Again, it's an interesting point of view. Does this mean libel laws are
unconstitutional, too, since they tend to inhibit what folks say in print?
(Gosh, who says this decision is all bad?)
What we have here is a triumph of ideology over law. If this ruling holds up
on appeal, it'll be another milestone in the radicalization of the federal
judiciary. Judge Taylor's pronunciamento may be the most sweeping example of
partisan dogma's replacing legal reasoning since the last convention of the
American Bar Association. That's when the ABA solemnly resolved to keep the
president of the United States from issuing any statement when he signs a
bill into law.
Now a judge is doing her best, or rather worst, to keep this administration
from detecting terrorist plots. Somehow I was not surprised to read that
Anna Diggs Taylor had been appointed to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter.
Happily, the latest plot to blow up American airliners seems to have been
foiled by the authorities in London, but Britain's home secretary - John
Reid - has deeply offended that country's left-wing press and legal
establishment. They say he's exaggerating the threat from terrorism - or at
least that's what they were saying before the latest bomb plot was
uncovered.
"They just don't get it," Mr. Reid said of his critics, explaining that
Britain "probably faced the most sustained period of severe threat since the
end of the Second World War."
Maybe that explains what The Hon. Anna Diggs Taylor has against the National
Security Agency: She just doesn't get it.
Michael Chertoff, the head of the Homeland Security Department in this
country, does. To quote him the other day, this country needs a legal system
that allows the government to "prevent things from happening rather than . .
. reacting after the fact." For example, a system that allows the National
Security Agency to monitor international calls to and from terrorist
suspects in real time.
But unfortunately there will always be some judge somewhere who, contrary to
Justice Robert Jackson of sainted memory, confuses the Constitution of the
United States with a suicide pact. |