zlacker

>>codeze+(OP)
This is the thin edge to a national police action. Crazy how little oversight there is over the executive branch (and this administration in particular).

>>r00fus+N1
The entire "checks and balances" system breaks down when a handful of Republicans in the Senate are complicit in everything that is going on.

>>paxys+Z1
I think that’s a little unfair. The executive branch has always taken more and more power. Obama was guiltily of it. Bush was guilty of it. And nearly every president before them.

The expansion of executive powers us usually makes sense to the party in power, and doesn’t make sense to the minority party. But there was always an understanding that everyone was a rational actor with these powers. No one ever stopped and asked what would happen if someone a little more irrational now had these expanded powers.

>>Robeli+J2
>No one ever stopped and asked what would happen if someone a little more irrational now had these expanded powers.

Now that's just deeply wrong. People have been complaining about this my entire life. I was 12 when the PATRIOT act came into being and I remember people pointing out all the deeply unamerican ways it could be used, and then later all the ways that it was in fact being abused. I've been complaining about consolidation of power in the executive branch my entire politically conscious life. And right now on HN there are people constantly complaining about the overreaches of surveillance under the belief that they will all be abused one day. This isn't a surprise.