Al Kidd

In my view, at least, Justice Scalia's public statements on national security issues and his one majority(-ish) opinion in a "canonical" national security case (in Ashcroft v. al-Kidd) could lead folks reasonably to question just how faithful Justice Scalia was to his first principles where national security was involved. That doesn’t in any way diminish the late Justice’s track record (or Adam’s elegant reflection upon it); it just suggests that, as is so often the case, adding national security-specific considerations to the mix tends to complicate matters.