Unused and Probably Unusable

Okay, not the whole thing.

A tip of the metaphorical hat to Howard at How Appealing for the link to the news story:

Part of Supreme Court Facade Collapses. That AP brief states in full,

Part of the marble facade on the front of the Supreme Court collapsed Monday morning, falling onto the steps leading into the venerable building. No injuries were reported.

Nevertheless, despite the minor nature of the event, I felt this cried out - yea, demanded - some blogtime.

I pictured something more catastrophic - something more like this picture from a news story about 9/11.

I thought back to the near-bonking of Justice O'Connor at the ceremonial opening of Philadelphia's National Constitution Center.

I wondered, how are we going to go on Doing Justice with the beautiful face of One First Street, N.E. in ruins? That majestic work by Cass Gilbert cast down in pieces?

Then I realized: it was just a metaphor.

Probably all that happened is the Federalism Revolution was shown to be a joke - "just kidding!" winked the genial Justices, as they went about scrubbing that amusing but unsightly and ultimately nonserious error from the face of contemporary jurisprudence.

Then I read it, and realized it was just an overblown minor news story.

update: Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog is, like, ALL over this story:

The Court is NOT falling down

The post is notable for containing a) actual facts about the incident (9:30 a.m.), b) context (before the Court had taken the bench), and c) architectural information (the piece came from the dentil molding on the West Pediment, which represents Liberty Enthroned).

Nice. And the post manages to clear up and dismiss those baseless allegations that the Supreme Court had collapsed into a pile of rubble. Assuming you'd seen any.

further update: Howard covers the non-story quite nicely.

See also: a Washington Post article describing some of the snarky symbolic interpretations. Things like, "It came from the right side!" "It damaged 'Authority'!" And one naughty person took a piece home. Read the whole thing.

I see from a Reuters article (Italy prosecutors seek extradition of CIA agents) that there is trouble brewing over what I can only describe as allegations of

the forcible kidnapping by Americans of an Egyptian-born terrorism suspect from Italy, the removal of the same to Egypt, and the interrogation under torture of that same gentleman

Now, this may not come as a surprise to any who were attending to the news in the last year, as reports about "extraordinary rendition" came bubbling to the surface. We were apparently bypassing the difficult obstacle that torture is illegal, and the problem of sullying our hands by enlisting foreign police and military interrogators to do our dirty work. Kidnapping would necessarily be involved.

This story, however, points up an issue that I had not considered. Where are these victims, these alleged bad persons? Were they in international airspace? In the U.S.? Some of them, sometimes. But generally they are somewhere, within a country, when we grab them and send them off to be, uh, questioned.

Kidnapping is apparently something that we "do." Are we okay with that? Do we deny that we do it? Is it in line with our highest standards? Is it necessary?

An aside on torture itself:

In the process of losing our souls, what else are we doing wrong?

Well, kidnapping. Big issue. We did it in Mexico, and got away with it once - sort of. See the fascinating and horrifying case of Humberto Alvarez-Machain, who was kidnapped from Mexico by order of the DEA, in order to stand trial in the U.S. A transnational conspiracy to do what could not be done legally? Apparently that was not a problem as far as preventing his legal prosecution in this country, on charges that were admittedly very serious, involving a DEA agent who was tortured and murdered. But after his acquittal on the charges for which he was brought to stand trial under, he sued under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789. Paul Hoffman, lead counsel for Alvarez, provides this interesting summary of the legal issues underlying the claim in the case and in related ones.

Is it okay to kidnap the citizens of one country in order to force them to stand trial in another? I always thought we had other mechanisms for that sort of thing. Extradition, where there is bilateral agreement. Victory in war, when war crimes are at issue. Not, you know, kidnapping. That's more of a tactic used by, I would have conjectured, rebels, militants, criminals, and of course terrorists. And it's not the sort of thing any country likes to see.

Comparison: how would the U.S. feel if legal American residents were kidnapped out of the country to stand trial on charges that are either not crimes here (speaking negatively about the ruling party of, say, Myanmar or China or North Korea or...) or are likely to be punished far more harshly, or the trial will lack important legal protections?

Wouldn't we consider that a major affront to our sovereignty, indeed our geographical integrity? How dare they, we might say.

When we pursue the Drug War, or the Terror War, into other countries, we are apparently not always very concerned with the rights and interests of those countries.

Those who give succor to our enemies, Bush warned and as I might agree to a limited extent, are against us as well. But who are the enemies? Do we even know? The folks we kidnap off a city street are not the ones making announcements about how evil we are. What about trials? What about the truth? And is Italy an enemy state giving material support and cover to terrorism, like Afghanistan under the Taliban?

How far is too far?

Ultimate answers, as always, may be a long time in coming.