Newspaper logo  
 
 
Bookmark and Share
Local News & Opinion

Ref. : Local Newsbriefs

Travel
Letters

Ref. : Letters to the editor

Open Letters:

03.05 Open Letter to Congressman Bart Stupak

Health & Environment

Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries

03.18 Pressure Drop: Brave Sir Dennis Ran Away

03.12 Slick Barry and the $100-Billion Medicaid/Medicare Fraud Claim

03.09 Kill Bill: Death to Obamacare!

03.09 Obama’s Rhetoric May Be “Fiery,” But His Health Care Reform Is Still Lukewarm

Media Watching

03.17 CNN Scrapes Bottom of Right-Wing Barrel With Erickson Hire

03.16 WPost Blames Obama First, on Israel

03.16 Letter to the New York Times' Editor: Stovepiping To Persia

03.12 Cud and Complicity: Burying the Alternatives to Empire's Dominion

03.11 NYT and the ACORN Hoax

03.05 Sorry, Rove, Bush Did Lie About Iraq

03.03 It's Snow News

03.03 The Woeful Washington Post

Ref. : The Daily Howler

Legal Matters

02.26 America's Supremes: Court Over Constitution

US Politics, Policy & Culture

03.11 Power Rangers: Policing the System With the "Fightin' Progressives"

03.09 Thinking About Countings

03.07 Unnatural Acts: Breaking the Fever of Militarism

02.25 Future Shock: A Better World Beyond the Imperium

“High Crimes?”

03.18 The Lawfare Project's Anti-Democratic Agenda

03.17 Expecting Gen. McChrystal to Reduce Afghan Civilian Casualties is Like Asking Ted Bundy to Cut Sex Harassment in the Workplace

03.16 America's Secret Prisons

03.13 Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem

03.12 Israeli Settlement Expansions Continue

03.11 Brutalizing Palestinian Children

03.08 The Russell Tribunal on Palestine: Barcelona Session

03.05 Targeting Israeli Apartheid

03.01 America's Permanent War Agenda

02.25 Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery

Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance

03.14 The Crisis in America's Telecommunications Network

03.09 The Business of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource

03.05 Is the Recovery Real?

03.04 IMF-Style Austerity Measures come to America: What “Fiscal Responsibility” Means To You

03.04 Barry C. Lynn's "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and Economics of Destruction"

03.02 Obama's Budget Revealed: Money for Wars and Weapons, While More Americans Face Joblessness and Hunger

03.01 Thinking About Fees

International

03.15 Peace Process Hypocrisy: Stillborn from Inception

03.03 Muslim Disunity

03.02 Funding Israeli Militarism, Belligerence and Occupation

02.26 Iran Captures a 'Good' Terrorist

We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
Google
This site Web
  Bush's Bogus Theory of Absolute Power

COMMENTARY:

Bush's Bogus Theory of Absolute Power

by James Bovard
The fact that the administration is getting away with this charade symbolizes how docile much of the American media and political opposition have become.
The Bush administration has a theory to explain why the Founding Fathers secretly intended for the president to have boundless power. Even though the new "unitary executive theory" is nowhere in the Constitution, White House officials continually invoke it to justify scorning federal law. The fact that the administration is getting away with this charade symbolizes how docile much of the American media and political opposition have become.

Earlier this year, members of Congress anguished publicly over how many of the original USA PATRIOT Act surveillance powers should be renewed. A bipartisan agreement was finally reached, giving the White House almost everything it wanted. As part of the deal to renew the Patriot Act, Bush administration officials agreed to provide Congress more details on how the new powers were being used.

However, Bush reneged in a "signing statement" quietly released after a heavily hyped White House signing ceremony on March 9. He decreed that he was entitled to withhold any information that would "impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties." He announced that he would interpret any provision in the law obliging notifying Congress "in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information."

The crux of the "unitary executive" is that all power rests in the president, and that "checks and balances" are an archaic relic.

In other words, any provision of the law that requires disclosure is presumptively null and void. The crux of the "unitary executive" is that all power rests in the president, and that "checks and balances" are an archaic relic. This is the same "principle" the Bush administration invoked to deny Congress everything from Iraqi war plans to the records of the Cheney Energy Task Force. Bush has invoked the "unitary executive" doctrine almost a hundred times since taking office, according to a study by Miami University professor Christopher Kelley.

Even though the new "unitary executive theory" is nowhere in the Constitution, White House officials continually invoke it to justify scorning federal law.

One of the starkest statements of this theory came in the confidential August 2002 Justice Department/White House memo justifying torture. That memo revealed, "In light of the president's complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority in these areas." And even if Congress did try to explicitly restrain executive power, any such law would be unconstitutional because of the inherent power vested in the presidency, according to the memo. When he was White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales spoke of a "commander-in-chief override" to justify scorning the Anti-Torture Act.

The Bush administration's sense of entitlement is obvious from the ongoing controversy over warrantless National Security Agency wiretaps of Americans. Such wiretaps are clearly prohibited by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Yet Bush declared that he is entitled to order such wiretaps because of the inherent authority of the presidency.

When asked, "What is the limiting principle of the president's claimed inherent authority as commander in chief?," the administration replied, "In light of the strictly limited nature of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, we do not think it a useful or a practical exercise to engage in speculation about the limits of the president's authority as commander in chief."

The administration's attitude toward both the law and Congress was stark in the responses recently delivered to congressional questions on the scope and nature of the NSA warrantless wiretap program.

The basic answer to almost all the questions was, "None of your business." Again and again, the White House declared that "decisions about what communications to intercept are made by professional intelligence officers." Apparently, the job titles of the NSA officials automatically negate the Fourth Amendment's requirement for a warrant before the feds can intrude.

The Bush administration has claimed that the wiretaps are "legal" because of the president's duty to protect America. Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee asked, "What is the limiting principle of the president's claimed inherent authority as commander in chief?"

The administration replied, "In light of the strictly limited nature of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, we do not think it a useful or a practical exercise to engage in speculation about the limits of the president's authority as commander in chief."

At this point, Americans can only guess which laws Bush feels obliged to obey.

At this point, Americans can only guess which laws Bush feels obliged to obey. According to Newsweek, Steven Bradbury, head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, recently informed the Senate Intelligence Committee that Bush could order killings of suspected terrorists within the United States.

The "unitary executive" theory is simply another in a long series of intellectual cons crafted to trample freedom.

Americans cannot expect to have good presidents if presidents are permitted to make themselves czars. The "unitary executive" theory is simply another in a long series of intellectual cons crafted to trample freedom. The sooner that it is tarred and feathered and ridden out of Washington on a rail, the safer Americans' remaining rights will be.


James Bovard is the author of the recently published Attention Deficit Democracy and eight other books and serves as policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org).


Copyright © 2006 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved.

Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.

This story was published on April 7, 2006.

 

Public Service Ads:
Verifiable Voting in Maryland