As Congress moves to finalize its budgets for the next fiscal year, United States Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett appeared before Congress for the first time since 2019 this week to make the case for why the Court needs increased funding.
Justices Kagan and Barrett testified before a House subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government to argue that, in the wake of several controversial decisions, the justices are asking for $16.6 million to increase the number of officers to protect them and their families.
Representative Michael Cloud (R-TX) clarified that this budgetary ask would not only increase physical security measures for the justices.
“This is not just your personal security, but it's also the IT systems that need to be updated,” Rep. Cloud said. “It’s the cybersecurity.”
During the hearing, Justice Elena Kagan said threats against the Supreme Court Justices were expected to increase by 38% this year, which also includes cybersecurity attacks.
“The rapid advancement of AI is making that more and more possible,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said. “We haven't suffered the kind of paralyzing attacks that some of the lower courts have, but, in seeing that, that has caused us to try to ramp up very quickly our cybersecurity protection.”
Barrett said some of the funding the Court is requesting would go toward allowing “additional cybersecurity experts” to help assess what areas need increased security.
In 2022, the Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked by an unknown hacker. Soon after, Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the target of an assassination attempt that prompted around-the-clock security for all justices.
"I didn't expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one," Barrett told lawmakers.
Justice Kagan stressed that ensuring the physical and cyber safety of the Supreme Court is vital in also protecting its judicial independence. If a judge does not feel they can express their views in confidence, the Court “cannot function as it should,” she said.
“If you think that those views are going to appear on the front page of a newspaper, you pull back,” Kagan said. “You don't have the kinds of conversations that I think the Court really depends on to do great work.”
