A question of unlimited powers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org>
Date: January 13, 2006 2:13:18 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org>
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: A question of unlimited powers

If the president can do whatever he likes during what he declares to
be wartime, which will last until he decides to say it doesn't,
what's the point in having a congress, courts, or a constitution?

-jsq


http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060113/EDIT/ 
601130342/1003
The Cincinnati Post
 Editorial
 A question of unlimited powers

Over White House objections and by convincing, veto-proof margins,
Congress voted late last year to ban the torture of anyone in
U.S. government custody.

When President Bush signed that ban last month, he added a disclaimer,
saying that nothing in the ban affected his prerogatives in a time of
national emergency to fight the war on terrorism how he chose. In other
words, he reserved the right to torture even though Congress explicitly
outlawed it.

And he used the same justification for bypassing the courts and ordering
the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on
American citizens.

Bush also invoked this same authority to assert that he could hold
U.S. citizens indefinitely, without trial or counsel, simply on his
say-so.

Taking an expansionist view of a new law on the treatment of the
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees, the administration insists that it
bars federal courts from any jurisdiction over the detainees, "including
application for writs of habeas corpus." The right to be brought before
a judge is fundamental to civil liberties, but the administration
has decided it can selectively suspend that right. It has asked the
federal courts to dismiss all detainee lawsuits, effectively leaving the
detainees' fate in the hands of a legal process effectively controlled
by the president.

The assertion of these powers has its roots in the War Powers Act of
1973, a controversial law, parts of which are widely believed to be
unconstitutional, and resolutions on the war on terror and the invasion
of Iraq that Congress passed post-9-11. And the White House says the
emergency powers will last as long as the war on terror - in other  
words,
until the president declares the war on terror over.

Surely Congress did not intend such broad and open-ended powers. When
Congress returns from its recess, an early and essential item of  
business
is for lawmakers to clarify what powers they did and did not intend
the president to have in the war on terror. It is not a good precedent
that the president has begun to attach disclaimers to laws with which
he disagrees.

Publication date: 01-13-2006


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