The lesson he taught was that good government depends upon effective oversight, best achieved by means of America's mutually overseeing, separated powers.
But its resources are likely to be so feeble that, according to the Federation of American Scientists, it may be, at best, "a boutique oversight shop that tackles a couple of discrete policy issues each year".
He added: "Our view is that a privatised, vertically integrated Land Registry [the government's preferred option] would be unlikely to deliver this outcome, despite the best efforts of oversight bodies to regulate prices and write safeguards into a contract or licence".
At a time when many judge that "British citizens who have joined terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq pose a threat to the UK" and the United Nations is calling for "increased sharing of information for the purpose of identifying foreign terrorist fighters", to ignore the banking sector as a partner in combating this threat seems at best a curious oversight and at worst a national security weakness.
Rather, we need things that government can best provide -- oversight of executive compensation, protections for unions, a decent minimum wage, and a progressive tax system, for example.
That's far from best in class oversight, particularly given that workers are being automatically enrolled to invest in such plans.
In addition, the SCC's report reflects its best effort at oversight without the ability to actually audit Dominion's books, as it had the power to do prior to the rate-freeze law.
"The S.E.C.'s best role is an oversight role," he said.
As Jefferson remarked, the press is the last best hope when democratic oversight fails, as it does in the case of most international bodies.
