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Comment by blue_dragon | Hacker News Reader

> it should be straight forward for the president to say that spying on his enemies, that are also the enemies of the state/government, is an official act

This would be challenged in court by the victims of the President's spying, and the court would ultimately decide whether or not the spying constituted an "official act".

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If the court gets to decide what is or is not an official act, then they effectively get to control what the president can or can not do. They've already shown that they don't care about precedent, so they'll make those decisions based on their own (or their patrons') momentary convenience. That makes the executive the puppet of the judiciary. Instead of one king we have nine. Happy 4th of July.

The president should be able to vacate the court as an official act as well, saying they're betraying the constitution and stuff like that. Happened at every banana republic out there before.

So now the process is to wait years to see if something a president does is technically an 'official act' or not. Seems like there should have been a better way to solve this.

Yup, presidents will enjoy the "presumption of immunity" for practically any action, and the only chance at consequence is years and years down the line after jumping through massive courtroom hurdles, in which it will almost certainly need to be in front of the supreme Court again, where the court majority will forgive 'their' president or convinct the 'other' president.

Years of zero consequence. Imagine what an egomaniacal, unethical, vengeful, unempathetic, asshole could do with all of that power.

There was, we called them elections.

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