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by harryh 3755 days ago
The FBI is part of the executive branch which is democratically elected.
1 comments

the FBI is executive branch!?

I would've never occured to me... I thought all law enforcement was on the judicial branch. TIL.

The executive branch is home to the Department of Justice. Maybe that is what you were thinking of? If it makes it easier, when you think about the judicial branch think of judges, and for the executive branch think use power.
I always thought of it as the judicial branch judges, while the DoJ is the executor of the law.
In the US, judges adjudicate from the facts presented. Unlike many other legal systems, judges do not investigate. Roughly speaking, the judicial branch of the US Federal government is very small, little more than judges and their clerks. The US Constitution grants it little explicit power and its principle source of political power, declaring laws unconstitutional, was established solely by the Federal physician's own precedent: one day the US Supreme Court started declaring laws unconstitutional.
>Unlike many other legal systems, judges do not investigate.

Maybe we should change that. Countries like France and Germany don't seem to have all the wackiness in their legal systems that we do.

I can't remember the last time SCOTUS sent a democratic activist to the loving arms of Vladimir Putin's torture/death squads:

http://en.odfoundation.eu/a/6935,in-a-shocking-decision-fren...

Perhaps you're being too dismissive of the US system?

I don't see any evidence the US has more or less "wackiness" in its legal system. It's served us quite well, over the years.
Most people tend to think that giving unelected judges an armed police force is a bad idea.

Even in France and Germany.

The US Marshal Service is basically the judiciary's law enforcement branch. Yes, the DEA is also part of the DoJ, but the DEA is a lot more akin to the FBI than the Marshal Service.

Marshals do prisoner security and transport, run the witness protection program, and are the legal enforcers of the court's orders. For instance, when the Supreme Court ordered the integration of Southern schools, it was US Marshals who actually enforced the order and were deployed to escort students into their schoools.