There has been a lot of talk and some consternation over how newly minted Justice Brett Kavanaugh might impact future Supreme Court rulings. And, even though they don’t get as much attention as such issues as Roe V. Wade, there are plenty of tech related issues that have and likely will come before the Supreme Court. These may include privacy issues, issues around net neutrality, anti-trust issues about big tech and issues regarding alleged political discrimination by tech companies.
CNET article provides clues on how he might vote
Based on the actions of previous Supreme Court justices, we don’t know for sure how he will vote but we do have some clues as Alfred Ng documented in his CNET post What Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court means for tech. Ng points to Judge Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion in a 2017 net neutrality case where he argued that “the First Amendment entitlesan ISP to engage in the kind of conduct barred by the net neutrality rule—i.e., to hold itself out to potential customers asas offering them an unfiltered pathway to any web content of their own choosing.”
Ng also points out that Kavanaugh has argued in support of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) massive surveillance of civilian metadata. “In his opinion,” sated Ng, “Kavanaugh argued that the NSA’s surveillance program was consistent with the Fourth Amendment, even without a warrant. He said that data requests from the government were reasonable for national security.”