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Nation
We Now Return to Same-Old Kind of TV Supreme Court rules for broadcasters in fight with Aereo
Meanwhile … a Key Privacy Ruling The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that police generally must obtain a warrant before searching the cellphone of someone they arrest, saying it was applying to modern technology the same rights that date back to the nation’s birth. Modern cellphones “hold for many Americans the privacies of life,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., left, wrote, in a sweeping opinion that seemed to contain warnings about the government’s ability to monitor the private lives of its citizens. (THE WASHINGTON POST )
Washington The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a startup Internet company has to pay broadcasters when it takes television programs from the airwaves and allows subscribers to watch them on smartphones and other portable devices. The justices said by a 6-3 vote that Aereo Inc. is violating the broadcasters’ copyrights by taking the signals for free. The ruling preserves the ability of the televi-
sion networks to collect huge fees from cable and satellite systems that transmit their programming. Had services such as Aereo been allowed to operate without paying for the programming, more people
might have ditched their cable services, meaning broadcasters would have been able to charge less for the right to transmit their programs. Aereo looks a lot like a cable system, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote
for the court in rejecting the company’s attempts to distinguish itself from cable and satellite TV. “Aereo’s system is, for all practical purposes, identical to a cable system,” he said. Aereo is available in New York, Boston, Houston and Atlanta among 11 metropolitan areas and uses thousands of dime-size antennas to capture television signals and transmit them to subscribers who pay as little as $8 a month for the service. Because each subscriber is temporarily assigned an individual antenna, Aereo had made the case that it wasn’t like a cable company and wasn’t doing anything customers couldn’t do on their own at home. Breyer seemed to suggest the
company was too-cute-by-half as he announced the opinion. He laid out the company’s argument that its tiny antennae don’t really transmit to the public and then said, “Hmmm,” followed by a long pause. Then he added: “Well, we think that this argument makes too fine a point.” Company executives and prominent investor Barry Diller have said their business model would not survive a loss at the Supreme Court. Aereo chief executive Chet Kanojia called the decision “a massive setback for the American consumer” and said the company would continue to fight, without being specific. MARK SHERMAN (AP)
POST BLOG | THE FIX
BOSTON
Boehner to Sue Obama Over Executive Orders
Older Moms May Have Genes for Longevity
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday that he intended to initiate a federal lawsuit seeking to declare President Barack Obama’s executive orders as an unconstitutional power grab by one branch of the government. Republicans have argued that the president does not have the authority to issue such orders. (THE WASHINGTON POST)
A study published Wednesday found that women who are able to have children after age 33 — without using fertility drugs — have a greater chance of living longer than women who had their last child before 30. The results of the Boston University School of Medicine study are consistent with other findings. (TWP)
DETROIT
Don’t Rip Out Weed?
U.N. Criticizes Detroit
Police in some medical marijuana states who once seized illegal pot plants by ripping them out by their roots are now thinking twice about the practice. From Colorado and Washington state to California and Hawaii, police are being sued by people who want their pot back after prosecutors chose not to charge them or they were acquitted. (AP)
U.N. experts say water shutoffs at Detroit homes because of overdue bills violate human rights and that disconnections are “only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not.” Welfare rights groups have complained that mass shutoffs by Detroit’s water department are leaving poor people at risk. (AP)
300K
DENVER
The number of people who have
visited the National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum since it opened in New York City a little more than a month ago, exceeding expectations, officials said this week. Organizers see it as a strong start for the museum, which had faced questions about its $24 ticket price. (AP)
GEORGE CLARK (AP)
WASHINGTON
ANDREW BURTON (GETTY IMAGES)
In Brief
Primary Winners, Losers
Voters in seven states cast ballots Tuesday, one of the busiest days of the primary season. Sen. Thad Cochran’s win over tea party rival Chris McDaniel dominated the news, but there were plenty of other interesting races. Here are some less-obvious winners and losers. CHRIS CILLIZZ A (THE WASHINGTON POST ) WINNERS Black Mississippians: Sen. Thad Cochran won the GOP primary runoff for a variety of reasons but the big one seems to be the number of black votes he collected. African-American voters now, presumably, have a chit to call in with the incumbent some time down the line. Rep. Charles Rangel: He did it again. Rangel, the 22-term New York Democratic congressman, beat back his third straight serious primary challenge.
LOSERS (With all precincts reporting, he was ahead by about 2,000 votes.) He is expected to coast to re-election in November. Mitt Romney: Dude is now 10-0 in contested primaries in 2014. The 2012 GOP presidential nominee successfully backed former Rep. Bob Beauprez for governor in Colorado and Elise Stefanik, a former congressional aide who won the GOP primary for an open New York House seat.
Chris McDaniel: Yes, McDaniel is an obvious loser because, well, he lost. But what earned him a spot on the loser list was his bizarre and decidedly ungracious “concession” speech Tuesday. (He has vowed to challenge the results.) Travis Childers: The former Democratic congressman’s entire path to victory in the Mississippi Senate primary race was premised on the idea that McDaniel was going to be
the Republican nominee. Whoops! Now Childers is stuck in a race for the next five months against an incumbent in a state that strongly favors Republicans. National Republicans: No one would say it publicly but GOP leaders would have loved to see state House Speaker T.W. Shannon make it through the GOP primary in Oklahoma, adding a second black Republican to the Senate. His defeat is a missed opportunity.