U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit

The D.C. Circuit has refused to block the release of videos showing a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay being force-fed, The Intercept's Cora Currier reports. Media organizations are seeking footage of Abu Wa'el Dhiab's force-feedings, and the district court granted their motion to unseal and release the video.

The court concluded that the district court's decision was not an immediately appealable order and that it lacks jurisdiction

The D.C. Circuit has refused to block the release of videos showing a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay being force-fed, The Intercept's Cora Currier reports. Media organizations are seeking footage of Abu Wa'el Dhiab's force-feedings, and the district court granted their motion to unseal and release the video.

The court concluded that the district court's decision was not an immediately appealable order and that it lacks jurisdiction

Just hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit threw out the federal tax regulation that implements the Obamacare subsidies available to people with annual incomes of up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, the Fourth Circuit has upheld them, the National Law Journal's Marcia Coyle reports: "In King v. Burwell, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected arguments that the subsidies—tax credits offsetting the cost of insurance for low- and moderate-income persons—are limited only to insurance purchased through state-created exchanges under the health insurance law."
 

The D.C. Circuit, 2-1, has struck down the FCC's rules imposing net neutrality, Gigaom reports. The majority said the FCC has the authority to regulate in the area of Internet traffic, but it can't impose requirements that "'contravene express statutory mandates,"' Gigaom reports.

"The upshot of Tuesday’s ruling is that it could open the door for internet giants like Verizon and Time Warner to cut deals with large content providers — say Disney or Netflix — to ensure that their web content was delivered faster and more reliably than other sites," Gigaom further reports.

The D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that President Obama's Justice Department can keep secret a memo that established "the legal basis for telephone companies to hand over customers’ calling records to the government without a subpoena or court order, even when there is no emergency," The New York Times reports. The memo was deemed to be subject to the executive branch's internal deliberations privilege.

The National Law Journal's Zoe Tillman reports on the likely appeal of U.S. District Judge Richard Leon's decision that the National Security Agency's surveillance most likely violates the Fourth Amendment. The D.C. Circuit's makeup could be quite different by the time an appeal is ready to be heard: "Three new judges appointed by President Obama could be sitting on the D.C. Circuit by the time a panel is chosen to review Leon's 68-page ruling, giving the court a new dynamic."

When Sri Srinivasan was sworn in as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Thursday, he became the first South-Asian American to sit as a federal appellate judge, the Washington Post reports. He may even become a future U.S. Supreme Court nominee: he "joins a court that is often referred to as the nation’s second-highest court because of its rulings on regulatory and separation-of-powers issues. In addition, four of the Supreme Court’s nine justices served on the D.C. Circuit," the Washington Post also reported.