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Bush Claims Mail Can Be Opened Without Warrant
don_combatant writes to note that President Bush claimed new powers to search US mail without a warrant. He made this claim in a "signing statement" at the time he signed a postal overhaul bill into law on December 20. The signing statement directly contradicts part of the bill he signed, which explicitly reinforces protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval. According to the article, "A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised a review of Bush's move."
Have you seen the Supreme Court lately? At least 4 of them would be happy to let Bush cross out the entire 4th Amendment from the original copy of the Constititution in the National Archives with a magic marker, and he could probably get a 5th to go along with him if he claims that he really needed to read everyone's first class mail to keep the Terrorists from killing us all.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
From - An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania
Benjamin Franklin
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) introduced the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2006 on July 26, 2006. [2]The bill would:
n troversy_over_George_W._Bush.27s_use_of_signing_st atements
1. Instruct all state and federal courts to ignore presidential signing statements. ("No State or Federal court shall rely on or defer to a presidential signing statement as a source of authority.")
2. Instruct the Supreme Court to allow the U.S. Senate or U.S. House of Representatives to file suit in order to determine the constitutionality of signing statements. [3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signing_statement#Co
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I encourage everyone, no matter what your political leanings are, that is sick and tired of this president's blatant misuse of executive power, to consider sending a "Memorial of Impeachment" to incoming Speaker Pelosi on January the 15th of this year. You can read more about this, and print out the Memorial (pdf file) at ImpeachForPeace.org. I've already printed mine out, signed it, and got it notarized. It's sitting on my computer desk, waiting for the 15th. I urge everyone to do the same. It may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back, and we may be the ones that are able to initiate the impeachment procedure.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Here is the video of Shrub saying "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
It seems to me that the Postal Service can do this already given probable cause. Guess I will have to keep using e-mail
There are only two steps in the gathering of ultimate knowledge. Open your eyes and, RTFM!
Actually, to the extent that Mr. Bush is saying "if we believe there's a ticking bomb in a letter we will send the bomb squad in first and resolve the legal issues later", there is no controversey.
Well, yes, because if you have reason to believe there's a bomb in a letter that might blow up if you take the time to go to court that's Probable Cause for doing a search, and a search warrant can be retroactively granted by a judge based on their initial evidence. This is all fine and rational and even Constitutional.
The problem with Bush's wiretapping program is that he never got warrants, and never had probable cause to get a search. His agents never went to the FISA court that was specifically designed for these cases and rarely ever rejects a warrant request. Because, like I said, warrants can be granted retroactively there is no argument based on urgency against getting a warrant, and it is important to be aware of this when defenders of this policy bring up emergency situations. The only reason not to get a warrant from FISA is because there was no Probable Cause basis for the search, FISA would therefore not have granted a warrant, and the search was unreasonable and hence un-Constitutional.
So regarding this current signing statement, the question is, what situation does it fall under? The specific wording is not contained in the article. If all he is saying is "under emergency cases of Probably Cause I authorize the search and will worry about warrants later", that's okay. If he is saying "I authorize searches whenever I feel it is necessary for National Security and will not worry about warrants at all", then this is the same as the wiretapping. The President's idea of what constitutes a necessity for National Security is clearly not limited to cases involving Probable Cause, and hence his authorization would not be limited to searches which are Constitutional.
The enemies of Democracy are
Only if he considered himself being the dictator a hypothetical situation, otherwise the stated grammar is correct. :)
The enemies of Democracy are
"Lie about sex" while under oath in court. Amusingly, we take the compromise of our judicial process quite seriously, even if judges are bone-headed assholes. When you're in court and under oath, you NEED to pass on the CORRECT information to the court for the system to work; if you don't, you can manipulate the system into doing anything, like finding innocent people guilty as murderers and having them put to death. We don't try to draw a fuzzy line here; if you willfully lie, and we can prove you knew you were bullshitting us, you're in a lot of trouble.
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Unitary Executive is a legal theory that holds that there are 3 branches of government, executive, legislative, and the courts. It doesn't question Chief Justice Marshall's assertion that the court is a co-equal branch (clearly NOT in the constitution, it was a much smaller branch, with executive and legislative being relatively equal), it doesn't even question the Warren Court's assertion that it is the most important branch (a bizarre assertion, but suggesting the the court can decide to throw out something chosen by a majority of the legislature and agreed to by the executive without narrowly defined roles makes it EXTREMELY powerful, since overriding them requires 2/3s the legislature and 3/4s the states).
Unitary suggests that ALL the powers delegated to the executive branch belong to the President. The cabinet (not in the Constitution), the long standing government agencies (not in the Constitution) are all part of the President.
It means that Congress CAN NOT delegate power to the IRS, they delegate the power to the executive. They can fund the IRS to do so, but the President holds all powers delegated to executive agencies.
It basically suggests that if Congress grants power to an executive agency to do something, they have granted it to the President, they do not get to assign powers to the civil service.
Unitary Executive suggests that the Civil Service is a PART of the Executive, and not some mythical fourth branch of government that can write administrative laws without the ability for either Congress or the President to review. The President, under Unitary Executive theory, can override ANY decision made in the executive branch. Congress can't empower random individuals. There are 3 branches of government, not 3 major ones, with minor ones everywhere.
The problem with Bush's wiretapping program is that he never got warrants, and never had probable cause to get a search. His agents never went to the FISA court that was specifically designed for these cases and rarely ever rejects a warrant request. Because, like I said, warrants can be granted retroactively there is no argument based on urgency against getting a warrant, and it is important to be aware of this when defenders of this policy bring up emergency situations. The only reason not to get a warrant from FISA is because there was no Probable Cause basis for the search, FISA would therefore not have granted a warrant, and the search was unreasonable and hence un-Constitutional.
c le/2006/02/08/AR2006020802511.html
Actually, Bush did get warrants because of the wiretapping program. Remember the primary target is known enemies of the US making calls with people inside the US. Once the FBI wants to make the person inside the US a primary wiretap target, they must get a warrant. Note that FISA judges stated outright they would not grant FISA warrants to the FBI based solely on NSA leads:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
"The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen."
It seems to me that this is a minor point. All the judges are saying is that the FBI must get some sort of evidence of suspicious activity beyond a NSA lead before they go after a FISA warrant. It seems to me that if the NSA catches enough phone activity to a primary tap target outside the US to get flagged, that would be enough to follow up.
Remember even with a normal wiretap, your call can be monitored if you call a target of a wiretap. This would not cause the police to also ask for a tap on your phone, unless they found that you were being complicit in a crime. At that point they would have to go back and get yet another warrant for you. This apparently is exactly how the NSA wiretaps work. The NSA does not need warrants for battlefield taps. Civil courts have no jurisdiction over anything that happens in the battlefield. This is what the WaPo article was about. It was showing that judges are granting warrants based on NSA taps and not the NSA taps themselves. The judges were speaking out and saying they would not grant the warrant solely on NSA intel alone.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20 061220-6.html
"The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of the Act, which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection."
Where've you been?
Dude's been faking the stupid-people speak because the american public prefers it, and elects him because of it.
Check out his pre-presidential stuff, and non-televised speeches, so long as he's not in the public eye, he's an amazing speaker.
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush