexican territory? Like, just because you have not definitionally crossed the border, it is misleading to say that you're standing in Mexico. Right. The port of entry is clearly a liminal space. It is. It is. It's not like you're in fucking Chiapas shouting on a megaphone, hey, can I have asylum? Like, like, yeah. This framing is oversimplifying, to put it mildly. What this means is that we have created a de facto incentive to enter the United States between ports of entry. People who do so will have arrived in the United States. This is what happened under the Biden administration, right, with CBP1, where they. They effectively use CBP1 as a metering tool. The metering tool, because they and the Trump administration have both defended Title 42, was completely insufficient to keep up with the backlog of asylum applications. And so people entered between ports of entry. Right. Thousands of them. I reported on this a very great deal at the time. There have been many other forms of metering. The Obama administration did metering. That's when this case began. CBP1, the Migrant Protection protocols, many others. Right. In every single incident where there has been metering, we have seen that people enter between ports entry. We have seen escalations in border deaths. With war construction continuing, many of the places where people previously entered are now closed. We will see more people entering along more risky routes, and that will lead to more deaths. There is no doubt in my mind that this decision will kill people also. The people who do remain in Mexico will in many cases not be safe there. The amount of migrants I know personally, like, people who I talk to once a week, once a month, who came through the Darien Gap when I was there, who we traveled together and then they attempted to apply for CBP1 and were robbed and were sexually assaulted, kidnapped, killed while they were in Mexico. Is more than I can count off the top of my head. This will have disastrous human rights consequences.

[B]

I'm Jake Brennan, and on the Disgraceland Podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that you're Paul McCartney, it's 1980, you're an ex Beatle, and you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons right there alongside Yakuza gangsters. And for a ridiculous charge or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of. Who is the artist Lady Gaga is being accused of doing the unthinkable to after allegedly stealing her music in style to become famous. And what about that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to Disgraceland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

All right, we're back. And we are back to talk about birthright citizenship. Trump versus Barbara. In this decision, the court held that, quote, children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are, quote, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and are citizens at birth under the 14Amendment citizenship clause. The court was a bit split on how they got here, with a 6:3 majority holding that Trump's attempt to remove citizenship by executive order was illegal and a 54 majority agreeing that was unconstitutional. Actually, I spoke about this just before we get onto this with Robert and Sophie in November of 2024, talking about, like, things that Trump administration might do. Here we are. Here is the relevant part of the 14th Amendment for people who aren't familiar, quote, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. The majority opinion somewhat based in Jussoli. I think that's how you say it. I haven't done Jussoli. Ju Soli. I did Latin.

[E]

I mean, the good news is with Latin is nobody really knows how it was said.

[A]

Yeah, sure. The bad news is that people still have strongly held opinions.

[E]

Well, there's ecclesiastical Latin and whatnot. But, like, when you. If you take classical Latin, there's not a pronunciation test school. Yeah, but jus soli is.

[A]

When I did my GCSE exams, I didn't do Latin oral like I did for French. The idea here Is anyone born here is a citizen unless they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the usa. That qualifier has generally applied to diplomats and their children. That is the main group. Because someone is here in an undocumented fashion, they are still subject to jurisdiction of the usa, as can be fairly obviously understood from, like a plain text understanding of that phrase, I think. Let's hear Mike Johnson. I guess Mike Johnson was in oppressor when this decision came down. And someone got to tell him, oh,

[E]

dear, what they wrote.

[F]

Here we go.

[D]

Children born in the United States, parents unlawfully or temporarily present are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and our citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment citizenship clause.

[C]

What's your reaction to that?

[E]

Well, this is real time. I need to read the opinion.

[F]

Okay.

[E]

But obviously that's. I mean, you could say that's a textualist, originalist view. However, I do think that this has been grossly abused in recent years. He's so pissed. He's so pissed.

[D]

His little growl.

[A]

He's so mad.

[E]

And the joy in that reporter's voice as he realizes he's gonna. Number one, I get to be the person to read the opinion out to fucking Mike Johnson. And number two, I get to ask Mike Johnson for a response, which is beautiful. I'm so happy for them.

[A]

Yeah. And as he said. Right. Like a plain text understanding of this is all you really need.

[E]

A textual misunderstanding for sure.

[D]

Very clear.

[A]

Yeah. Like. So there was discussion of the Wong Kim Art case, which ruled that, quoting here, a child born in the United States of parents of Chinese descent who at the time of his birth are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and are there carrying on business and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth, a citizen of the United States by virtue of the first clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. It's the first clause of the 14th amendment that I read earlier. Right. It is important to understand the context of this case. This won Kim Ark case happened in the context of an assault on birthright citizenship and especially on Asian migrants.

[E]

Right.

[A]

This is the era of the Chinese Exclusion act, for example. The decision in the one case was that the 14th Amendment was declaratory of the common law understanding of citizenship. Decision holds that, quote, aliens who travel to the United States for, quote, business or pleasure receive no, quote, exemption from the jurisdiction of the country. The case has some very narrow exceptions for, quote, children of foreign sovereigns or their Ministers or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and children, members of Indian tribes. It's not until 1924 that we get the Indian Citizenship act, right? I thought they might have gone harder on that than they did, but they did not. Much of the dissent focused on that use of the word domicile and whether that was in the usa. But as the majority argued, citing precedent and English common law, which is the basis for the law we have now in the United States.

[E]

Right?

[A]

Quote. There is scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view. Sources from 1766 to 1868 defined, quote, allegiance by birth, just as a British did, as the tie or duty owed by one who is born within the dominions and under the protection of a particular sovereign. And quote, sources after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, do not put in doubt the understanding of the citizenship clause at the time of and after its ratification. Certainly the US has not used this domicile test for other things, right? Like it doesn't. It doesn't use a domicile test, for instance, when it taxes its citizens extraterritorially. It is not the basis, by the way, for children of citizens becoming a citizen that is based on a law passed by Congress that does not, in this constitutional amendment, right. It is worth noting that the way Trump's executive order, which was what was struck down here, was written, it would have included people who are domiciled here based on any understanding of the term domicile that I think is genuine, like his was written, not even in this sort of more focused way, focusing on what they perceive to be a weakness in that. In that Wong decision. So who was the floater from the 63 to the 5, 4, the floater was Kavanaugh. He opined that, quote, Congress could, consistent with the 14th amendment, amend the law or otherwise. I'm saying the law here. He gives a citation for the law, right. Otherwise, enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country. But Congress has not yet done so. The law in question is the Nationality act of 1940. It says, quote, the following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth, a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. And then another clause further down. A person unknown, of unknown parentage, founder of the United States, were under the age of 5 years until shown prior to his attaining the age of 21 years not to have been born in the United States. He argues that Congress clearly did not want to make more exceptions than existed in the 1k mark case, and that they would have done if they did. But he says it is possible to re examine the Constitution in modern context and look at the jurisdiction part again and have additional exemptions that would pass constitutional muster if Congress chose to change the law.

[D]

It seems like what he's doing here is like, by disagreeing with the sort of constitutional interpretation, he is like, giving the Trump administration a sort of framework to pursue this in the future if they want to.

[A]

He's signposting it. Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. And like, whether or not that will succeed is another question. Yeah, he's kind of showing them a sort of path.

[A]

Yes, he is. Yeah. He's saying, if you want to do this, you could do it like this. In my opinion.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

They are currently having some issues with getting all their representatives in the House on the same page on shit and midterms are coming up. A lot of the opposition to this was focused on the speeches that, like, pertain to the authors of the 14th Amendment and the process of passing the 4th Amendment. It's quite remarkable how, like, what a fundamental lack of understanding about how the Constitution works. This shows, right. When the Constitution is amended, we do not incorporate all of the vibes of the guy who wrote the text. We incorporate the words. It is those words that are ratified by the states, not the person who wrote them. We do not endorse that this person's opinions are now constitutional. The United States has a codified Constitution. It is the words that are codified in that document that matters. That's the end of James explaining Constitutions. Gorsuch, however, to your point, Garrison, about like Kavanaugh pointing in a direction, Gorsuch seems to be of the other opinion here. He says that undocumented people living in the United States are incontrovertibly citizens or the children born to undocumented people living in the United States. Quote, what matters isn't whether a child's parents are citizens. What matters whether they and by law their child at birth have made this place their home and are thus domiciled within the United States. Thus he's saying that non residents, children could in his mind be excluded, but that anyone who is residing in the United States cannot be excluded. So he's kind of. Kind of halfway in between on that. But it seems like his. His take would not align with Kavanaugh's kind of signposted way there.

[D]

I mean, yeah, it's on one hand, not great. Well, it's, you know, Good, but not great. That in some interpretations, this is like a 5, 4 ruling. Even though the Constitution is, you know, in a plaintext reading, very clear. This is also a very weird ruling because it's five, four, but also in some ways, six, three. And also with Gorsuch, it's kind of like seven, one one, seven and a half.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Like, I think once they get to a point where they're writing a descent or a concurrence and they know where they're at, I think that's how it works. Right? They write the dissent after they've decided. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Then Gorsuch can fucking go on a sitcom.

[D]

He can go have his fun.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Like, he can nerd out on this shit.

[E]

Well, that's why he's my favorite Supreme Court justice. Not in terms of. I don't agree with him the most. I don't think he's the best person. I don't think he's right the most often, but he's always the most entertaining. Like, he's always the most interesting guy to see. Like, how did you arrive there, Neil? How is this your stance on things? It's every time it's fun as hell.

[A]

Yeah. He is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get with Neil Gorsuch. But, yeah, that is. That is where we're at, I guess, with three major cases pertaining to citizenship and immigration.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

A mixed bag, I guess.

[D]

This ruling is certainly a blow to the Trump administration. Another blow to the Trump administration is the ruling on mail in voting, where The Supreme Court ruled 5, 4 in favor of counting valid mail in votes that arrive after election day.

[E]

We got a 5, 4 in favor of counting people's votes on the election day. Glad that that's at least still a 5, 4.

[D]

This case focused on a Mississippi law that allows mail in ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked on or before election Day and arrive within five days after election day. A district court previously ruled in favor of the law, but the Fifth Circuit reversed the ruling, finding that votes must be received by Election Day. But for the Supreme Court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion finding that, quote, the election day statutes require the electorate's choice to be made on election Day. That occurs so long as election day is the deadline for individuals to vote, as it is in Mississippi. But the election day statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt. So they do not prevent Mississippi from counting ballots postmarked before election day yet received Afterward, unquote. Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch dissented, with Kavanaugh joining their dissent in part. Much of this case rested on what, quote, unquote election day means in federal law. The Republican Party, who is the plaintiffs in this case among a few other, like the Mississippi Republicans, the Republican Party nationally, and also in part the Libertarian Party, but mostly the Republican Party, tried to argue that because federal statutes use the term quote unquote election to mean that ballots are both cast and received, and by setting a day for an election, then that also sets a deadline for votes to be received. But as already stated, the majority found that, quote, nothing in the federal election day statutes requires ballots to be received by election day, unquote. Amy Coney Barrett notes that, quote, although the election day statutes refer to a particular day for the election, plaintiffs do not contend that everything must occur on that day. For instance, they do not object to early voting or dispute that officials may count votes and certify a winner after election day, unquote. Now, in this case, the Republicans aren't even directly challenging absentee voting as a general practice, but their argument to restrict the counting of some absentee ballots, quote, unquote, relies heavily on historical practice, precedent and policy from the mid-1800s, because that's around when the first two federal election statutes were enacted, basically during the Civil War, states that authorized absentee voting did impose strict election day deadlines for ballot receipt, the opinion notes, quote, but plaintiffs admit they cannot precisely tie this historical practice to the text of the election day statutes, unquote. So to quote Barrett, the Republicans theory here is, quote, because we are governed by 19th century election day laws, we are also governed by 19th century voting practices. Carried to its logical conclusion, this theory would call into question the way modern elections work, unquote. She goes on to note how this would jeopardize everything from voter qualification to early voting to how we count votes. Despite the Republicans focus On this like 19th century election day practices, because that's around when the first two election statutes were enacted on a federal level. The Republicans also ignore that right after the third federal statute was passed in 1914, mail in voting rose in popularity because of the First World War, and some states started counting absentee ballots that were received after election day. So their argument both doesn't actually refer to real federal statutes, but also is not consistent. Ultimately, Barrett writes that the quote, unquote defining element of a quote unquote election is the electorate's act of choosing a candidate, and that an election day just sets the deadline for making that choice, quote, the electorate's choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received, unquote. Per federal statute, the deadline to vote is Election Day. But the deadline for when ballots must be received is up to state law. Like what this case focuses on is the Mississippi state law on when ballots can be received. That's a state issue. Finally, the Republican plaintiffs tried to argue that requiring ballots be received on Election Day or by Election Day helps protect election integrity and increases voter confidence in election results. However, Barrett notes, quote, policy arguments are properly directed to legislatures, not courts. The question today is not whether requiring ballots to be received by Election Day is a good or bad idea. The question is whether the idea has made its way into the US Code, unquote. So regardless of whether Republicans think this is a good idea or not, as, as Barrett says, that would be a question for the legislature and not one that can be decided on in federal court because it has no basis in federal law. So the birthright citizenship and the mail in voting ruling are the two that hamper the executive's power or go against the agenda of the Trump administration. But there was a few other rulings that also relate to executive power, which Mia Wong will cover in this special segment.

[C]

So let's talk the executive branch, federal agencies and presidential power. Now, in addition to the other rulings that we're talking about here, we also got an absolutely wild pairing of rulings in Trump vs. Slaughter and Trump vs. Cook, which were both written by Chief Justice John Roberts and which establish together the rather astounding legal principle that the President has complete power over the jobs of the heads of independent executive branch agencies and except the ones that Chief Justice John Roberts likes personally. Now, I understand that that is a provocative statement and I'm going to ask you to withhold judgment until we get to the end of the second ruling because, oh boy, it's a doozy. And I am fairly confident you will agree with this opinion by the end. So let's talk Trump versus Slaughter. So Trump versus Slaughter is a case in which the supreme court slaughtered a 91 year old president that was set in a case called Humphrey's Executor v. United States in order to allow President Trump to fire the heads of a broad swath of independent agencies, irrespective of Congress's specific instructions regarding how those heads could be fired. So Trump versus Slaughter began after Trump fired Federal Trade Commissioner. This is the FTC Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause. Oh, I'm going to quote from NPR here. As they point out, quote since its creation of the Federal Trade Commission FTC in 1914, Congress has held that commissioners can only be fired for, quote, inefficiency, negligence of duty, or malfeasance in office, end quote. Slaughter was presented with no such reason for her removal, only told her, quote, continued service on the FTC was inconsistent with the Trump administration's priorities. Now, there is an obvious legal precedent here, precedent that I described earlier, because FDR tried to do literally this exact same thing in the 1930s. You tried to fire an FTC commissioner for political reasons. And the 1930 Supreme Court ruled in Huffy's Executor vs United States that in again, this exact same scenario, the president trying to fire an FTC commissioner for political reasons, that this was in fact illegal because the FTC is an independent agency whose functions are, you know, outside of the executive, and thus the President does not have the power to simply remove their heads at will. Now, this 1930s decision, right, is a decision from the notoriously right wing Hughes court facing a center left president. So in the 1930s, it was important that the state be able to operate independently of FDR to prevent FDR from giving too many concessions to workers. Now, in 2026, the also fanatically right wing Roberts court saw a fascist in power and decided, no, actually the FTC is an agency that does executive functions and thus is under the control of the president because of the unitary executive theory, which is, you know, a theory that the president should have complete control over everything in the executive branch, even agencies that were explicitly designed by Congress to be independent, and that this theory is good now because a right wing president is using it. This ruling allows Trump to wield unprecedented power over the American state. Many of these bodies, you know, specifically, we should talk about the FTC here, right? The FTC has a cap of the number of members of the commission that can be from one party. Trump can now simply ignore this congressional mandate by just firing all the Democrats and leaving only Republicans, as NPR reported. Here's Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent. The court gives the President a power unknown even to the English crown against which the founders revolted, elevating him above his once co equal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the law be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws. Now, notably, the court also ruled that this unitary executive doctrine, right, this doctrine of the president has the right to fire the heads of independent executive agencies and independent federal agencies, that this power does not apply to the Federal Reserve. And thus Trump cannot fire Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook because of some extremely nebulous logic about the Federal Reserve being the successor to the first and Second national bank of the US which establishes, and I quote, our nation's tradition of central banking protected from political interference. Now in what way our nation's tradition of central banking protected from political interference differs even conceivably from our long standing tradition of protecting the FTC from political interference. Other than that, you know, John Roberts likes banks and the first and Second national bank are older than the ftc. And by the way, never mind here that Roberts himself admits that Andrew Jackson literally vetoed the Second national bank out of existence. Which Reid's making his arguments about the history of protecting central banking from political interference read like a bad joke. I genuinely cannot understand how the FTC is supposed to be different as an independent federal agency than the Federal Reserve. It's also worth noting that the first and Second national bank were not modern central banks. They don't do the modern central bank stuff. Oh God. Here, here is from a source that would know what the Federal Reserve does because it's the Federal Reserve. It's part of a thing that they wrote in their 100th anniversary history project, quote. And again, I can't emphasize this enough. This is the Federal Reserve itself from their 100 year anniversary history project, quote. Unlike modern banks, the bank of America did not set monetary policy as we know it today. It did not regulate or act as a lender of last resort for other financial institutions, and it did not hold their reserves. What the fuck are we doing here? It is also incredibly jarring to read Roberts go from talking about how the President has total authority that chooses subordinates in Trump versus Slaughter to him going, well, we can't let Trump have at will employment of like the heads of the people who work for him technically of the Federal Reserve. It's absolute legal gibberish that only makes sense when you take into account what is actually going here. Trump versus Cook was a 54 decision with Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the liberals in going, Jesus fucking Christ almighty. We cannot give control of the single most important financial institution on earth directly to Donald Trump. Now, Mia, why are you saying this as if it's fact and not speculation? And to be clear, this, this is technically speculation. But I'm going to read this from Kavanaugh's concurrence that serves as an explanation of why he joins Roberts and the liberals in agreeing that the President does not have the power to remove a Federal Reserve Board member without cause when he, and this is notable, also did also agree with Roberts when Roberts in the other case said that he can remove an FTC board member without cause. Now here's, here's Kavanaugh quote, I agree with the court, moreover, that we should not leave open the question whether the Federal Reserve can remain an independent agency in the wake of slaughter after slaughter. There is a clear choice. Either the Federal Reserve may remain independent with the governors removable for cause not at will, or it may not. Leaving that question open would create significant uncertainty about whether the court might soon eliminate the Federal Reserve's independence and thereby expose the Federal Reserve to political influence and jeopardize the efficiency of US Monetary policy. Even temporary uncertainty about the status of the Federal Reserve could spark political upheaval, including confusion about whether the President could immediately remove multiple governors at once, as well as turmoil in the US and world economies. I would not go down that road. I would not risk destabilizing the US Economy just so that we can further mull over an issue that in various permutations we have been thinking about for many years. As the course opinion explains in the government agrees the Federal Reserve occupies a unique role in the US Government and maintains critical responsibility for the stability and success of the US and world economies. So there you have it folks. As long as the President does not fuck with the money, this court holds that the President can wield executive power to fire the heads of independent federal regulatory agencies.

[D]

We will be right back to cover a few more rulings after this ad break.

[E]

And we're back. So it's time for, I guess the less, certainly the least like upsetting portion of the Supreme Court rulings this go around which is two different rulings that involve gun rights and particularly at least in one case, I think a very common sense ruling one is a lot more controversial. Although I do think broadly speaking, it's still a better ruling than not. So on June 25, the Supreme Court struck down a Hawaii law that required people carrying firearms legally to get permission before bringing their gun into any private property open to the public. This law had passed in 2023 in the wake of the Supreme Court's 202263 Bruin decision. Now if you don't remember, Bruin ruled that firearm regulations must be consistent with the historic tradition of gun regulation in order to have any kind of constitutional standing. Because Bruen sliced the heart out of a lot of prior gun control legislation around the country, particularly state level legislation and particularly like bans on concealed carry right, one of the big things Bruen did is that it was basically impossible to get a concealed carry license in a number of states prior to Bruin. And after Bruen, states could no longer kind of arbitrarily make it basically impossible to get a concealed carry license. Which is why you saw a bunch of states, including Hawaii, rush to pass a bunch of new laws. And these are generally referred to as vampire rules because if you remember your lore, vampires aren't allowed to like, enter your domicile unless you give them permission. So basically you're treating like legally carried concealed firearms as a vampire. That's kind of like why it got the term. As Hawaii's legislature said when they passed this 2023 law, the legislature enacted this default rule in light of ample evidence that property owners in Hawaii do not want people to carry guns onto their property without express consent. Now, in their coverage, USA Today noted that the legislature argued their law was rooted in older Hawaiian legal precedent. Quote, In 1883, for example, Hawaii's king prohibited anyone from having a knife sword caner at their dangerous weapon. Hawaii's Attorney General told the court. Unfortunately, the lawyers defending this Hawaiian law to the Supreme Court also cited less pleasant precedent bringing up the black codes and other laws meant to stop black citizens from carrying guns to argue that the US has an established tradition of restrictive firearm laws. Neil Gorsuch in particular took exception to this. This law and similar laws passed in California, New York, Maryland and New Jersey have all presumably been declared unconstitutional as a result of this ruling.

[A]

They were already stayed here in California, so I'm guessing they just weren't. Yes, they stayed at pending, I think. So it just will die now.

[E]

Yeah, exactly. Gun rights advocates like the Firearms Policy Coalition cheered the result. The court explained that these laws did not merely regulate where licensed people could carry. Instead, they severely burdened the ordinary exercise of the right to bear arms by forcing peaceful people to seek permission before entering the stores, restaurants, gas stations, pharmacies and other businesses they visit every day. That burden, the court held, is incompatible with the Second Amendment's protection of the right to carry firearms for self defense as Americans go about their daily lives. So yeah, you could feel about that one however you want. I think that's kind of like broadly reasonable, honestly, in my opinion. Arguably, a much bigger deal was the Supreme Court ruling last Thursday to change the way the federal government regulates casual drug use and firearms ownership. For a very long time it's been illegal to buy and own guns while doing illegal narcotics, even marijuana with a medical prescription. This came out of the Gun control Act of 1968, which itself was passed after Martin Luther King Jr. And Robert Kennedy Jr. Were assassinated. It banned any person who is, quote, an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance from owning a gun. So when you buy a firearm, the normal way up until right about now, you would fill out a form called a 4473 and on it you have to state that you are not a marijuana user or the user of any other illegal drug. And that you acknowledge even if marijuana is legal in your state and you have a prescription, you're still not allowed to buy or own a gun if you use it, Right? That like, you have to acknowledge on the form. I know that my state's laws don't matter here. And it's always been, you know, even outside of this, very unclear just how far this prescription goes, right? Like if you're a gun owner who doesn't do drugs regularly, but one night someone offers you a hit from a joint while you're already drunk or like a bump and you take it, have you then broken the law? If you go to buy a gun the next month or the next year, is that still illegal? And this has always been a gray area more often than not, because the whole law restricting gun owners from using drugs has always been unconstitutional bullshit. And the ATF preferred not to talk about it in too much detail. Now that era seems to be coming to an end. In a rare unanimous ruling, the court sided with a Texas man, Ali Hamani, who had his home raided by the feds in August of 2022 due to Iran paranoia. I think a lot of people know this is how this case got started, but they, like, just because his name is Ali Hamani thought he and his fan, they're Muslim, thought he and his family were like involved with the Iranian government or spies of some sort. And so they searched his home for the New York Times. When agents searched the home, Mr. Hamani told them that he had a handgun locked in a safe inside the house. He also told them that he used marijuana about every other day, pointing them to about 60 grams of marijuana in the house. In addition, agents also found cocaine in his parents closet.

[A]

Quite a house.

[E]

Six months later, Mr. Hamani was charged with one count of possession of a firearm by an unlawful user of a controlled substance based on his marijuana use. Now all of this made for a decidedly weird Supreme Court case. Hamani's lawyers pointed out that there had never been any evidence that his family was connected to Iran or terrorism, but that the prosecution brought up the word terrorism Repeatedly when talking about Hamani and his family.

[D]

Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Shocking to hear that.

[E]

When Hamani appealed and the case wound up at the Supreme Court, the Trump administration actually had its lawyers defend the law, because law enforcement relies heavily on this to be able to tack on extra charges to people they dislike.

[D]

Hunter Biden.

[E]

Yeah, Hunter Biden. Meanwhile, the ACLU and the NRA wound up submitting briefs on the other side of the issue. The ruling was narrow. The court declared that the government's use of the law was overbroad and that recreational drug users should not be assumed to be addicts who pose a danger to the public. So the law wasn't declared unconstitutional, but its application was. And the precedent that this sets would seem to necessitate changes to 4473 and to the way law enforcement works. I do want to quote, before we end here, the last bit of the ruling from Neil Gorsuch. Because he possessed a gun, despite this prohibition, the government insists it may imprison him for up to 15 years to disarm him for life. According to the government, none of this turns on how much marijuana Mr. Hermione uses or what effect it has on him. It makes no difference either if he keeps a firearm only in his home for self defense, never misuses a gun while intoxicated, never poses a danger to himself or others as a result of his marijuana use. The only thing the government must show, it says, is that an individual like Mr. Hamani regularly uses any amount of a controlled substance. To square that expansive theory with the Second Amendment, the government invites us to draw an analogy between its present regulation and historical laws addressing habitual drunkards. Those laws, the government contends, demonstrate a tradition of firearm regulation consistent with its effort to disarm any regular user of any controlled substance without any further showing. The government's analogy fails under every measure. It asks us to consider the historical laws on which it relies targeted different kinds of people, did so for different reasons and operated in different ways. And faced with all these shortcomings in the government's submission, we cannot say it has carried its conceded burden of showing its prosecution if Mr. Hamani complies with the Second Amendment. Yeah. Pretty good ruling.

[A]

Yeah. Like you say, like, this is one of those things that is like exists in large part to allow cops to fuck with people.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

And prosecutors to put people in prison for longer when they've been convicted or charged with something else. Right. Or to put a massive potential sentence on them so they plead guilty.

[E]

Like it doesn't make you safer. And I have always argued, you know, whatever you think about it, the Second Amendment is a civil right. And if the government could take away your access to a civil right and imprison you if you ever put the wrong thing in your body, then you just don't have civil rights.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the same is true, I think, of this vampire rule to an extent. Like if the government can speak on your behalf and say that's not okay about guns, can they do it about other things too?

[E]

Right, exactly.

[A]

Like I know there was a First Amendment challenge briefly in California, I guess that didn't succeed. Or that's not what they went with in the Supreme Court. They went with the Second Amendment challenge, but I thought that was interesting.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

Let's close with one more case, one more Supreme Court ruling that could have some really, really big impacts on digital privacy and surveillance going forward. In a 6, 3 ruling, Supreme Court found that police gaining access to location data through what's called a geofence does constitute a quote, unquote search under the Fourth Amendment. A geofence is when investigators ask a tech company for location data on all cell phones or cell phone users in a certain geographical range, usually during a certain time frame. The goal is to identify what phones and by extension, who was present when a crime was committed. To quote Justice Kagan writing for the majority quote, an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information, even though for only a limited time and from a third party tech company, unquote. The fact that this qualifies as a search is important because that means that it's subject to certain restrictions as laid out in the Constitution. This case in particular, the one that Supreme Court was ruling on, revolves around a bank robbery in 2019 where the suspect was seen on his phone. Before the robbery. Police asked Google to hand over location data for all cell phones or other devices in a 150 meter radius around the bank within an hour of the robbery. This location data would show users coordinates. Every 2 minutes, 19 anonymous users were first identified. Police then narrowed that down to nine users whose movements in and out of the geofence were tracked within a longer two hour period. That was before police then requested personally identifying information on three users, which they then used to arrest the suspect. The suspect asked that the evidence obtained be thrown out on a fourth amendment violation, arguing that the warrant authorizing the location data search was invalid. He eventually pled guilty to the whole bank robbery thing. But the Fourth Amendment claim made its way through the district court appeals courts and up to the Supreme Court. The district court did agree that this search violated the Fourth Amendment, but it didn't block the location data from being permitted as evidence because they found the officers acted in, quote, unquote, good faith. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals initially ruled 2:1, that the geofence did not qualify as a search, so a warrant wasn't even needed. One judge dissented from this, arguing that the warrant issued was, quote, so lacking in particularity and probable cause that it was invalid. And this could be important later. But the full 4th Circuit panel reheard the case again and came out evenly divided, seven seven half ruling that the geofence warrant violated the fourth Amendment. But most Justices still found that the exclusionary rules good faith exemption applied in this case, which leads us to the Supreme Court. Monday's ruling only covers the Fourth Amendment aspect of the case, not the good faith exemption. And the Fourth Amendment question itself is split into two issues. Did the police conduct a search under the fourth Amendment by acquiring location data from Google? And second, did the multi step geofence warrant that was issued in that case, did that make the search reasonable? The Supreme Court found that it was a search, quote, because an individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cell phone location data, unquote. But the court did not answer that second question, whether this was reasonable, whether this search was reasonable because of the warrant. Justice Kagan wrote, quote, we leave it to the Court of Appeals. The further question whether, given the warrant issued, the search here was reasonable, meaning that each of its steps was properly described with particularity and found to be supported by probable cause, unquote. For reference, the Fourth Amendment protects against the quote, unquote, unreasonable search and seizures of persons, houses, papers and effects, and requires that warrants may only be issued upon probable cause and must particularly describe, quote, the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized, unquote. So to issue a search warrant, a judge must determine there's a, quote, unquote, fair probability. This is, according to the Supreme Court, that evidence of the crime would be found and that the search is of an appropriate scope to quote the opinion, quote, that it is carefully tailored to its justifications and will not take on the character of the wide ranging exploratory searches the framers intended to prohibit. That wide ranging aspect is the exact issue with geofence warrants. They cast a dragnet on everyone in a certain area at a certain time. So while in the bank robbery case, a judge did issue a geofence warrant. It was an uncommon multi step warrant that was co developed with Google that gave officers a large degree of discretion on how to narrow down suspects from a wide pool while obtaining additional and increasingly personal information throughout the execution of that warrant. This new ruling by the Supreme Court is largely Based on this 2018 case, Carpenter v. United States Sites, which found that accessing cell phone location history based on cell site towers qualifies as a fourth Amendment search, quote, unquote, given individuals reasonable expectations of privacy. Kagan wrote that this case is very similar to the Carpenter case, except that the location data as collected by Google is actually far more detailed and more fine tuned than what you can get from cell phone location records. But the government tried to argue that geofencing does not count as a search because of the short time window the location data is pulled from. The court struck this down, ruling that the fourth Amendment doesn't kick in only once an intrusion goes too far and applies regardless of the quote, unquote quality or quantity of the information the government obtains. The other argument the government put up was that because the suspect, quote, unquote, voluntarily gave this location data to Google, he quote, lost the legitimate expectation of privacy, unquote. You see stuff like this argued very, very often, right? This is something that comes up a lot, is that we're giving these tech companies all of this data anyway, so how can we reasonably expect it to be private? This is the third party doctrine, which was originally for bank records and cell phone numbers. But the third party doctrine was not applied to Carpenter v. United States. So Justice Kagan wrote that for the very same reasons, it should not be applied here to location history collected by tech companies. And I'm going to read a kind of long quote to close this out because I think what, what Kagan writes here could have some really big impacts on how we understand digital privacy going forward. Quote, Cell phone location information is not truly, quote, unquote shared as one normally understands the term. Because cell phones and the services they provide are such pervasive and insistent part of daily life, indispensable to participation in modern society, that a person can hardly help but generate a trail of location data. In no meaningful sense does that mean a person voluntarily exposes to any third party a comprehensive dossier of his movements. The government's app by app, feature by feature method of granting fourth Amendment protections misapprehends the very nature of modern cell phone use. Pretty much everything a person does on a smartphone requires some kind of opt in. The point of carrying smartphones is to use what is on them, as Carpenter said, to use the apps and services they provide. That is what has become a pervasive and insistent, even quote unquote, indispensable part of daily life. And so that is what Carpenter insulated from the third party doctrine. Kagan adds, police officers invade a cell phone user's reasonable expectation of privacy when they access location history, unquote. And this paragraph by Kagan also frequently quotes from the Carpenter ruling, combining her own analysis with the analysis in that case, just to be clear. So the actual question of both reasonableness and if there's a good faith exemption for this specific warrant in the bank robbery case will be determined by the Appeals court going forward. That is something that we will absolutely keep an eye on. And I'll be talking to someone from the EFF about this case next week for a regular It Could Happen Here episode as well. I believe that is all for us for our special Supreme Court edition of Executive Disorder.

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