It certainly looked like an instance of powerful institutions and powerful people punishing a lowly private for revealing things that they would rather have kept hidden.
People here say they will comply with the ordinance if it passes -- no one wants to have to pay a fine over a 20-year-old La-Z-Boy -- but they see it as one more instance of the rich and powerful telling the powerless how to live their lives.
The Washington Post reported, with information provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, that internal NSA audits found thousands of instances where the powerful surveillance agency collected, stored and possibly searched through vast swaths of information it is not permitted to acquire.
To them, the case represented an instance of a powerful, wealthy man getting away with something he did to a poor immigrant woman.
For instance, Renan Calheiros, the powerful leader of Brazil's Senate, has publicly expressed opposition to impeachment.
Mr. Perkins and others framed the case as a possible instance of a powerful white man getting off for something he did to a poor immigrant woman.
HONG KONG — Two lawyers who said they represented the family of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China have issued a statement disputing aspects of a New York Times article about the family's wealth, a rare instance of a powerful Chinese political family responding directly to a foreign media report.
The community center has a façade made up of several layers of different types of concrete, added unevenly one atop the other, so that the exterior looks like a gargantuan sand painting, an abstract composition in gray and beige — another instance of a powerful aesthetic statement achieved with conventional materials used in an unconventional way.
Tea Party Patriots, for instance, had backed Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia to be chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
