Comment by oaiey
1 year ago
They are declared in an emergency (most of them are sanctions to freeze money and freedoms of foreigners). That does not mean you live in an emergency. That they are still active means only that the Parlament was too lazy or too blocked to put them in a law.
Legally, it means exactly that - the government wasn't allowed to do X, but they said the magic word "emergency", and now they are allowed to do X as much as they want, until they decide they are done. Of course, this means they were always allowed to do X, it's just that the public will eat it more easily if instead of saying "the government can take your freedoms anytime" they'd say "the government can't take you freedom ever - except if there's a real dangerous emergency". Functionally, those are exactly the same, but the latter sounds much more "reasonable".
What you describe is the abuse of the power. In the list of US emergencies 80% are sanctions (which qualify as emergencies I would say bc they would not work), 15% real emergencies and the there are the ones which start to be controversial. All what I am saying is: it is a tool for an government. Governments do things wrong. They wrongfully arrest, invade countries, collaterally murder, take bribes, etc. That is daily happening. And the courts and Parlament habe the job to fix , prevent or correct that.
It is not easy to run your life, company or government org without doing once in a while something wrong. It is how you behave afterwards and overall which matters.
Well, yes it is - but it's completely legal abuse and the society seems to be willing to tolerate it (and much worse abuses, evidently - like total warrantless surveillance absent any proof it's actually useful for anything except partisan political squabbles). I wish the courts and the parliament would be willing to do something about it, but they aren't, and they aren't, because most of the society seems to be fine with it. Sad.