Jurisdiction

It's a word we need to explain to the honorable (cough cough) senator from California, Barbara Boxer.

Her committee is going to hold hearings about the hacked emails from the CRU in England.  I think the original focus of the request for a hearing was to examine the data in the emails, figure out to what extent the findings of the CRU have on our own climate and ecological policies, and decide if said policies were based on fabricated scientific evidence.

However, Senator Boxer seems to think that her committee should be looking into the legality of how these emails and such got into the public eye. 

So, data that was hosted at a university in the UK was taken without the consent of the university or the scientists involved, and was then posted to websites in Russia. 

And the good senator wants the United States Senate to investigate if a crime occurred. 

For a moment, I'll concede that the legality of taking data off of someone else's computer and posting it for the world to see is at best legally problematic.  But if a crime was committed, it was committed in Jolly Old England, not the United States.

Other than a wish to cloud the issue, why is Senator Boxer wasting our time and money looking into this to see if a crime has occurred?  My gut tells me it's because she's afraid that if our own climate policy is looked at critically, it will disappear like the smoke and mirrors it is.