One can explain the phenomenon and understand the history yet it's not wrong to say governments (or any other large org really) rarely give up power and only ever do so under coercion.
Why are you LARPing based on first principles? Just give examples:
* Trump's First Step Act. E.g., title III-- can no longer use restraints on prisoners during pregnancy-- and IV-- reducing mandatory minimums for drug felony convictions
* Trump's Affordable Clean Energy rule which removed caps on emissions
* Clinton's repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act back in 1999
* Carter's Airline Deregulation Act back in the late 70s
* the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963
If I searched my memory for five minutes a day I'd have a list of hundreds by the end of a week.
I get that domain expertise doesn't magically apply outside a domain. But how is HN this special level of asinine when it comes to the simple history of legislation in the U.S.?
Reading the thread with your interlocutor is like reading someone claim that C only has global scope. What could they possibly have read to convince them of such a thing?
The Patriot Act (2001), The Homeland Security Act (2002), The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) (2002), The National Defense Authorization Act, The Affordable Care Act (2010),The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) (2015), The Real ID Act (2005),The USA Freedom Act (2015), The Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (2021), The Economic Stabilization Act (2008), The Executive Order on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (2013), The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (1978), The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) (1994), The Bank Secrecy Act (1970), The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002), The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008), The Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis (2021), The Executive Order on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (2013)
> The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (1978),
FISA is an example of what you are arguing against, unless you are arguing that is a net increase in power because the restrictions on government power came packaged with a government power to prosecute government agents who violated the new limits, which is kind of silly.
(You may be confusing the 1978 act with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, the War on Terror act undercutting the FISA limits, which is kind of like confusing the 18th and 21st Amendments.)
Nobody claimed governments never expand their powers. The contested statement was "government will never willingly give up power." Examples of governments curtailing their powers were provided. That they also increase their powers is unremarkable, uncontested and frankly obvious given you can't decrease something that was never increased.
