Kevin Drum comments on Mark Kleiman's post about whether the FBI should "have the power" to search the offices of members of Congress:

THE FBI AND CONGRESS....Given its extremely politicized conduct in the past, Mark Kleiman believes that giving the FBI the power to search congressional offices is extremely dangerous. What's more, he's basically threatening to keep blogging about this forever unless we all go read his full argument. So go read it! He even has comments these days if you want to argue with him.

I'm not fully convinced myself. It strikes me that the FBI is the agency best qualified to conduct criminal investigations of national figures, and there are probably some narrowly targeted restrictions that could be placed on their ability to request search warrants if there are serious concerns that they might abuse it for purposes of political retribution. But go read Mark's argument and decide for yourself.

If you do, you'll see a multiple-step argument that it's too easy for the FBI to get search warrants:

5. It's easy to get a search warrant. It's an ex parte motion, and judge-shopping is allowed. A warrant application doesn't even require a prosecutor's signature.

6. It's especially easy to get a search warrant in a "national security" case, such as a leak investigation.

7. A search is a very reliable reputation-ruiner.

8. Allowing the FBI to search Congressional offices whenever it can persuade a judge to sign a warrant therefore gives the FBI too much abusable power.

So, a few quick points since fate has conspired to foil work:

1. Kevin's summary is misleading, and this is how crap gets started. Kleiman argues that since warrants are too easy to get, the FBI "has" the power to search Congressional offices. This is patently false - the power to authorize searches of Congressional offices has been and remains with the judicial branch, not the executive branch. Allowing the FBI to search any place for which they have a warrant is not "giving" them power that they don't already have, or arguably, that they shouldn't have.

2. While Kleiman argues that the solution is Congressional rules or laws that require members to promptly comply with all subpoenas, that actually gives the FBI a lot of power it does not have now. Subpoenas are much easier to get than search warrants, so if a warrant is already too easy for the FBI to get, a subpoena won't even make any "rogue" agents blink. If you're going to propose a solution to the problem that a politicized FBI can control Congress too easily, it shouldn't be to make manipulating the Members even easier.

3. If the courts are handing out warrants like lollipops to an FBI that's too eager to pursue investigations for power or political gain, why on earth would you think that the answer is "we should only protect members of Congress from this?" If it's "too easy" to get a warrant to search a member of Congress, it must be like walking through tissue paper to get a search warrant against Joe Schmoe. In a nation of equal protection, the answer is that all requests for warrants have to meet constitional burdens, not that Congress needs extra protection against warrants because they're "too easy" to get.

   Kleiman explicitly argues not that it's easier to get a warrant to search a congressional office, but that change is required because it's just as easy to get that warrant as it is to get any other warrant. The problem is handing out warrants via judge-shopping and on flimsy evidence, not that members of Congress are (gasp!) actually subject to the same laws as everyone else.

This is not to say that I don't believe in the "speech and debate" clause of the Constitution - members must not be hauled into court to answer for things they say in the course of their business as legislators. But as everything from Jefferson to ABSCAM to Teapot Dome points out, that doesn't give them a license for corruption or an exemption from being investigated, charged, tried, and convicted. If that's "too easy" to do to members of Congress, then it's too easy to do to everyone.

I don't know if the URL will work for anyone who doesn't subscribe to the online AP stylebook, but today's change is one that reverses about five decades of accepted news-writing style:

telephone numbers Use figures. The form: 212-621-1500. For international numbers use 011 (from the United States), the country code, the city code and the telephone number: 011-44-20-7535-1515. Use hyphens, not periods.

The form for toll-free numbers: 800-111-1000.

If extension numbers are needed, use a comma to separate the main number from the extension: 212-621-1500, ext. 2.

For as long as I've been alive, AP style guidelines called for numbers like (212) 621-1500, and back when MDJ printed them in each issue, that's what we used. Now it's changed. Just one more of the billions of little things I have to track. The world used to be an easier place.

(The phone number in question, in case you're wondering, is for Associated Press headquarters in New York.)