The CIA will always want more power, that is the nature of the secret services but if the people are bothered, why isn't there more talk of curtailing what the President is allowed to do unilaterally?
If the president signs something illegal (unconstitutional in this case), why does nothing happen?
Why do they all do it? Might be a better question to ponder.
If a government allows its employees to get away with doing things which are against that government’s own rules for their own operation, then a few bad apples spoil the whole barrel.
If you need government spies secretly looking on certain citizens without the targets being aware of it via a warrant, make sure they can’t ever be used like Nixon. If you need government assassins, you definitely don’t want them used the way Nixon used government spies.
Impeachment is what exists to hold presidents accountable, and then voting is what holds the senate accountable, when they choose not to hold the president accountable.
I think the president can be prosecuted for criminal offenses though when they’re out of office, since what I said above would no longer apply.
I think we may be about to see the the end of the tradition of get out of jail free cards for former presidents, but I don't know what the long term consequences will be.
Furthermore it appears that most of the US politicians have some sort of borderline-corrupt activity going on if not being actively involved in something illegal (Epstein springs to mind, various scandals that turn up around presidential elections). People in glass houses are cautious in their stone throwing.
And a final and decisive stroke - there is plausible uncertainty about whether the action is illegal. These are people who write the law, they are not expected to be stay-inside-the-legal-lines types because they all have different opinions on where the lines should be and are usually in the process of drawing them. They appoint the people who determine what the words mean and that leads to occasional creative reinterpretations. There isn't time to prosecute over every detail that someone objects to given the range of objections there are.
The Court has had the opportunity on multiple occasions to rule that this domestic spying is unconstitutional, and has declined to do so. Ergo, for all practical matters, it's legal.
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/execu...
The problem is when you have a bureaucracy directed to "go collect intelligence" there is going to be a large grey area where there needs to be oversight, and there will always be people in a large org that need to be reigned in.
Anyway, the EO isn't the problem, it is the more boring challenge of oversight and managing large orgs.
Because the Presidents job is to distract from - and take the heat for - the crimes of the nation.
The nation has crimes it is keeping secret. These are national secrets, the revealing of which would harm the security of the nation.
Whether you think these national secrets being revealed would be a catastrophe, or indeed a badly needed justice for the inhumanities being committed in your name - it is the Presidents job to make sure the nation stays safe during the discussion.
Which is why CIA powers are not discussed until the weight of public opinion itself, threatens the 'security' of the secret-keepers/nation.
This is why impeachment exists. We impeached the last idiot-in-chief twice. Unfortunately, we get the Congress we deserve (ie, if we elect authoritarian-minded lackwits, we shouldn't be surprised when they refuse to convict).
Rather, this is what voting is for.
DOJ regulations pretty much prohibit bringing criminal charges against a sitting President.
Whether or not people think the impeachment process is a political sham is a different question/problem. Recently, it largely has been - both with Clinton and with Trump, for very different reasons. Even more so now with GOP members threatening to immediately impeach Biden (for what, I can't quite figure out) should they win back Congress.
Executive orders don't give Presidents unilateral power. They are subject to judicial review and cannot legally violate the Constitution, or exceed Presidential authority as defined in Article 2 of the Constitution, unless specific authority is granted by Congress. Also Congress can overturn a legislative order, either through legislation or simply denying funding. Although, when the legislative and judicial branches don't really want to stand up to the President for whatever reason, that's a moot point.
Also, there is always plenty of talk - from the party not currently in control of the White House. Executive orders are always tyranny when the other side writes them, and a necessary bulwark against tyranny when your side writes them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federa...