Saturday, January 21, 2006

Presidential power 'beyond Congress' ability to regulate'

I've often written about the administration's thirst for absolute power. About their contempt for checks and balances. About their loathing of accountability. About their hatred of transparency.

Some critics have accused me of hyperbole, of exaggeration, of overstatement.

So let me use the administration's own words to counter those critics.

In its formal justification of the administration's probably illegal domestic spying program, the Justice Department wrote that some powers of the president are simply "beyond Congress' ability to regulate."

While it's true that some presidential powers are listed in the Constitution, warrantless spying is not among them. In fact, the Constitution requires such spying to be done with a warrant issued by a court upon presentation of probable cause.

Some argue that warantless searches are legal if the administration gets ex post facto approval from a special spy court. But since that spy court was set up by an act of Congress, isn't that an admission that such activities are perfectly within Congress' ability to regulate?

It isn't me who's alleging the administration is acting with impunity. The administration has made its desires explicitly clear.

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