Thursday
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I'm not sure I completely understand the argument made by my guest. That said, if I'm reading it right, it relies on either the strong assumption that the President, his advisers, and the people who wrote the Patriot Act have a good understanding of the Constitutional limits of their power and when a court will determine that these limits have been overstepped or the weak assumption that the people who are actually making use of the Patriot Act on the ground have that understanding. I also think both of these assumptions are false. I can think of a few occasions (and hopefully another) where the administration has asserted a near total lack of constitutional limits on its power and been stopped by the courts. I don't know why the Patriot Act would be different, and I'm not quite sure where the bit about, "guards the act so jealously" comes from, which if it were true might be a reason to believe that this is a different case. As for the on the ground actors, while some of them may be well trained in constitutional discretion, it's doubtful that all of them are. And it's even more doubtful to me that in the moment, when they're really trying to use the act to stop what they (rightly or wrongly) perceive as a terrorist threat they're going to pause to consider the constitutional implications.
If the people who actually created and are administering the Patriot Act don't think there is anything wrong with it, the case for self-regulation collapses, and all the abuses which even according to his case it makes possible must be considered as likely consequences.
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If the people who actually created and are administering the Patriot Act don't think there is anything wrong with it, the case for self-regulation collapses, and all the abuses which even according to his case it makes possible must be considered as likely consequences.
