Through Rain or Sleet or Dead of Night...
nothing will keep us from our appointed rounds. Except us. Us, the Federal Government.
President Bush has a neat trick he often uses when he signs bills, to try to subvert their purpose. When he signs the bill he also issues a "signing statement." In the statement he sets out how he "interprets" the bill. White often becomes black, sunshine can become rain.
On December 20th he signed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. According to an article in the New York Daily News the bill "deals with mundane reform measures." It also "explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.'' In his signing statement President Bush said he will "'construe' an exception, 'which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection [read first-class mail] in a manner consistent...with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances.'"
Not to go legal on you, but, exigent circumstances permit law enforcement to search without prior warrant. Ticking bombs are exigent. Fresh blood leading up the porch to the door of a house allows the police to enter to find the leaking body without going to get a warrant first. Exigent "EK-suh-juhnt\, adjective: 1. Requiring immediate aid or action; pressing; critical." (Google online dictionary) This time constraint on action begets the exception to requiring a warrant.
"Exigent" first-class mail has a bomb in it or some anthrax.
Emily Lawrimore, according to the article, a White House spokeswoman "denied Bush was claiming any new authority." She went on to talk about exigency and warrants.
She and President Bush doth protest too much. If current law lets you open first class mail to neutralize the bomb and anthrax and doesn't let you open it to find evidence of a non-exigent crime or hazard and you aren't "claiming any new authority" you don't need a signing statement. You need a signing statement to try to fudge existing law.
President Bush, I've read, did well at Yale. I have to believe he was exposed to the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution. I have difficulty believing that he doesn't understand them. So, I am left with the conclusion that somewhere along the line he developed a deep-seated antipathy for what they mean and guarantee. He has two more years to continue trying to gut them. Maybe one thing the new majority in Congress can do is slow him down; but, I'm not holding my breath.
1 comment:
Well, he didn't do too well at Yale. When he applied to the law school at UT, he was rejected.
Personally, I think he's just a useful idiot for the neocons. Someone says, "Sign here, stand here, read this," and he does as he's told. It's usually not hard to tell when he has deviated from the script.
I'm waiting for him to try and use these signing statements in court. There's nothing in the constitution that gives the president the power to interpret laws, and I think the courts will not look kindly on his infringement onto their turf.
Post a Comment