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763 points tartoran | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.259s | source
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mikeyouse ◴[] No.45682307[source]
> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law".

We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive branch departments, and the President can fire them all without consequence or oversight, then it turns out there is no law.

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1. munificent ◴[] No.45683774[source]
> there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch.

Laws don't do things, people do.

It doesn't matter what's written down on paper if the people in power ignore it and the masses don't have enough organized collective power to prevent them from doing so.