Will Anyone Be Held Accountable?

I approached yesterday’s decision on the Ashcroft DOJ’s practice of using material witness warrants as a pretext to detain suspects without probable cause with a certain weary resignation; I don’t like the fact that in American politics people with theoretical power and responsibility tend to be the least likely to be held accountable, but the Court didn’t invent it and I don’t expect them to use this kind of case to innovate. The question going forward is whether this will turn into the same kind of Catch-22 that conservatives have constructed with respect to prosecutorial immunity — in which essentially nobody can be held accountable for the most egregious rights violations — or whether the Court will at least hold that this practice violates the Fourth Amendment and also hold the officials who lied by omission in seeking the warrant accountable.

It would also help going forward if Obama hadn’t appointed a justice who has to recuse herself in most of these cases…