Update to "America is awesome"

The NYT editorial page has a "must-do list" of tasks to reverse some of the more troubling trends of the current administration:

Restore Habeas Corpus
Stop Illegal Spying
Ban Torture, Really
Close the C.I.A. Prisons
Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’
Ban Extraordinary Rendition
Tighten the Definition of Combatant
Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively
Ban Tainted Evidence
Ban Secret Evidence
Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence
Respect the Right to Counsel

The editorial expounds on each of these, and they are all worth looking at. I strongly believe, in keeping with the notion that we are a "nation of laws, not men," that a grant of executive power should consider the extent to which such power could be abused by an executive, rather than trusting the currently-serving executive to not abuse it. After all, the American Revolution was at least in part inspired by an overbearing, unaccountable government.