Greenwald: Bush Acting Like a Monarch

In an interview with Democracy Now!, constitutional lawyer and bestselling author Glenn Greenwald explains how a federal judge rejected the president’s monarchial leanings when she ordered a halt to his warrantless eavesdropping program.

Democracy Now!:

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, that was a pretty strong quote of U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who said, “There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution.”

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, it is strong language. And interestingly, though, the Supreme Court of the United States used similar language one month ago in Hamdan, when it said also that the President has no right, including in the area of national security, including in time of war, to act outside of the law, that in our system of government, the President is subject to the rule of law. Only a king can operate outside of the rule of law. And this court has adopted that approach, that rhetoric, because the Bush administration?s theory of executive power really does vest in him the power of a monarch, and it’s very encouraging, and surprisingly so, to see courts being so explicit about what this government is arguing in and why it’s so wrong.

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