My colleague Kate Litvak, who grew up in the former Soviet Union, uttered the above in connection with the Supreme Court’s important decisions this past Monday. When I asked what a “Stalinist creep-up” is, she explained:

“It’s the return of ‘troikas’ — detentions without court warrants, interrogations without assistance of counsel, trials by puppet courts, all the while the currently unincarcerated crowd believes that this could only happen to criminals.”

It’s distressing that in the United States the government should even be proposing these Stalinist tactics. But let us hope the courts and all who believe in the rule of law continue to say “no to Stalinist creep-ups.”