Well, perhaps. Here is what you wrote.



Yes. No arguments there. The Legislature passes law, the Executive implements law, and the Judiciary interprets law. That is one of the reasons I’d like to see a more liberal Chief Executive, as the President nominates the Supreme Court Justices. The U.S. Constitution has never, thankfully, been carved in stone, but rather has been interpreted by seasoned jurists within the context of the United States of the time.

I was thinking perhaps that we might graph the value of the number unwarranted searches and wiretaps (the bad count) divided by the number of searches and wiretaps which had previously been approved by a federal judge (the good count) over time. If the results showed a positive trend line then we could conclude that you concerns were justified. If the trend line was flat or negative, then we could conclude that the situation was, if nothing else, less worrisome than might appear if one’s only source of information was a nearby newspaper.

To really get the goods on the current administration, what would be ideal would be to start the graph in 1997. That way, if there is a change in the slope of the graph from flat or negative to positive starting in 2000 (or thereabouts) and continuing to date, you would have a very strong indication indeed that the problem exists, and that it is unambiguously associated in time with the current occupants of the White House.

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Eudaimonia