Inside the courthouse reshaping the future of the internet
- The E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, DC, has become a hub for shaping the future of the internet, hosting high-stakes tech cases and lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s administration.
- Two consequential antitrust lawsuits, FTC v. Meta and US v. Google, were heard by Judges James Boasberg and Amit Mehta between mid-April and late May, seeking to split up Silicon Valley giants.
- The courthouse also hosted a flurry of unprecedented lawsuits against Trump’s administration, including cases related to his first 100 days in office.
- Several DC judges, including Boasberg, had a full docket of cases during this period, covering topics such as mass-deportation attempts and government agency actions.
- The courthouse’s role in shaping the future of the internet is significant, with its decisions potentially impacting the tech industry and the country’s online landscape.
The future of the internet will be determined in one building in Washington, DC – and for six weeks, I watched it unfold.
For much of this spring, the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in downtown Washington, DC, was buzzing with lawyers, reporters, and interested onlookers jostling between dimly lit courtrooms that hosted everyone from the richest men in Silicon Valley to fired federal workers and the DOGE-aligned officials who terminated them. The sprawling courthouse, with an airy atrium in the middle and long, dark halls that spring from it, is where cases involving government agencies often land, and that meant it was hosting two of the most consequential tech cases in the country, all while fielding a flurry of unprecedented lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s administration.
Between mid-April and late May, Judges James Boasberg and Amit Mehta respectively oversaw FTC v. Meta and US v. Google, a pair of long-running antitrust lawsuits that seek to split up two titans of Silicon Valley. Over the same period, several DC judges – including Boasberg – had a full docket of cases related to Trump’s first 100 days in office, covering the administration’s attempt to mass-depor …
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