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Comment by CWuestefeld | Hacker News Reader

One wonders: is there ANY point at which the Congress or even the Courts will step in and say that the abuse has been excessive? Is there really any threshold, and they're just waiting to see if we reach it? I'm really starting to believe that there's no limit at all. It's the proverbial frog in hot water.

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Yep. Congress and the courts regularly find it an excessive abuse of power whenever they are affected by it personally.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/12...

The systematic benefits in US society are dispersed from the top down, and its sacrifices emerge from the bottom up.

Are you quoting someone with that comment? Because it looks to be a great statement to quote. Only thing I could add is possibly turning the 'and' into a 'but.'

AFAIK it's mine.

'But' could work, but it feels a little too mutually-exclusive in context.

This is what a broken system looks like- the people are no longer represented, and corruption has no check or balance. Question is, what do we do about it?

Side note: it would be foolish to think that these two things are not related. The motivations for removing our civil rights dovetail with the goals for keeping us under control.

I really don't see how anybody is actually being kept under control, so far. Not disputing the overreach of many of these transgressions that have become public over the last years. But to suggest that they are actively used to influence US domestic politics and elections just doesn't seem plausible.

Even if the theory is that the two parties act as a duopoly and protect their shared interests, which seems unlikely given they barely contain their mutual hatred in public–wouldn't they have used such subversion to avoid the current president?

> But to suggest that they are actively used to influence US domestic politics and elections just doesn't seem plausible

Have you heard the name J. Edgar Hoover[1]? Have you read about the FBI's, ah, interactions, with MLK[2]?

If so, on what grounds do you believe that such things don't happen today? With more subtlety, of course; things change, and the FBI has had a long time to refine technique.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#FBI_and...

I don't think you actually need a conspiracy for this behaviour to hold true. As different as the parties are, there's huge amounts they both agree on. (It's positively ridiculous how much time is spent presenting everyone's minor differences in approach on Terrorism and Syria, for instance)

It's pretty ridiculous that America's idea of an anti-establishment candidate is pro-foreign intervention, pro-big business, anti-drugs and favours mass incarceration. I mean, seriously, how is this different from Bill Clinton's policies.

TL;DR; Whilst there are genuine and important differences between the two parties and specific candidates, American policy in general is pretty damn stable.

If I were in charge of an intelligence agency, I imagine the most interesting targets of surveillance would be congresspeople and judges.

The people most able to take your surveillance toys away.

But unlikely to do so when they're threatened e.g. by "someone" leaking evidence of "transgressions"... e.g. sexual encounters with affairs/prostitutes, excessive drinking, inappropriate conduct with minors, clandestine meetings with "sponsors" (aka corruption)... and Congressmen (or, politicians in general) are not exactly known for ethical behavior, which makes them all extortionable.

A lot of this kind of "searching for evidence" can already be done using existing surveillance infrastructure, I believe it was called LOVEINT after the Snowden leaks.

Yeah, I think J Edgar Hoover figured this out early in his reign.

And, indeed, they are.

One wonders: is there ANY point at which the Congress or even the Courts will step in and say that the abuse has been excessive?

Yes, and it's happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

The LE and intelligence agencies just go back to doing exactly what they were doing, with zero accountability as usual, and nothing really changes. Except they get a little bit better at covering their tracks.

Now consider how bad it had to get before the Church Committee was convened.

MKULTRA. Iran-Contra. CIA supporting the drug trade. People threatening any of that getting assassinated. It's hard to tell if it was worse, though, given all the things exposed over past 10-20 years. If anything, public resistance seems to have gone down a lot.

The Church Committee really didn't have any effect beyond forcing the CIA to rely on electronic surveillance, putting them at a disadvantage vs the Soviets.

That agency leaked sensitive information to embarrass Bush when he crossed them, and then did the same thing to Obama (for the same reason). This is what people are talking about when they mention the "deep state". The best thing that could happen is for the CIA to be defunded and disbanded completely, with a new agency staffed by entirely new people created in its place.

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