The Secret Government

[AGENDA21]

President Bush proudly admits that, several years ago, he secretly approved taps on some of our international communications. This is the tip of an iceberg that could sink Good Ship America. Beyond partisanship, we should all be as concerned about a secret process that hatches policies as we are about the policies themselves.

Bush's extreme views on commander-in-chief powers, including Executive prerogatives to keep secrets and to investigate leaks to the fullest extent, are a danger to the rule of law. Extreme presidential power threatens us all more deeply than the particular actions of the National Security Agency listening in on some people without court approval.

The perverse lesson Bush may have learned from public disclosure of his bypass of the FISA court is that he should have told far fewer people the secrets. Under a heavier cloak of national security, the Bush administration may be disregarding other laws. It could claim - secretly to itself - that support for the global war on terror would be diminished, here and abroad, if the public knew the truth about American policies. And if Bush keeps everything to himself and his operatives, how could anyone in Congress, the courts, or the media challenge them?

A few years back, the Justice Department argued that, "Congress can no more interfere with the President's conduct of the interrogation of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic or tactical decisions on the battlefield." Since then, although the Justice Department has retracted most of the "torture memo," Vice President Cheney and others have not softened their sharp notes on presidential power.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/03/secret-government.php

[hootinholler]

1. kick for recs.