Bush: I Won’t Pay Attention to Patriot Act Requirement

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Posted on Mar 25, 2006

You may want to swallow your food before reading this….

Just as he did with the anti-torture law, Bush placed an addendum on the Patriot Act saying he doesn’t have to obey parts of the law.

Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON—When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ‘‘a piece of legislation that’s vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people.” But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ‘‘signing statement,” an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

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TAGS: addendum bill fbi law patriot act powers terrorism torture

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By James, March 26, 2006 at 9:52 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I liked the last part of the article when the legal scholar mentioned that the signing statement could just be “bluster.”  Was it bluster also with the torture act and the FISA court violations?  I hope the Globe chose this guy so that they could make a stronger anti-Bush case.  Otherwise, I’d hate to think that this is the best we have in legal scholarship in the USA.  I thought his observations about the expansiveness of presidential powers, at the end of the article, was absolutely endearing.  Unitary execute powers: gotta love that.

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By JP, March 26, 2006 at 9:01 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I’ve previously suggested that Bush will never veto, that instead he’ll continue to use Signing Statements.  Click the link for more background.

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By refusedig, March 26, 2006 at 4:27 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Here’s the link and a quote from The Boston Globe report:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law’s requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ‘‘impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties.”

Bush wrote: ‘‘The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . “

I think that this is evidence of the secrecy, arrogance, and disdain for Congressional oversight in the Bush administration (and, by extension, disdain for the U.S. citizenry’s right to know.) I think that Congress would have to sue in the courts to try to force compliance with their view of the law’s meaning.

The salient points for Americans to consider is that this administration has been found to be majorly dishonest, therefore untrustworthy, disdainful of legally prescribed government functions, and incompetent in the execution thereof. Americans must demand oversight of them.

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By JP, March 26, 2006 at 12:53 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Signing statement - I’ve posited that Bush will NEVER veto a bill, because he uses signing statements instead.  The signing statement is a form of legal gymnastics that Sam Alito came up with during the Reagan administration, intended to increase the power of the executive branch in relation to the other branches.

Felicity, it would pay to read up about this, Bush has used over 500 of them…

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By jaye, March 26, 2006 at 2:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Rather than make the easy argument that Bush doesn’t even know what the “unitary presidency” is, let’s assume that it has been explained to him.  Some theorize that the so called “vesting clause” of the Constitution which states that the executive power is vested in the president, prohibits Congress from infringing on executive powers such as commander in chief or foreign affairs.

This is bullshit.

Congress is the primary branch of government.  It is active, the executive is reactive.  They pass laws, he executes them.  If the founders wanted it any other way, they would have stated that the president cannot be overridden by Congress.  Each of the president’s powers with the exception of the pardon and executive orders is not absolute.  Congress checks his power as commander in chief with the military budget, the appropriations for foreign policy, and a declaration of war must come from Congress.  His appointments of judges and justices, ambassadors, and cabinet members are either approved or rejected by Congress.  Congress rejects or ratifies treaties.  The Courts interpret the law, the executive does not.

Pardons are granted by the president without any imput from Congress or the Supreme Court.  The founders knew that they would be controversial and they established the power with that in mind.

Government 101.

If the founders had wanted the executive to be the most important branch of government, wouldn’t they have put it in Article I instead of putting Congress in Article I ?

The modern president is certainly more powerful than the original intention of the founders because the founders did not anticipate the president’s ability to use nuclear weapons, which he can use without authorization from Congress.  Truman didn’t ask anyone if he could use the bomb, he simply did as commander in chief in a declared war against Japan.

Unitarians (?) say that President Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was an unitary action.

It was not.

Congress authorized it and the Supreme Court up-held the action and it is widely regarded in legal circles as a hideous decision along the lines of Dred Scott.  However, we were in a declared war and we certainly are not in a declared war now.  Congress authorized the use of force, one might say under false pretenses, but it did not declare war because we were not attacked by a nation.

Justice O’Connor recently said that there are limits to presidential power.

Even Lincoln could not suspend habeas corpus.  Only Congress can do that.

Truman tried to take over the steel industry during the Korean conflict thinking his power as commander in chief made that possible.  The Supreme Court said it did not.

Bush is wrong.  His advisor John Yoo is wrong.  There isn’t any history, any writings by the founders like the Federalist Papers, to support the notion that the president gets to make it up as he goes.  He is subject to and is not above the law.  Ask Nixon.  There is a road map for impeachment and Bush is simply unable to understand that he is not an absolute ruler, unless of course, Congress allows him to be.

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By Gwenn Seyrig, March 26, 2006 at 12:52 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Bush declares himself above the law—in writing—and there is no reaction.
Hundreds of thousands of people are in the streets demonstrating, but they are foreigners, they don’t vote.
Perhaps our national motto should become, “Let’s go shopping.”

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By felicity smith, March 25, 2006 at 11:44 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I never heard of such a thing.  An addendum to a bill would mean, I think, that the bill has to return to Congress because it’s been altered from the one Congress originally passed. A signing statement?  Unfortunately, your link left town so I’m in the dark as to what a signing statement is.  My guess is it’s just one more nail in the coffin of our poor Constitution.  The man in the WH knows no shame.

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By James Morehouse, March 25, 2006 at 11:07 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

When a “leader” says he will use the law when it suits him, or disregard it as it suits him, it sounds an awful lot like the description of a dictator.  Why does everyone just sit back and take this?

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