Your Daily Digest for Monday, Oct. 3:

The Supreme Court’s October term opens today, and it’s gonna be a feisty one. The agenda “both reflects the nation’s political landscape and offers the potential to reshape it,” the Washington Post reports. The federal government’s power is the overarching theme, as SCOTUS will tackle the health care reform law (sure to be a “once-in-a-generation blockbuster,” according to the New York Times), state immigration laws and the government’s role in monitoring the airwaves for indecency, WaPo writes. Adam Liptak, the New York Times’ SCOTUS reporter, writes that this term sees a shift from looking at corporations’ power to looking at crime and the First Amendment. On the crime side, the court will address any Fourth Amendment (no unwarranted searches or seizures —I remember it by thinking of foursquare) issues with using GPS to track suspects, along with whether jails may strip-search anybody. Also on the docket are cases on the use of eyewitness evidence at trial and what happens when prosecutors withhold evidence in a trial. Whew. “The Supreme Court has positioned itself to improve the quality of the criminal justice process from beginning to end,” law prof Eric M. Freedman told the NYT. For more on the docket, see the SCOTUSblog.

For something to make you think, here’s a photo feature of protests going on around the world.

And on a kind of related note, the Occupy Wall Street protests are coming to Minneapolis, the Strib reports. An organizer predicted 500 to 1,000 people would “take over” Government Plaza Friday morning. Their goal is to reclaim “Government Plaza” as the “People’s Plaza.” OccupyMN has a rep negotiating with Minneapolis police about the planned protest. Sounds familiar – what is it with Minnesota Nice and protests?