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There have been countless times where courts have told three-letter agencies to stop doing things and they have stoppped. The judiciary has the power to protect
by rtpg 10y ago
There have been countless times where courts have told three-letter agencies to stop doing things and they have stoppped. The judiciary has the power to protect us, much more than we give credit for.
There's still rule of law, and the executive mostly listens to what the judiciary tells it to do. For all its flaws, some of our institutions work pretty well compared to most places. I cannot think of another country where judges are able to overtake heads of states in substantial policy outcomes.
- sroussey 10y agoThey have not stopped. And you can't prove otherwise. Which strikes at the heart of the matter.
- techer 10y agoAgencies all the way down
- Bartweiss 10y agoI'd actually be interested to see examples. Most of the ones I know are of courts and Congress ordering three letter agencies to stop doing things, and being lied to and ignored. The infamous one: in its early days, the NSA was ordered to stop surveillance of US citizens. It went before the Church Committee and testified that the relevant sites had been closed for more than a year. This was a lie, bottom to top. The sites were actively operating as those words were spoken, and they weren't closed down until whistleblower James Bamford exposed the lie. https://theintercept.com/2014/10/02/the-nsa-and-me/ https://theintercept.com/2014/10/02/the-nsa-and-me/ There's a list a mile long of similar stories. Court decisions, executive orders, and acts of Congress have bounced off these agencies without result. I'd like to see examples, but I agree that you're not wrong in general. The agencies do respond to court decisions sometimes. My point is that when legal compliance is a coin flip and there's no way to check for results, you can't be sure that legal decision has changed anything at all.