Remember those denial of service attacks that the Fascist Communications Club (FCC) reported were targeting it? It turns out that they never happened. That’s right, the FCC lied to congress. So wrathful retribution must be at hand, right? Congress will make an example of the FCC to ensure no other government agency lies to it in the future, right? Not so much. The reason the FCC had the guts to lie is the same reason every government agency has no fear of lying, the government isn’t in the habit of prosecuting its own:
Despite lies to Congress, US attorney declined to prosecute any FCC employees.
As the classic line usually said in regards to law enforcement goes, we investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong.
The biggest weakness in the theory that checks and balances existing within the government is that the system as described is a huge conflict of interest. Congress relies on the FCC to enforce its laws governing communications. Going against the FCC may cause those laws, many of which are very lucrative for the federal government, to go unenforced. Disciplining the FCC might also upset other law enforcement agencies, which may cause them to stop enforcing or only poorly enforce Congress’ laws. Congress has no interest in possibly upsetting its major revenue generators.
There are no checks or balances in government. Government is a circlejerk.