Part of the President's Signing Statement:
"Sections 8007, 8084, and 9005 of the Act prohibit the use of funds to initiate a special access program or a new start program, unless the congressional defense committees receive advance notice. The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that the President's authority to classify and control access to information bearing on the national security flows from the Constitution and does not depend upon a legislative grant of authority. Although the advance notice contemplated by sections 8007, 8084, and 9005 can be provided in most situations as a matter of comity, situations may arise, especially in wartime, in which the President must act promptly under his constitutional grants of executive power and authority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces while protecting certain extraordinarily sensitive national security information. The executive branch shall construe these sections in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President."
This appears to me to claim extraordinary powers for the President and to lay the grounds for a claim by the President to be able to:
1) initiate classified actions without notifying Congress or getting Congressional authorization or funding
2) to initiate new military appropriations or purchases within the authorized budget without Congressional authorization and
3) to ignore any explicit restrictions Congress tries to retroactively apply to the Defence appropriations budget to prevent redirection of funds, and for the President to be able to use current authorized appropriations to finance activities not explicitly funded by Congress.
(snip)
9005 is "None of the funds provided in this title may be used to finance programs or activities denied by Congress in fiscal years 2006 or 2007 appropriations to the Department of Defense or to initiate a procurement or research, development, test and evaluation new start program without prior written notification to the congressional defense committees. "
- this claims to head off a "Boland amendment" - Bush basically claims he can ignore any funding restriction that Congress tries to ban by act of Congress related to this year's defence appropriations!
This is important and a potential Constitutional Crisis point.
Section 8007 "Funds appropriated by this Act may not be used to initiate a special access program without prior notification 30 calendar days in advance to the congressional defense committees. "
- Anyone know what "special access" refers to? I presume this is classified activity.
Bush's signing statement basically says he can initiate classified military actions and bypass any Congressional oversight or authorization.
Ok, this is shit scary.
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/01/defensive_signing_statement.phpThe signing statement itself:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2006_presidential_documents&docid=pd10oc06_txt-3