Comment by jrflowers a day ago
The silliness of the ban itself aside, it is wild how casually the whole “both chambers of congress passed a law and that law was upheld by the highest federal court but maybe it won’t be a law if one guy decides he doesn’t like it” thing is being treated by the media.
It is like “Does America have laws?” is a 3 minute section of Good Morning America between low-carb breakfast recipes and the memoir of a skateboarding dog.
Of recent note in the "no" column for the "does America have justice" question, a convicted felon escapes all consequences because he is president elect.
it may be toothless but will they have an effect?
You're Apple or Google's lawyer - the CEO asks, should I take Tiktok down from the app store. What do you say?
Otoh there's a law and civil penalty. On the other, Trump says he won't enforce. Statute of limitations is 5 years, and the liability will exist whether Trump enforces or not. In 5 years, there will (may?) be a new president. On the other hand, trump saying he's not going to enforce may give us an out if we're ever sued over this (we just did what the Pres told us to do...).
Hard call, I give > 50% that they take it down whatever Trump says.
I agree you shouldn't be allowed to express opinions on law without having passed the bar, and posit you shouldn't be allowed to write on a public forum unless you've got at least a BA in English Composition.
Knowledge of civics among the media is unfortunately not much higher than the average person, which is a real failure considering that they are supposed to be an entire “estate” of democratic society.
> but maybe it won’t be a law if one guy decides he doesn’t like it
Are you talking about a presidential veto? What are you saying?
No. The opportunity for a presidential veto in our system happened in April of last year.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-tiktok-ban-what...
You've ruled out my only guess, but you still haven't explained what you're talking about!
The power in question is the president's power over the executive branch of government, e.g. the department of Justice. If the president orders it, the department of Justice could choose to feign ignorance and simply not fine any offending parties under this law. Obviously this is an immense power that should be wielded with the utmost care but at this point I'm not sure anyone cares.
I think the idea is that Trump wields enormous (unprecedented?) control over the members of his party, and thus effectively controls both houses of Congress for at least the next two years. I assume he'll quickly get whatever legislation he wants sent to his desk for signature. I'm wondering how long it takes before the Senate invokes the "nuclear option" on what still requires a filibuster-proof majority to pass.
Biden will probably not enforce the ban (no fines) and Trump will likely continue that non-enforcement, essentially nullifying the will of Congress and judgement of the court.
The headline on HN was updated, but it's in the key points on the article:
> Although President-elect Donald Trump could choose to not enforce the law...
Which is ridiculous. It's the executive branch's function to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" [1]. The president's DOJ can't simply refuse to enforce the law. There's some debate over whether this applies to 'enforcement discretion', in that the president doesn't have infinite resources to perfectly execute the law and some things will slip through, or whether the president can decline to enforce a law that he believes to be unconstitutional before the supreme court declares it to be so.
In theory, no, the president can't simply decline to enforce a law, congress would then be able to impeach and remove him. In practice, though it happens a little bit all the time. And even if this was black and white, I don't know that there's anything that the incoming president can do that the incoming congress would impeach him for.
[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-3-5/...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...
> The president's DOJ can't simply refuse to enforce the law.
I had to look up how they handle marijuana laws since that has the _look_ of the DOJ doing just that.
'In each fiscal year since FY2015, Congress has included provisions in appropriations acts that prohibit DOJ from using appropriated funds to prevent certain states, territories, and DC from "implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana"'[1]
So in that case it's Congress that prohibits the DOJ from enforcing a federal law. So your point stands in that the DOJ may not be able to unilaterally decide not to enforce a law, but apparently congress can sort-of extort them into ignoring laws? Oh America.
I missed that, there was another post which was just the ruling itself and not an article, I thought that's what this was and never read the article.
Who is "they" in this sentence? You mean the Republican majorities in both houses of Congress who (nearly) all have their seats at this point only because they appealed to Trump's mob of followers? He could be impeached for all manner of things, but (as the parent comment said) I don't know what it would take for these Republicans to do it.
When he first took office in 2017, I figured that it would happen within six months. Given that he was impeached twice, I was almost right, but it didn't happen until Democrats won the House. Even most of the "old establishment" Republicans ended up backing him. Now there are none of those remaining.
Creating three branches of government that all have to agree that a law should exist (legislative) is constitutional (judicial) and should be enforced (executive) has proven to be an excellent method of keeping bad laws from negatively affecting us. Despite being seemingly simple on the surface, it's created a process a bit longer than what a single Schoolhouse Rock video can teach us, and it's too much for legacy media to handle.
Maybe they only learned from the aforementioned Schoolhouse Rock video, because they seem especially bad at understanding anything outside of the legislative branch. Not only does the legislative branch need to pass a bill into law for it to become a regulation, without objection by the judicial branch to its constitutionality, but the executive branch needs to write that law into a federal regulation, and the legislative branch can reject any new regulation they believe doesn't comply with the law, as can the judicial branch, who can also reject the regulation if it isn't constitutional as written, even if the original law that created it was.
It's no wonder that legacy media's wild misunderstandings of how laws and regulations work only get a small snippet of time, between their more entertaining and feel-good stories that drive viewership and revenue.
Fortunately we are no longer stuck with just legacy media, so I recommend finding a news source that actually knows what they are talking about. I've found the best bet is to get news from outlets and aggregators that specialize in a specific topic, shielding them from the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, and forcing them to publish news that is actually correct.
This is why I come to Hacker News for my tech news aggregation. For political news, my favorite so far has been The Hill, especially for videos like their Daily Brief and Rising videos published on YouTube. I'm open to more, so if anyone has any recommendations, let me know.
What checks remain to counter this power? Impeachment? Constitutional amendment? As I understand it, if the president chooses not to enforce a law, then the only real recourse Congress has is a massive escalation that requires an extremely high level of cooperation. I'm not sure it was ever intended for the executive branch to simply ignore the other two branches and unilaterally decide how to run things. Personally I think willfully refusing to enforce the law of the land should be an impeachable offense but I guess that's not how it works.
The judicial and executive branches are checks on the legislative branch. The entire point of a check is that it can't be overridden. If the judicial branch determines that a law is unconstitutional or the executive branch determines that it should not be enforced, than that's it; it's dead.
The legislative branch can try again with another law, but if it doesn't change whatever made the law unconstitutional or detrimental to enforce, than the relevant branch will keep it dead.
The only condition in which the judicial branch regularly forces the executive branch to enforce laws is when the executive branch tries to legislate through selective enforcement; then the judicial branch will give an all-or-nothing ultimatum, but even then not enforcing is an option, just not selective enforcement.
“I was proud to join 352 of my Republican and Democrat colleagues and pass H.R. 7521 today. CCP-controlled TikTok is an enormous threat to U.S. national security and young Americans’ mental health. This past week demonstrated the Chinese Communist Party is capable of mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to the president’s desk immediately.”[1]
[1] https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mcca...
U.S. national security: "mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions"
And give me a break on "young Americans’ mental health".
This bill was about pro-Palestine content ... "being mobilized by CCP" and was harming young people's health.
The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent.
The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent.
Or they knew it would get them nowhere because they understand precisely how unpopular pro-Palestine sentiment is among lawmakers.
Both Biden and Trump have said that they will not enforce this law. So not just "one guy", but two :)
As with anywhere, laws are toothless without enforcement.
In some cases, they are enforced ruthlessly on one group of people, and not on others. This is a feature, not a mistake, by the way. Well, a feature for those with power, not normal citizens.
The real question is:
"Does America have justice?"
It's not a recent one either. The issue of select enforcement of our laws has been around as long as I can recall, and before I was born. It's not even unique to the United States.
What I find most upsetting as part of the normal citizenry, is that rather than taking things to court and finding that the laws need changed, they tend to go the route of charges dropped or pardons when the laws affect them.
I would have less of an issue with the rich and powerful folks avoiding prosecution if they at least did it in a precedent setting way for the rest of us.
That's the injustice.