Interesting.. veddy intedesting[}:)].
On a similar note: this came to me today via the Progressive review as published in the Boston Globe on March 24
<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/" target="blank">Bush Shuns Patriot Act Requirement: In addendum to law, he says oversight rules are not binding
By Charlie Savage
The Boston Globe</a>
Washington - When President Bush signed the reauthorization
of the USA Patriot Act this month, [b]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.[/b]
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."
[b]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..."[/b]
The statement represented the latest in a string of high-
profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional
authority to bypass a law.
After The New York Times disclosed in December that Bush
had authorized the military to conduct electronic
surveillance of Americans' international phone calls and
e-mails without obtaining warrants, as required by law,
Bush said his wartime powers gave him the right to ignore
the warrant law.
And when Congress passed a law forbidding the torture of
any detainee in US custody, Bush signed the bill but issued
a signing statement declaring that he could bypass the law
if he believed using harsh interrogation techniques was
necessary to protect national security.
Past presidents occasionally used such signing statements
to describe their interpretations of laws, but Bush has
expanded the practice. He has also been more assertive in
claiming the authority to override provisions he thinks
intrude on his power, legal scholars said.
Bush's expansive claims of the power to bypass laws have
provoked increased grumbling in Congress. Members of both
parties have pointed out that the Constitution gives the
legislative branch the power to write the laws and the
executive branch the duty to "faithfully execute" them.
Several senators have proposed bills to bring the warrant-
less surveillance program under the law. One Democrat,
Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, has gone so far as
to propose censuring Bush, saying he has broken the wire-
tapping law.
Bush's signing statement on the USA Patriot Act nearly went
unnoticed.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, inserted a
statement into the record of the Senate Judiciary Committee
objecting to Bush's interpretation of the Patriot Act, but
neither the signing statement nor Leahy's objection received
coverage from in the mainstream news media, Leahy's office
said.
Yesterday, Leahy said Bush's assertion that he could ignore
the new provisions of the Patriot Act - provisions that
were the subject of intense negotiations in Congress -
represented "nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate
the constitutional separation of powers and evade account-
ability and responsibility for following the law."
"The president's signing statements are not the law, and
Congress should not allow them to be the last word,"
Leahy said in a prepared statement. "The president's
constitutional duty is to faithfully execute the laws as
written by the Congress, not cherry-pick the laws he decides
he wants to follow. It is our duty to ensure, by means of
congressional oversight, that he does so."
The White House dismissed Leahy's concerns, saying Bush's
signing statement was simply "very standard language" that
is "used consistently with provisions like these where
legislation is requiring reports from the executive branch
or where disclosure of information is going to be required."
"The signing statement makes clear that the president will
faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent
with the Constitution," said White House spokeswoman Dana
Perino. "The president has welcomed at least seven Inspector
General reports on the Patriot Act since it was first
passed, and there has not been one verified abuse of civil
liberties using the Patriot Act."
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.
[b]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.[/b]
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IMO It's just more suggestive evidence to the old adage that 'absolute power corrupts absolutely'.. as the surrepticious use of these signing statments has enabled the president to sidestep enacted legislation.
While they have notably been in existence since the <a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/signing.htm" target="blank">Jackson & Tyler administrations</a>, they came into to extensive use during the <a href="http://www.justicescholars.org/pegc/archive/Articles/cooper_35_PSQ_515.pdf#search='Signing%20Statements,%20history%20of'" target="blank">Reagan and Bush 1 Administrations</a> and have since been used more by Duhbya than by his predecessors to further loosen the reigns on among other things, post 9/11 counterterrorism & homeland security legislation.
Thanx for the insightful & cautionary critique Blir, despite that adviso I'm sure this will become another one of 'Those Threads'
<IMG SRC="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v395/richp62/Icons%20Avatars/inot.gif">
theories regarding the Bush administration are based on what has happened in the past. Nazi Germany, the best example we have of how to control a population through fear and hate, is the result of one man's study of history and human nature. My tendency to take things to the extreme comes from Aldus Huxley, George Orwell, John Brunner and Ray Bradbury.
