This from a legal conference in Ottawa:

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.

Scalia drawing legal frameworks based on popular culture are nothing new. Ignoring the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, he cites Fox Entertainment and the completely unsupported idea that torture elicits useful information to essentially circumvent the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, not to mention a slew of international laws and treaties.

And this is not the first time Scalia has done this. He was one vote short of voiding the separation of church and state, and based his legal argument (PDF) of the basis of religious incursions in popular culture:

Presidents continue to conclude the Presidential oath with the words “so help me God.” Our legislatures, state and national, continue to open their sessions with prayer led by official chaplains. The sessions of this Court continue to open with the prayer “God save the United States and this Honorable Court.” Invocation of the Almighty by our public figures, at all levels of government, remains commonplace. Our coinage bears the motto “IN GOD WE TRUST.” And our Pledge of Allegiance contains the acknowledgment that we are a Nation “under God.” As one of our Supreme Court opinions rightly observed, “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” …

With all of this reality (and much more) staring it in the face, how can the Court possibly assert that “ ‘the First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between . . . religion and nonreligion,’” … and that “[m]anifesting a purpose to favor . . . adherence to religion generally,” … is unconstitutional?

In other words, because minor violations of the First Amendment have gone unchecked in the past, we should simply chuck the whole idea. Which is kind of like saying that since a shopkeeper didn’t have a shoplifter arrested when they stole penny candy a few times, he has no right to call the police when the same person robs the store of thousands of dollars. Religious advocates get all hot and bothered when people challenge “small” and “insignificant” religious incursions, saying that things like mentioning God in the Pledge simply isn’t worth getting upset about. But when the Supreme Court is on the verge of removing our most vital protection against theocracy based upon that “small” and “insignificant” incursion, it takes on a whole new light.

Of course, the overriding problem is that we have an ultra-right-wing nutjob on the Supreme Court, someone who should never have been allowed near the institution. Thomas is little different, he’s simply been more quiet about it.