WaPo: naive or disingenuous?
Abuse of Authority
The FBI's gross misuse of a counterterrorism deviceTHE EXPANSION of law enforcement powers approved by Congress after Sept. 11 and contained in the USA Patriot Act was conditioned on the notion that these new authorities would be carefully used and closely monitored. An infuriating report released Friday by the Justice Department's inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, demonstrates that the Federal Bureau of Investigation treated its new powers with anything but that kind of restraint. The report depicts an FBI cavalierly using its expanded power to issue "national security letters" without adequate oversight or justification.
as i posted yesterday, if they'd just dug this out every once in a while, the abuse of expanded law enforcement powers is simply to be expected... if ya got it, you're gonna use it...
When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying [...]"The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information..."
they might also have kept this glenn greenwald comment handy...
When a country is ruled by an individual who repeatedly and openly arrogates unto himself the power to violate the law, and specifically proclaims that he is under no obligation to account to Congress or anyone else concerning the exercise of radical new surveillance powers such as NSLs [National Security Letters], it should come as absolutely no surprise that agencies under his control freely break the law. The culture of lawlessness which the President has deliberately and continuously embraced virtually ensures, by design, that any Congressional limits on the use of executive power will be violated.
or this one from steve clemons...
We should also expect that the Patriot Act would be misused, misapplied, and distorted beyond the intention Congress and the White House had for it.
it's really sad when a one of the nation's major newspapers has to be hit upside the head with a 2x4 to get 'em to wake the hell up...
Labels: Congress, constitutional crisis, Department of Justice, FBI, national security letters, Patriot Act, signing statements, unitary executive, Washington Post
Submit To PropellerTweet
posted by profmarcus at
3/11/2007
