Governmental Watchdogs
7. Massively Parallel Roles & Tasks
Governmental Watchdogs focus on breakdowns in governmental safeguards designed to prevent corruption, power concentrations, and, potentially, an authoritarian takeover of democratic institutions. These are the journalists and interest groups who watch for and issue alarms about the overreach of government actions, for instance, the Supreme Court going beyond its adjudicatory role and, in essence, making or changing laws, or the President doing something similar with executive orders that exceed his constitutional authority. Examples of these organizations include: The Project on Government Oversight, the National Center for Constitutional Studies, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers who issued a report on abortion and legislative overreach, and the National Constitution Center's Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy project. Other examples include groups highlighting the need to defend free speech, trying to make people understand what authoritarianism is really like, and warning of dangerous increases in support for more authoritarian governance on both the left and the right.
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