In its accelerating path of telling the entirety of Congress to go f*** itself, President Bush has signed yet another "signing statement" in which he explains that what Congress thinks, wants, or asks for really doesn't matter worth a warm pile of donkey dung when compared to the awe-inspiring power of the Unitary Executive:
Boston Globe:
- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.
The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.
Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."
Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "
The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.
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David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said the statement may simply be ''bluster" and does not necessarily mean that the administration will conceal information about its use of the Patriot Act.
But, he said, the statement illustrates the administration's ''mind-bogglingly expansive conception" of executive power, and its low regard for legislative power.
''On the one hand, they deny that Congress even has the authority to pass laws on these subjects like torture and eavesdropping, and in addition to that, they say that Congress is not even entitled to get information about anything to do with the war on terrorism," Golove said.
The precise language of the signing statement is
here.
I welcome our principled conservatives on the board (and I use that term sincerely) to provide their interpretation of this Administration's penchant to use and (IMO) abuse a practice that, IIRC, has been used a handful of times at best under Reagan, Bush I and Clinton, but has been embraced by both hands with our current Republican overlords. I think it is unjustifiable, and am surprised that a GOP-controlled Congress has, for close to 6 years, continued to peacefully eat s*** and take it from this Administration on issues to which they are constitutionally entitled. President Hillary, I am sure, will love this precedent.
Gattigap
