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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

> What do you do when the Attorney General, a person with near unlimited power to imprison anyone in the country is explicitly and blatantly malicious and corrupt?

We consider ourselves lucky that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

No seriously: a wingnut DoJ can do terrible damage, but one thing Sessions doesn't have is a "near unlimited power to imprison". Courts are still courts. They've been doing their job so far.

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If you have a good lawyer. What they've been building and want more of is classism in justice, justice as a product. You get more and better justice if you can afford more and better lawyers. If you can't, well that's merely unfair but good luck getting justice out of unfairness.

The response was to an apparent fear that Sessions will start using the administrative power of the DoJ to imprison political enemies. He can't do that, because separation of powers.

Obviously injustice exists. And it did under Lynch and Holder too.

The Supreme Court allowed the Executive to imprison all Japanese-Americans for a time. The separation of powers dissolves under the right circumstances.

I'm tempted to agree with you ignoring some concerns mentioned downthread: in wartime (which looks like it is approaching fast), the judicial branch tends to let the executive do what it wishes. Imprison every American citizen with a certain proportion of Japanese blood, for example. And we could quote President Jackson, the president Trump compares himself to most, when he said, "John Marshall [supreme court chief justice] has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" after the court ruled against one of his orders (specifically the order that caused the Trail of Tears IIRC)

But the larger concern is that if you investigate or follow someone around long enough, you'll find a reason to lock them up. And if not, evidence can be easily fabricated (this very ruling facilitates fabricating evidence more effectively!). The courts can do nothing if a prosecutor provides legally (or "legally") obtained evidence of one of the thousands of federal felonies. Would they even if they could? The courts have been obedient servants of the law enforcement/national security apparatus for quite some time now. Plus there are many, many avenues available to Law Enforcement (especially federal) that no longer require any input from the judicial branch, like administrative subpoenas, national security letters. Asset forfeiture requires some but minimal judicial oversight.

Except when they don't, as described by the link in the parent comment

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