Sacramento Bee
January 12, 2006
Editorial
Bush unrestrained
Congress must resist legal end runs
President Bush has three years left in the White House. That's troubling to many Americans, whose concerns have grown as Bush pursues his antiterror campaign with fervor. What's troubling is not his determination but his habit of virtually ignoring Congress and of bypassing the courts when it suits his purpose. Most disturbing is Bush's willingness to ignore the law, even ones he has signed.
Case in point: After strenuously opposing bipartisan legislation to ban torture as well as cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody, Bush gave in when he saw there might be a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress. But in signing the law, he attached a statement saying he would interpret it "consistent with the constitutional authority of the president". Critics see Bush's words as a signal that he is prepared to ignore the anti-torture law.
In the eavesdropping case, Bush admits issuing a secret directive in 2002 to expand monitoring of phone calls and e-mails, and defends it as legal. As for bypassing a legal requirement to obtain warrants, he cites his "inherent authority" under the Constitution as commander in chief and the congressional resolution passed shortly after 9/11 that allowed him to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against terrorist groups. That's a stretch. So is the president's claim that the procedure established under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Security Act, in which wiretap warrants can be obtained from a secret court, is too cumbersome, even though the law allows the government to begin wiretapping without a warrant as long as it seeks one within 72 hours. And Bush's insistence that the congressional authorization to use force covered wiretapping is widely disputed, among legal experts and in Congress, including some who voted for the resolution.
This standoff has the makings of a constitutional crisis between a headstrong president and a Congress he seems to have relegated to the status of a subsidiary branch of government. It isn't. Neither is the judiciary. Bush is right that the 9/11 attacks created a situation requiring extraordinary measures. But our constitutional system was designed to absorb shocks without coming apart. The obvious way to avoid a crisis would be for Bush to act under the rules he is supposed to follow. If he refuses, Congress must rouse itself to resist rule by decree and use its own powers to force the president to curb his most reckless impulses. The worst course would be for lawmakers to shy away from confronting a president who seems to regard himself as above the law...
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14064585p-14895483c.html
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