Signing Statement

An article in the Boston Globe shines the light brightly on the driving force behind my anger with Arlen Spector that I wrote about a couple of days ago. Spector passed the last two Supreme Court Justices through the Judiciary Committee knowing that they would back the unitary executive theory that the Bush administration asserts when they flagrantly violate the law.

Spector now seems exasperated that the administration is illegally spying on Americans by claiming the theory of the unitary executive. So what, Spector actually endorsed that position when he voted to put both Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court.

As for the two quaint little laws Spector is preparing to put to a Senate vote regarding wiretapping oversight, they are most definitely going to receive a signing statement from the President similar to this one issued on the oversight provisions in the renewed Patriot Act. From the Boston Globe:

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''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."

Spector can piss and moan all he wants, but he helped shape the court to make the lawlessness of the executive branch Constitutional, at least while these jackasses are on the bench, and his little oversight bill now isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Look in the mirror Arlen, direct your anger there.