It's all about presidents for Presidents with power

Dan Gillmor  -  Nov 15, 2011  -  Posting on Google+

The Obama administration, demonstrating again that it is more hostile to basic liberty than any of its predecessors, says it's a federal crime to do anything whatever that is not allowed in Internet companies' terms of service. No, they probably won't prosecute you.

But when governments create laws that are broken by essentially everyone, they are holding in reserve the ability to punish anyone for any reason. This is an extremist stance by Obama's Justice Department, but sadly it's not surprising.

Is Lying On The Internet Illegal? : NPR

Under a Department of Justice interpretation of existing law, it's possible for the government to bring charges against Internet users who for example lie about their weight on Match.com.

 

 My response:

For me its all about the precedents that were set.  Pick a subject...  say, war powers.  Used to be the president had limited powers regarding waging war.  Then !!!emergency!!! and all of a sudden prez has more power...  and its really really hard to take that away and it takes a truly great man like Washington to walk away. 

For example, drones.  It was unthinkable that a president 150 years ago could have launched an attack, killed 20-50 people and it wouldn't even make the weeks top news stories and nobody would debate it and that the event would cost the prez no real political capital.  Slowly it has become ok to reach out and "touch" those we disagree with... unless they are citizens.   Whoops.. that one went by the way side this summer.  President set... next one will be easier.

Korea was a "police action"  that made Vietnam easier which made gulf war 1 a piece of cake.  Then !!!tragedy!!! 9omg11 and we panic and attack without declaring war killing over 1 million.  Now we can launch unmanned vehicles to take out pretty much anyone and no one raises an eyebrow.  The precedent has been set...  its only controversial the first time you do it.  We are the frogs in boiling water.

It takes real leadership to reverse this... it also takes the collapse of a presidential administration.  After Nixon resigned lots of checks were put into place.  But its been a while since any of the war powers have been reigned in... 

GWB was not Hitler.  But He may have been "John the Baptist" clearing the way for a truly charismatic and power mad President who will react to some !!!event!!! and use the power it grants him to make major changes in our republic, turning it into something that more openly resembles a totalitarian empire.  Or not... if we can reset some of those precedences and limit executive power.