Quick takes

• I can't help thinking that if the Inspector General investigated ten random FISA applications, he'd probably find the number of problems he found in the Carter Page application is about average.  The problem is that the FISA court is secret, so FBI agents can cut corners without much chance of getting caught.  Most of the fruits of FISA warrants remain secret, even after they're executed; and secrecy always invites abuse.

• The impeachment proceeding is just the latest manifestation of an epistemological crisis: apparently, Pat Moynihan was wrong, and you can have your own facts.  For godfather of the current crisis, I nominate Rupert Murdoch, who brought the spirit of British tabloid journalism to American television.  It's hard to stay involved in the ongoing "drama" in Congress when everybody's already guessed the ending.

• I'm curious to see how the Liberal Democrats fare in tomorrow's British election, with their straightforward, unequivocal support for remaining in the EU.  It wasn't that long ago that the LibDems propped up a Conservative minority government.  Might they do the same for Labour?

The Nunes Memo

Something everybody seems to be forgetting at the moment is that the FISA court was created specifically to add a veneer of "due process" respectability to the desire of Federal agents to spy on anybody, anywhere, for any purpose whatsoever.  Although created in the post-911 panic, nowhere in the authorizing legislation does it say that the subject of intrusive surveillance has to be named Mohammed.

Getting the FISA court to issue a warrant is easier than getting the proverbial grand jury to indict the proverbial ham sandwich — there's nobody there to oppose the warrant, it is assumed that the warrant is, well, warranted, and the judges want to go to lunch.  If there isn't a big rubber stamp to mark "APPROVED" on every application, it's just another example of gross government inefficiency.

Carter Page, notoriously sleazy, might have justified a warrant by reputation alone.  Personally, I still don't see why the Russians would have needed Republican help to interfere in our election, although compromising some idiots in the Tr*mp campaign probably was just too easy a proposition to pass up.  The cover-up, as usual, is likely to be worse than the crime.

Surveillance State

If the FISA court approved a warrant for the FBI and NSA to obtain all of Verizon's "metadata," I think it's safe to assume it approved warrants for all the other major carriers as well.  I am certain that neither my friend Prudi not my friend Judy are terrorists — they just don't have the skills, much less the motivation — and they're my primary telephone correspondents.  Yes, my kids call every week or two, and they're not terrorists either, so I guess I won't be scooped up in some anti-terror dragnet.

On the other hand, I do get fairly frequent calls from other parties who must also be calling terrorists.  You probably get the robo-call that begins, "This is an important message about your current credit card account..."  I'm betting that the real terrorists get more calls from that outfit than from any of their terrorist buddies, and I'm calling on the FBI to shut them down.  They might even be calling from outside the USA — who knows?  Maybe they are terrorists, trying to drive us so crazy we go out and start killing each other.

Seriously, though, Barack Obama and his administration have been a total disappointment with regard to Fourth Amendment rights and with regard to transparency.  "Oh," exclaim the administration hacks, "but the things we do are for the sake of national security — to protect your safety.  And if it weren't for those horrible leakers letting you know they're happening, they wouldn't bother you at all!"

Once again, it's time to quote Jefferson:  "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."