[*gasp*: Bush quietly gives himself power to open our regular mail !!!]

[coderman]

i love the exclamation points in title.  makes for a wide grin on the
faces of those fatigued with constitutional destruction overload.

ah, outrage and disbelief...  seems like ages ago i could muster such
reaction to the abuse of powers that be.

:)


On 1/4/07, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> ...
> [You know those "signing statements" that Bush always signs following his
> signing of new legislation? (the ones that give him the right to break the
> law he just signed) Well on Christmas day he just gave himself the right to
> open our mail (regular snail mail now!) with no warrant from a judge!
>
> [Admittedly it's alarming, but the thing that stands out to me is that we
> know GWB can barely string a subject and verb together on his own, so who's
> actually writing these things?  And I doubt it's just a language problem, so
> who's actually coming up with the concepts?  -psl]

---cut---
In July 1987, then-Representative Dick Cheney, the top Republican on
the committee investigating the Iran-contra scandal, turned on his
hearing room microphone and delivered, in his characteristically
measured tone, a revolutionary claim...

"I personally do not believe the Boland Amendment applied to the
president, nor to his immediate staff," Cheney said.

Most of Cheney's colleagues did not share his vision of a presidency
empowered to bypass US laws governing foreign policy. The committee
issued a scathing, bipartisan report accusing White House officials of
"disdain for the law."

Cheney refused to sign it. Instead, he commissioned his own report
declaring that the real lawbreakers were his fellow lawmakers, because
the Constitution "does not permit Congress to pass a law usurping
Presidential power."

The Iran-contra scandal was not the first time the future vice
president articulated a philosophy of unfettered executive power --
nor would it be the last. The Constitution empowers Congress to pass
laws regulating the executive branch, but over the course of his
career, Cheney came to believe that the modern world is too dangerous
and complex for a president's hands to be tied. He embraced a belief
that presidents have vast "inherent" powers, not spelled out in the
Constitution, that allow them to defy Congress.

Cheney bypassed acts of Congress as defense secretary in the first
Bush administration. And his office has been the driving force behind
the current administration's hoarding of secrets, its efforts to
impose greater political control over career officials, and its
defiance of a law requiring the government to obtain warrants when
wiretapping Americans. Cheney's staff has also been behind President
Bush's record number of signing statements asserting his right to
disregard laws.
--end-cut---
source: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/11/26/hail_to_the_chief?mode=PF