I will say, if you do care about the spirit of the law, it's not clear to me that the spirit of the provision has been violated here either. That it's not like Senator Clinton is getting any extra money in her pocket because of the Reggie Fabric Act. The whole point of the diminution of the salary when she was about to be appointed is to make sure she doesn't get any extra money.

So there has been some dissent from this view from the Reagan administration. But otherwise, both the Republicans and Democrats have generally taken the view that so long as when the person enters the office, the salary is no more than what it was at the start of the senator's term, that's constitutionally permissible. And I think that precedent should have some weight.

I do know that there's been a lot of coverage, but thanks to the commercial break, I actually looked up the case, which I think you're referring to. It's the L.A. Times story about Tamara Joe Freeman. It turns out she was not prosecuted under Section 802 of the Act. She pled guilty to violating a pre-existing statute 49 USC Section 46504, which is interference with flight crew members in attendance, which sounds like exactly the sort of thing that was at issue. It's not a terrorism statute.

It is true the Patriot Act touched that statute in one very narrow way. What the Patriot Act did was it, in addition to, I'm sorry, it changed it to say not just interference, but also attempt to interfere and conspiracy to interfere constitutes a violation not a terrorist.

Yes. In fact, actually, I was reading some comments by a lawyer whom I know who was evaluating that says that the LA Times got it quite badly wrong on that.