The Rule O’ Law Roundup, April 26, 2026

Plus, a leather #BeastOfTheDay

Good Evening:

I spent the yesterday in a monocle—initially unknowingly. At some point while I was sleeping or getting dressed yesterday morning, one of my lenses fell out of my glasses. I didn’t notice the loss until the estimable Anastasiia Lapatina pointed it out to me on the street—as did a number of other people over the course of the day. When I came back to my hotel room last night, I scoured the floor for my lens, and it turns out it was on the carpet. Today’s project: fixing the frame so that this won’t happen again. In the meantime, I remain a cyclops.

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Friday on #DogShirtTV, various members of the Greek Chorus brought up questions about military leadership in the Trump era:

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Friday On Lawfare

Compiled by the estimable Marissa Wang

Oral Argument Preview: Chatrie v. United States

Ben Evelev and Olivia Parker unpack the arguments presented in Chatrie v. United States, a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of geofence warrants and whether such warrants constitute permissible forms of Fourth Amendment “searches.”

On April 27, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Chatrie v. United States, a case that represents a fundamental clash between the Fourth Amendment and emerging technological investigative techniques. The Court will assess the constitutionality of geofence warrants, which allow law enforcement to obtain location data stored by a service provider such as Google or Apple within the bounds, or “fence,” of a specific time and area in order to identify a potential suspect. The case may present two principal questions: First, whether the geofence warrant issued to Google constituted a Fourth Amendment “search,” and second, if so, whether it was a permissible form of a search.

Safe Havens for Rebels

Yelena Biberman reviews Jenny Huangfu Day’s new book, “Transborder Fugitives, Extradition, and Political Crimes in Modern China,” which presents a narrative of British imperialism in China and models of rebellion against colonial rule. Biberman describes how Britain’s “political offense exception” created conditional safe havens for Chinese rebels and served as an example of extradition law that reflects state power, rather than neutral liberal principles.

Britain had treated political crimes with similar severity as China. That is, until 1870, when it passed the Extradition Act. The new measure established the “political offense exception,” which barred extradition for crimes deemed political rather than ordinary criminal acts. What the Qing saw as rebellion or treason, British authorities came to treat as political offenses and dismissed. This effectively turned territories under British jurisdiction into safe havens for rebels.

What explains the shift in Britain’s stance? What new insights does the ensuing legal conflict provide into the strategies of rebellion? What does it reveal about the workings of imperialism? Day’s book brings these questions into focus and offers a compelling set of answers, outlined below. While grounded in historical analysis, it provides empirically rich material for social scientists seeking to build theories that integrate legal regimes and practices into models of rebellion and colonial rule. It also sheds light on a little-known dimension of modern China’s relations with the West.

Musk Snubs French Authorities

In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren unpacks an ongoing French criminal investigation into illegal content on X and sexual abuse material created by the Grok artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, the debates over the congressional reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Section 702, and more.

The Congressional reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will require some horse trading.

Section 702 allows U.S. intelligence agencies to compel service providers to help conduct targeted surveillance of foreigners outside the U.S. It has been described by U.S. officials as the “crown jewel” of the country’s surveillance programs.

Despite that, it has not been without controversy. Collection takes place on U.S. soil and Americans can get caught up in what is known as incidental collection. Then there was the time that the FBI really screwed up.

Podcasts

Lawfare Daily: The TPS Cases at the Supreme Court, with Geoffrey Pipoly and Andrew Tauber: Roger Parloff sits down with Geoffrey Pipoly and Andrew Tauber to discuss the pair’s work in Trump v. Miot, an upcoming Supreme Court case over the Trump administration’s attempts to terminate temporary protected status for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants.

Scaling Laws: Facts & Myths About AI’s Energy Usage with Gavin McCormick: Gavin McCormick joins Kevin Frazier to discuss how AI and satellite imagery are lifting the veil on the “black box” of global greenhouse gas emissions. They also discussed the legal implications of “radical transparency,” how AI-driven data can be used to enforce regulations and measure claims, and the myths and facts of AI’s environmental consequences.

Videos

At 4 pm ET on April 24, I sat down with Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, Troy Edwards, and Roger Parloff to discuss updates in the Department of Justice’s investigation of the ‘grand conspiracy’ against President Trump, the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and more.

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Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the pangolin, which I—EJ Wittes—encountered as a leather sculpture this weekend at the Smithsonian Craft Show:

Today’s Beast is the creation of the artist Wendy Ellertson. In honor of today’s Beast, check out these other leather Beasts she’s created. They are mostly ineligible to be Beasts of the Day on account of being fantasy Beasts, but they are still extremely estimable and worthy of recognition.

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The Rule O’ Law Roundup, April 26, 2026

• Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services v. Mullin, No. 25-5243 (D.C. Circuit)

On Friday, April 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services v. Mullin, No. 25-5243, holding unlawful President Trump’s January 20, 2025 proclamation purporting to suspend asylum and withholding-of-removal claims at the southern border, along with the Department of Homeland Security guidance implementing it.

A divided panel produced two opinions totaling 120 pages. U.S. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, a Biden appointee, wrote the 56-page majority opinion, joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee. U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, wrote a 64-page opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. The court entered a per curiam judgment affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment and class certification, as clarified by the prior stay-panel order.

The Childs majority anchored its analysis in the Immigration and Nationality Act’s text, structure, and history. The court held that Section 212(f)—which authorizes the President to “suspend the entry” of noncitizens by proclamation—does not authorize the President to install a parallel summary-removal system or to override the asylum, withholding-of-removal, and Convention Against Torture procedures Congress enacted. The proclamation and DHS guidance were unlawful insofar as they purported to do those things: