The chief judge of the FISC is obviously a basket case. Good thing he's leaving
by digby
If this is true, retiring judge Royce Lamberth is a poor delicate soul who was much too sensitive to be on the FISA court. In fact, he lost his reason entirely and should probably get some professional help:
Lamberth, a hulking Texan, began to cry as he described a secret briefing about a terrorist threat to the District that he received as a FISA judge. "My wife and friends live here," he said.
Being on the FISA court, he said, was the most important job of his career. "I think a judicial function as significant as this should be in a courtroom in a traditional judicial building," he added.
I'm pretty sure Lamberth must be on the verge of a breakdown of some sort if this left him crying. Whatever you do don't tell him about this chart. He'll revert to the fetal position and never be able to leave his bed.
In the last five years, the odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack have been about 1 in 20 million (that’s including both domestic attacks and overseas attacks). As the chart above from the Economist shows, that’s considerably smaller than the risk of dying from many other things, from post-surgery complications to ordinary gun violence to lightning.
And be sure to keep this from him or he could have a permanent break with reality:
Since 9/11, the Brady Campaign tells us, there have been an estimated 334,168 gun deaths* in the United States, a figure that includes homicides, suicides, and unintentional shooting deaths. The total is 100 times larger than the toll of September 11, 2001. Each year, since that day, approximately 30,000 people have been killed by firearms in America. Yet there has been no cry for state or federal policies of prevention over punishment, no loud call for a proactive rather than a reactive approach to gun violence. Imagine how different America would be today if those figures tolled for acts of terrorism instead of acts of gun violence
Royce Lamberth was the chief judge of the court that's decided, in secret, how elastic the constitution has to be to keep the boogeyman at bay. And he is obviously living in some fever dream that makes him cry when he thinks of the danger his family could be in from a terrorist attack.
This is exactly the kind of irrationality that's turned this country into a bunch of pants-wetting little children who are willing to let "Daddy" do anything to make them feel safe. Well, except not enough to try to stop the epidemic of gun violence.
And yet, I would imagine that all the Village is wringing their hands over the horrible threats that might befall Royce Lamberth's wife and kids --- and them -- if we don't use every police state power at our disposal to stop it.
This is literally insane.
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