Last week we learned that the White House issued another one of its infamous “signing statements,” this time asserting the power to open postal mail without a warrant or court approval. There hasn’t been too much response on the Hill just yet — though hearings hardly seem out of the question — but I was pleased to see, via Dan Froomkin, that editorial boards are picking up on the story and keeping the controversy alive.
Some are concerned about the mail issue, others about signing statements generally, and some both.
The Los Angeles Times: “The Bush administration seems determined to raise the specter of surveillance over every means of communication within the United States. Not content to monitor selected phone calls and e-mails in secret, it recently hinted that letters and packages may be opened without a search warrant too…. [I]t’s hard not to be suspicious of the president’s position on mail privacy, given the administration’s record on the issue of domestic surveillance. In the name of the ‘war on terror,’ it has taken an unusually expansive view of government power and a correspondingly restrictive view of individual privacy rights. It also has sought to redefine what constitutes a ‘reasonable’ search, and has often done so unilaterally and in secret.”
The San Francisco Chronicle: “In yet another power grab that whittles away our rights without a plausible justification, President Bush has given the government expanded authority to read our mail…. ‘Just trust us,’ seems to be the operative phrase of this administration. However, history has shown the potential for government abuses in the absence of strong mail-privacy laws. Bush continues to roll back the clock — and the Constitution — with his signing statements.”
The Baltimore Sun: “The new Democratic-led Congress, still moving into offices and setting up Web sites, should move quickly to curb this executive overreach before Americans have no privacy from their government left at all.”
The Raleigh News and Observer: “Bush’s repeated resorting to the statements mocks the law-making process and stokes a paralyzing partisanship that has gripped Washington.”
The Miami Herald: “The scope of the president’s use of signing statements is breathtaking and scary. With a sweep of his pen, the president can intrude into citizens’ private affairs, hide financial bungling by the government, negate months of hard work by Congress and commit or cover up a multitude of sins and wrongdoing. Congress has a solemn duty to, at minimum, conduct open hearings on the use of signing statements and demand a full accounting from the president.”
The Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal: “Despite his party’s defeat in November, President Bush persists in his disregard for the constitutional right to privacy that every American enjoys…. Law-abiding Americans need protection from the use of the government’s immense investigative powers. That protection comes in the form of a judge and a search warrant. Bush has no right to read our mail without a warrant, no matter what he says in a signing statement.”
The Virginian-Pilot: “Among many other dubious assertions, the president has said he’s not subject to whistle-blower laws, affirmative action requirements, provisions of the Patriot Act, regulations about diverting money to secret operations, bars to the use of torture. That may sound imperious — or even imperial — in a system that depends on checks and balances to prevent abuses. But it is of a piece with the notion of a ‘unitary executive,’ a fashionable neoconservative theory that the presidency has been emasculated by an overreaching Congress and judiciary and must be restored to its proper glory.”
The Register-Guard of Eugene, Ore.: “In other times, a president’s decision to cast aside the Fourth Amendment and usurp the lawmaking powers of Congress would make a big splash. But President Bush’s view of executive authority is so expansive that it has become almost routine to find that he has extended his reach into another corner of American life and another clause of the Constitution. When Bush claimed for his administration the right to read people’s mail without first obtaining a warrant, there was little news coverage and scarcely a peep of protest from Congress.”
The Decatur (Ala.) Daily: “Signing statements look like a way to sneak around congressional intent without giving Congress the opportunity to override a veto. If Mr. Bush disagrees with legislation, he should veto it. A veto is more upfront and honest than a signing statement.”
And Ethel Channon, an editor at the Texarkana Gazette, writes that if Bush “really wants us to trust him on this mail deal, he . . . should take whatever action is incumbent on the person who ordinarily would be opening it. If he opens a credit card bill, he should pay it, and not just the minimum payment either.”
The Charlottesville (Va.) Daily Progress: “It’s wrong to open private mail without a search warrant. It’s wrong to permit such a wrong via an undemocratic maneuver.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Sir, we’re running out of ways to converse without someone listening in or looking over our shoulders. With that concern in mind, we hope you will follow the letter of the law, not bend the law to follow letters.”
I have to say, it’s encouraging to see editorial boards notice the problem with White House signing statements. I was afraid they weren’t paying attention.