The Department of Homeland Security and federal unions are due back in court April 8 for oral arguments before an appeals panel in a case involving proposed personnel changes at DHS that generally mirror the Pentagon’s plans in the national security personnel system. A federal district judge last summer blocked implementation of many of the appeals rights and labor-management provisions of the DHS rules, a decision that another judge in late February cited extensively in blocking certain NSPS provisions in those areas. The Bush administration has indicated that it plans to appeal the NSPS ruling as well, an appeal that would go to the same court—although not necessarily to the same judges—as the DHS case. As at the lower court level, an appellate decision in the DHS case, which presumably would come first, would set precedent for the DoD case.