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Comment by moonshinefe | Hacker News Reader

And they can just pass all these laws with no public debate and can bypass an open judicial process and congress.

Why bother having separation of government branches with checks and balances if this can be done apparently now? The usual law making process / judicial review process has been circumvented. The US feds seem out of control and to be pushing this through unilaterally, and the elections right now seem to indicate most people are ignorant of it and/or don't care.

Interesting times. I feel bad for the American public.

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Technically, the executive branch isn't passing laws - it's always been legal for them to do this (Congress did not forbid it in FISA & Co.). They just never exercised that right up until now.

> Technically, the executive branch isn't passing laws - it's always been legal for them to do this (Congress did not forbid it in FISA & Co.). They just never exercised that right up until now.

True. But to look deeper, for an underlying cause, I think this is due in large part to Congress handing over their responsibility of law-making to bureaucrats in the Executive Branch. This has been evidence in multiple areas, including envrionmental law, healthcare, and likely financial law. Laws are passed to (de-)regulate, but the actual implementation is left up to the relevant departments in the Executive Branch.

There used to be a legal principle called the nondelegation doctrine which essentially said that the Constitution allocated the legislative power to Congress and that Congress couldn't abdicate that responsibility by delegating it to the executive branch. Like a lot of other such things it all but died in the confrontation between FDR and the Court over the New Deal.

As a practical matter I'm not sure Congress could do all the rule making that the executive branch does. At least not as it is currently organized. It just doesn't have the institutional capacity. But one could imagine a government with legislative agencies paralleling the executive agencies responsible for rulemaking with oversight / ratification done by congress.

> As a practical matter I'm not sure Congress could do all the rule making that the executive branch does. At least not as it is currently organized. It just doesn't have the institutional capacity. But one could imagine a government with legislative agencies paralleling the executive agencies responsible for rulemaking with oversight / ratification done by congress.

I agree with you that Congress doesn't have the capacity to make all the rules as needed by the current laws. My general lean is towards smaller government, so my knee-jerk reaction is that it means the government is trying to do too much, or to do things too quickly. We have some poorly thought-out legislation (PATRIOT act, for example) and it's fairly often that laws are passed without a good understanding of how they will actually work (e.g., the "we need to pass it so we can see what's in it" comments about the Healthcare reform). Not trying to do as much and/or taking a slower, more thoughtful approach would be good.

>and the elections right now seem to indicate most people are ignorant of it and/or don't care.

>Interesting times. I feel bad for the American public.

I don't. As you pointed out, most Americans are happily voting for politicians who push these policies, so we can assume that most Americans are in agreement with these policies. If they didn't agree, they would vote for candidates who don't support these policies (and there are such candidates available). Americans are getting the government they deserve, as usual.

People are too easily manipulated for this to be a convincing indictment. The authorities manipulate majorities to control minorities. There is no root of power at the people, it's a feedback loop with the powerful cranking it to full volume.

In my own state (and even at work) I see powerful interests suppressing ideas and news on a fairly regular basis. This is not just the people "getting the government they deserve".

Maybe, but I see no lack of political discussion in this society at all. Internet blogs and forums like this one are absolutely full of comments from people discussing the candidates, the issues, etc. There is no shortage of people voicing support for the pro-surveillance establishment candidates like Hillary and Rubio.

I haven't read this book, but from what I've read about it, the ideas in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent would show that a manipulated population might still be having lots of discussion. The discussion will just not be complete.

dammit man we're at WAR! Think about the TERRORISTS!

It seems like this comment is meant to be funny, but it actually hits at the root of the problem. The "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists" (AUMF) was passed in 2001 and is still in effect. The AUMF allows the executive branch broad use of its military and surveillance powers without much congressional or legislative oversight.

The AUMF has also been cited by the Department of Justice as authority for engaging in electronic surveillance in ACLU v. NSA without obtaining a warrant of the special Court as required by the constitution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...

You do realize the American public is probably (a tiny bit) more sheltered from the abuses of NSA/CIA/(insert your favorite alphabet agency) surveillance that non US citizens, right?

Also, the legislative process is just as opaque and undemocratic everywhere else... (TTIP anyone?)

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