At 02:50 PM 1/7/2006, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
The upside of the coming Congressional hearings, we guess, is that Americans will get a lesson in the Constitution's separation of powers. We're confident they'll come away believing the Founders were right to the give the President broad war-fighting -- including surveillance -- powers.
Non-sense. Surveillance was almost unknown. Postal and physical searches rare and anyone desiring private conversations could just walk out into a field with the other party(s). The Founders desired that Congress have the most authority and the President be essentially a manager. From the Washington's first term presidents have sought to broaden their powers. Until Lincoln they were mainly rebuffed by Congress, the courts and (indirectly) the states. Lincoln you should recall illegally suspended habeas corpus, threatened to jail the Chief Justice, shut down newspapers and jailed editors that in almost any way criticized Abe. It was the illegal passage of the 14th Amendments that helped put an end to whatever degree of state autonomy which had been recognized and ushered in a vastly more power federal government, including the President. Steve