Bush Uses Signing Statement to Legalize Warrantless Searches of US Citizens' Mail

Posted by Jesse Wendel, Group News Blog at 10:13 AM on March 6, 2008.

On December 20, 2007, President Bush signed routine postal legislation. In a "Signing Statement", the President claims Executive Power to search the mail of U.S. citizens inside the United States without a warrant, in direct contradiction of the bill he had just signed.

The Seattle Times

The move, one year after The New York Times' disclosure of a secret program that allowed warrantless monitoring of Americans' phone calls and e-mail, caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

"Despite the president's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

"You have to be concerned," a senior U.S. official agreed. "It takes executive-branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."

Yet, in his statement, Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."

White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush was claiming new authority.

"In certain circumstances -- such as with the proverbial 'ticking bomb' -- the Constitution does not require warrants for reasonable searches," she said.

Bush, however, cited "exigent circumstances" that could refer to an imminent danger or a long-standing state of emergency.

I feel safer already.

If you were wondering what Keith Olbermann was going to talk about tonight, we've got you covered... This.

The only real question is, will Keith have video of The President actually wiping his ass with The Constitution, or are those films Top-Secret Presidential -- like the list of people Dick Cheney has shotgunned, then made to apologize?

Reading our mail? Letters from soldiers to their boyfriends and girlfriends. Strategy memos from Fortune 500 Companies to strategic partners including how they'll bid on government jobs. Whistle-blower memos. Letters to criminal defense lawyers, priests and rabbis.

If the U.S. Mail isn't private, next thing you know the Feds will be listening to our damn phone calls! Reading our emails! Restricting our ability to travel or arresting us for trying to get into a political event if we're not assimilated.

Worst. President. Ever.

Jesse Wendel is the Publisher and creator of Group News Blog. A writer/director, he is producing "What's Your Pattern?", a documentary asking "why do people date the same types over and over again?"