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Comment by tbrownaw | Hacker News Reader

> But librarians and archivists and citizens should use this current crisis to demand more than short-term solutions. A new distributed digital preservation infrastructure is needed for digital government information.

Probably the library of Congress is the right place for it to go?

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Do you believe that the Library of Congress is immune from the current administration's information purge?

Well, it is called the Library of Congress; is it not under the control of the Legislative?

The library's functions are overseen by the librarian of Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the architect of the Capitol. The librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years.

So yeah, Trump could fire the librarian.

Interestingly, the head of the Architect of the Capitol is appointed by a vote of a congressional commission for a ten-year term. Prior to 2024, the president of the United States appointed the Architect upon confirmation vote by the United States Senate, and was accountable to the president.

the fuhrer doesn't care about ten year terms. if they deem the librarian illoyal they fire the librarian.

I think that the answer is yes, but, it seems like the current administration is trying to push against the boundaries of what they are and aren’t allowed to do, and it’s not clear where they will and won’t find pushback.

They are mostly pushing for a strong Unitary Executive theory-based government. At least so far, their grabs have been within the Executive branch

You're right – we'll see what the Republican majorities in Congress decide to do. You'd hope they wouldn't trample over the Congressional Research Service (of the LoC), but given the level of political debate I think it was getting short shrift already.

The right has been waging a war on libraries for a long time. The LoC is obviously much different than a typical library, but given trumps lack of understanding of pretty much everything, library in the name puts it in danger.

Does it matter?

Hypothetical question: imagine the president ordered troops to evacuate the library and then burn it down. Who exactly would be held accountable, and how?

Yes, immensely. Checks and balances and stated elected representatives have a lot of push back against the president.

>Hypothetical question: imagine the president ordered troops to evacuate the library and then burn it down. Who exactly would be held accountable, and how?

Beats me. There's a lot of processes needed for the president to organize the national guard. Lots of chains of command would need to fail to have them burn down a domestic building with no signs of sabatoge.

Sabotage? He could do it blatantly publicly without repercussions, it seems. I wish what you said was true but my reading of the SCOTUS ruling is basically that impeachment is the only option, and the party in power is not going to convict its own president (especially for something a few would support).

If republicans impeach him they would have a shot at another republican president no?

> If republicans impeach him they would have a shot at another republican president no?

Just like how if Biden had dropped out of the race, Democrats would've had a shot at another Democratic candidate for president?

Nope

All three branches of the Federal Government are now owned by one man.

They really aren’t owned by anyone. That language is advance capitulation.

My point wasn't about giving up, but merely an assessment of the current power dynamics, and it's uncontrovertibly.

Americans have been told what makes the country strong is that there are balances of power and we're watching it unfold in real time. I dearly hope to be proven wrong in my worry.

Best you can do now is not give up. Spread the news wherever you can. You won't convince everyone, but every crazy story will make people start to question. There's a lot of crazy to share.

That should all add up to a midterm that starts to turn the tide.

Also, definitely don't be afraid to call your congress reps and be loud about this stuff.

I'm going to resist to the end; the challenge is finding and telling stories people are willing to hear.

The courts have already rebuked Trump on multiple counts.

For now. But they're ambitious and have a lot of enablers.

Project 2025 is real, and now that he's gained office he and his enablers are going to try to follow through with all of it. They're going to change the rules they want and ignore those they can't.

The power of the purse is explicitly under the pervue of the Legislative per the constitution. The executive does not have the discretion to not spend or redirect funds assigned by Congress (there's some interesting history with Nixon on that if one is interested), yet this administration doesn't seem to see that as a barrier.

Yes, I think Trump is violating the Impoundment Act and the courts should set him straight.

You mean like the law that was passed overwhelmingly by Congress banning TikTok that Trump told businesses to ignore or do yoh mean like unilaterally trying to block all spending when that is suppose to be controlled by Congress?

Congress is letting the President take their power. Even Republicans in 2016-2020 wouldn’t have done that.

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