Saturday’s Post has more disturbing information about the leaks probe on Capitol Hill. Everything about this probe shows why the FBI should never have been allowed to conduct even such 
a low-grade form of congressional witch-hunt. Leaks of classified information abound. The administration picked this one to become exercised about — for no clear reason, or at least no distinguishing reason. The Chairmen far too quickly caved in to the administration’s bullying.
John McCain seems to have it right. “What you have here is an organization compiling dossiers on people who are investigating the same organization,” he told the Post. That’s exactly right. And there is little, very little about the FBI that’s gives you any confidence they can trusted with such a task.
There’s something very wrong going on here. The attitudes the administration brought to handling criminals and alien detainees are seeping into the way it treats other branches of the government, even if it is now only slightly and at the margins. It’s not simply that the administration is indifferent to civil liberties, there is a contempt for constitutional propriety. They seem to believe that 9/11 frees them from any concern with precedent or discretion.
