The Supreme Court shadow docket, Team USA finally strikes gold: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: The Supreme Court shadow docket
Supreme Court correspondent John Fritze talks through divisions on the court. Plus, domestic security correspondent Josh Meyer reports on the local fight against cyberattacks, you can soon tap another iPhone to pay, gas prices are expected to surge through at least May and Team USA finally has a gold medal in Beijing.
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Wednesday the 9th of February, 2022. Today, the Supreme Court's shadow docket. Plus, a first gold medal for Team USA in Beijing, and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- A New York couple has been arrested in an alleged scheme to launder billions of dollars in stolen Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin is related to the 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange, though the couple are not currently linked to the hack itself. They're instead accused of laundering $3.6 billion in crypto.
- Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, criticized the Republican National Committee yesterday. He called out the RNC for censoring two Republicans on the majority Democrat committee that's investigating the 2021 Capitol attack. McConnell called it a violent insurrection.
- And the Academy Award nominations are here. Director, Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog leads with 12 nominations, including Best Picture.
A Supreme Court ruling allowing Alabama's controversial congressional map to stand has exposed continued divisions among the justices. The issue, the practice of deciding major cases in a hurry on the court's so-called shadow docket. Producer, PJ Elliot sat down with Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze to fill us in on what's going on.
John Fritze:
The Alabama Republican controlled legislature created congressional maps in which there was only one congressional district controlled by African Americans out of seven. And so, what advocates who are critical of that say is that, "Look, it's a state that's 27% African American, and you're not representing that in the number of districts." And that case has been litigated now for a while. And it came up to the Supreme Court over the past couple of weeks on the emergency docket, and the Supreme Court handed down a five-four ruling that basically said that those maps could remain in place.
A lower court had said that the maps were problematic, that they probably violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, that they probably diluted the Black vote in the State of Alabama. But the Supreme Court said, at least on a temporary basis, for now, that the maps could go forward, in part, because the election's right around the corner, the primary is coming up in May in that state, candidates have to announce and get qualified and get on the ballot. And the Supreme Court said, "Look, there's not a lot of time. So, there really isn't time to redraw these maps." And so, the Supreme Court allowed the maps to stay in place for at least the primary election. Practically, it's probably going to be in place for longer than that.
PJ Elliot:
So, can you explain what exactly a shadow docket is and how this applies to the Alabama ruling?
John Fritze:
So, usually, when the Supreme Court takes a case, it hears oral arguments, the parties file briefs, written arguments. That's a process that goes on for months and the justices look at it. The clerks look at it. There's sort of a full briefing that goes on where both sides have an opportunity to make their best case. And what's called the shadow docket by critics, or the emergency docket, none of that happens. There are briefs. They tend to be shorter. The timeline is much, much faster, its days as opposed to months. And there is no oral argument, usually.
And the other thing that happens is that when we get the decision, it tends to be an unsigned opinion. So, we don't really know how the justices voted and it tends to be a lot less detailed about how they got to the position they got to. Now, supporters of this idea or people who defend it, including Justice Kavanaugh and his opinion in this case, says, "Look, they're not deciding on the merits here. What they're deciding is whether to temporarily block the law or not. They're not striking down the law or upholding it. They are basically deciding whether it can stay in the short-term." And so because of that, they need a way to do this quickly.
Taylor Wilson:
You can follow along with all of John Fritze's work with a link in today's episode description.
Cyberattacks against the machinery that runs America are on the rise. Local governments are more vulnerable than ever before. And national cybersecurity officials are calling on America's mayors to form a frontline of defense. Domestic Security Correspondent, Josh Meyer, reports.
Josh Meyer:
Well, I think one of the reasons that local governments are more vulnerable is because they have some of the same targets that the federal government does. They both share a significant role in overseeing the critical infrastructure of the United States, which is roads, bridges, hospitals, anything that if it was taken down might threaten the security of the United States. But they don't have the resources, or the personnel, or the experience, to deal with the issues like the federal government does or the private sector.
What's new here is that Jen Easterly, who's the head of CISA, which is the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Protection Agency, she's trying to get the mayors on board with a proactive response to this. CISA is an advisory agency only, even though it's the nation's newest security agency, they can't force governments to do anything. So, she's trying to convince them that they will, in the long run, save money and protect their citizens better if they do such things as require multifactor authentication, the same thing that most companies do, private companies do. When they give you a company laptop or a phone, you have to basically say that it's you and give them a text or some other code in order to guarantee that you're not some hacker in Russia who's trying to access their system.
CISA also wants the mayors to take a lead role in ensuring that their municipalities back up their data and just take other basic steps that you and I might take for granted, or people that are fairly adept at cybersecurity.
It's a long-term issue. It could take years or decades in order for this to happen. One of the things that's important and that's new is that the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA and other government agencies have been given a billion dollars in the most recent infrastructure bill, to spend. And so, CISA and the Department of Homeland Security, the director, Jen Easterly, they want to try to roll out as much as 200 million of that money this year, and then a total of a billion over the total four or five years, to help governments ramp up when it comes to this stuff. But it's going to take a long time. I mean, you have some municipalities that are forward thinking, so-called smart cities, where they're really trying to get a lot of technology infused into their systems, but you also have a lot of real mom-and-pop towns and cities around the country that have very antiquated systems in which they couldn't even really do much if they tried. They're going to have to replace a whole lot of equipment. They're going to have to really take a look at their whole systems. And one of the most important issues I keep hearing from cybersecurity officials and experts on the outside is the workforce issue, which means training people to have basically a clue as to what to do when it comes to cybersecurity. Don't click on that link that says, "Free money, if you click this or download this app." Or something like that. So, it's going to be a tough road to hoe, but they're trying to make a dent it.
Taylor Wilson:
You can follow along with Josh's work on Twitter @JoshMeyerDC, and check out some of his other recent work, like on the future of ISIS after the death of its leader.
Well, we've all probably seen contactless payments at some point, in some form. You just tap your card or your phone at the register. And there's another payment method on the way. Apple yesterday announced a feature to pay by tapping your card or iPhone to another iPhone. Tech Reporter Brett Molina has more on the Talking Tech podcast.
Brett Molina:
We have seen this, you can pop out your credit card or your debit card, you have those three curvy lines that signify that you can tap to pay, or you have Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, or whatever payment app you have on your phone. And you just tap a terminal and you pay for what you need to. Soon, some merchants will support another way to pay, which is, instead of a terminal, you tap an iPhone.
On Tuesday, Apple announced a new Tap to Pay feature that's coming soon to iPhones, where merchants can accept payments. And the way this works is, instead of needing equipment to support this tap to pay feature, the iPhone becomes the terminal. I write about this in a story that you can read on tech.usatoday.com.
The way it's going to work is merchants that use Tap to Pay, are going to have an app specific to their iPhone. And then when a customer checks out, they can either hold their phone, Apple Watch, or their credit or debit card to the other iPhone to pay. So, it's really like a phone-to-phone type contact. It's really cool. It's going to support other third-party apps as well. So, there's a lot of different options here. It's going to roll out in Apple stores later this year, they're going to work with all the payment networks like Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express.
Again, it's another really interesting, cool way to pay for stuff. Imagine you are at an outdoor market, I've seen this a lot at outdoor markets or places where it's primarily outdoors. And a lot of times they'll use maybe Square or another company's app, where you pay on the phone, right? They have a little swiper that's attached to the phone. You can just swipe on the little card reader, and then you pay that way.
This sounds way more interesting, where it's literally just you're ready to pay. They hold their phone out. You put your phone on top, or you put your card on top, and you're paid and you're done. It sounds super useful. It sounds super helpful. And it's part of a much larger trend that we're seeing, of companies really pushing their way into contactless payment. Obviously, we've seen Samsung and Google with their own digital wallets and their own payment services that they offer, where you can pay with an app. And then of course, there's Amazon. They have a whole group of stores that is devoted to this cashier-less check, cashier-less tech, excuse me. And you never have to go to a cashier. Everything is just, you pay with an app and you're ready to go.
Most recently, we saw Amazon unveil these new Go Stores. They're going to be focused in the suburbs. So again, you go to the store, there's nobody, a cashier there, there's no cashier present, and you go get your stuff and you're out the door. And especially now with the pandemic and everything going on there, it really feels like this way to pay has really taken off. And I think we're going to see a lot more of this. But again, this Tap to Pay option sounds like a really convenient, interesting way to pay, makes it a lot simpler. And I'm really curious how quickly we start seeing more of this in the different businesses we frequent.
Taylor Wilson:
You can find episodes of Talking Tech wherever you're listening right now.
Gas prices continue to surge around the country. The national average for gas was 3.46 a gallon yesterday. That's up nearly a dollar from 2.47 last year. That means the average person is spending about $12 more to fill up a tank of gas in a medium sized car. According to the American Automobile Association, the reasons for higher prices are a mixed bag. There's increased demand for heating oil during the winter months. And there are recently worries that Russia could invade Ukraine. Any sanctions against Russia, based on their actions toward Ukraine, may cause it to withhold crude oil from the global market. Analysts also expect prices to continue to rise this year. Several price watchers have independently predicted $4 a gallon prices nationally by Memorial Day.
Well, Team USA finally has a gold medal at these Beijing Winter Olympics. Lindsey Jacobellis won the women's snowboard cross. The 36-year-old is one of the most successful athletes in her sport, but many Americans remember her 2006 Olympic race in Torino, Italy, when she led the race late before falling on the last jump.
In men's figure skating, Nathan Chen could add a gold for Team USA later today, after a record setting performance in the short program. And Chloe Kim has a chance to win gold in the women's snowboarding half-pipe final. She would be the first woman ever to win Olympic gold twice in the half-pipe. You can stay up on all the latest with Paste BN Sports.
And you can find 5 Things, seven mornings a week right here, wherever you're listening right now. Thanks to PJ Elliot for his great work on the show, and I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from Paste BN.