McCain Supports Warrantless Domestic Surveillance

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "While there have been shifting reports about McCain's view on warrantless wiretapping, nothing could be clearer than the latest comment by McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, who said, 'We do not know what lies ahead in our nation's fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.' Article II, of course, is what Bush has argued gives the President virtually unlimited power during war, and McCain has already voted in favor of Telecom Immunity, though he sometimes mentions, to those asking for accountability, wanting to hold hearings about what the telecoms did."

radical Islamic moderates

[florin (2243)]

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation's fight against radical Islamic extremists

I believe he makes an important distinction here, and I would hate to see those cuddly moderate Islamic extremists being lumped in with the bad guys.

Re:radical Islamic moderates

[polar red (215081)]

How about we make it hard for ANYONE to perpetrate terror attacks on our country?

Like not pissing everybody off ?

Re:radical Islamic moderates

[Deadplant (212273)]

When "pissing someone off" is done by butchering his family, installing and supporting sick-fucks like the Shah and Sadaam and carpet bombing his country then yes, you can expect a violent reaction.

I'm sorry, but we'll ALWAYS piss someone off just by existing. It's not an excuse for terrorism.

That is what we call a 'straw-man' argument.
You are not pissing them off by existing.
You are pissing them off by killing and torturing them.

Re:radical Islamic moderates

[Max Littlemore (1001285)]

they hate our freedoms!!!

That's right! They hate our freedom to invade, steal from them, install puppet governemts, tear up the puppet governments and install new ones, blame them for terrorism while remaining really friendly with countries that actuall y produce the terrorists - in fact giving them VIP rights to fly when no one else in the US is allowed to.

Yep, they hate it that anyone has that kind of freedom.

Learn some history.

[copponex (13876)]

England and America have directly been involved in dividing up Arab land and resources since they switched their militaries from steam-powered equipment to oil powered equipment. We've been militarily involved in Iraq since before WWI. We destroyed the democratic government of Iran becuase they dared to demand that they keep the profit from their own natural resources. We formed al Queda when we used them as cannon fodder to fuck around with the Russians. We supplied Israel with capital and military equipment to commit acts of genocide against the Palestinians (mostly because we didn't want Jewish refugees in America) and they allowed us to establish a military base without too much fuss. We helped the invade Lebanon, destroy the entire country, and the direct result was Hezbollah. We funded the army of Saddam Hussein knowing full well that it would be used to murder thousands of his own people. Our military has helped with the slow crush of the PLO, which resulted in Hamas.

So, after a hundred years of oppression and suffering, they strike one blow about a ten thousand times less deadly in the number of dead and about a hundred thousand times less damaging as a matter of culture and economy.

And then they won after they proved that the infidel doesn't have the moral fortitude to give everyone the right to a lawyer, no matter how heinous their crime. They proved that we have no moral superiority when it comes to torture and human rights.

America is not the same place it used to be. All there is to do now is sit back and watch what's left of the power structure squabble over the table scraps until we run out of resources and the next revolution occurs.

But don't pay any attention to this. Listen to the President. Go shopping, and he'll take care of the rest.

Re:radical Islamic moderates

[thegnu (557446)]

I'm sorry, but we'll ALWAYS piss someone off just by existing. It's not an excuse for terrorism.

Right, but supporting a few terrorist states against all the other terrorist states in a volatile part of the world, whipping up racial hatred within our populace, and carpet bombing cities full of innocent people is bound to get people extra foaming-at-the-mouth-hopping-up-and-down-no-fucking-shit angry.

The Taliban may be the the ONLY target we can justify over there, and a) we quit going after them, and b) we gave them all their money and weapons in the 70s (I think the 70s?)

If we got invaded by some nation bent on wiping out "radical christianity," you don't think a bunch of heavily armed down-home rednecks with a hand-bound copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook wouldn't be equipping their children so they could get that much closer to the invaders? Insurgents, indeed.

Re:radical Islamic moderates

[Jor-Al (1298017)]

So which Iraqis were butchering US citizens? Last time I checked the makeup of the 9/11 hijackers was:

Fifteen of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon.

So why are we going after Iraq instead of Saudi Arabia, again?

Re:radical Islamic moderates

[Hoi Polloi (522990)]

How about if we don't turn the whole nation upside down over terrorism in the first place? Isn't that the goal of terrorists, to get you to pee your pants? I'd rather not have a government full of power hungry drones watching my every move. I'll take the extremely unlikely risk that some poor slob on the other side of the earth will come after me. Judging from my drive to work every day I'd say my fellow drivers pose a far greater risk to my life than terrorists.

Misleading

[by Anonymous Coward]

This is very conclusory. McCain says he is going to be consistent with the Constitution, so that means he supports warrantless surveillance? That's quite the logical leap. This statement is completely unclear. He may easily interpret Article II differently than Bush (and there are many indications that he does) and this statement shows nothing different from that.

Good old Slashdot political smearing.

McFlipFlop

[SpaceLifeForm (228190)]

This flip flop took longer than usual. He usually changes position within a couple of days.

McCain, spying and executive power: A complete reversal in 6 months [salon.com]

Re:McFlipFlop

[Colonel Korn (1258968)]

I'm often positively impressed when politicians change their minds, assuming they did it because they learned more about the issue. I'm not impressed with McCain's descent into the bowels of extreme right wing Bushism because he's done it to appease extremist voters to his own benefit.

Damnit, why did the USSR have to collapse?

[spun (1352)]

They were the best boogie-man ever. The Islamists may, eventually, someday, get nukes. The USSR had enough nukes to sterilize the planet. And a huge conventional army. And chemical and biological weapons galore. As far as keeping the populace pissing itself in fear and doing whatever the authorities tell them to, Islamists just don't hold a candle to our dear former enemies, the Soviets. Well, I suppose they'll have to do until the authorities can cook up something scarier.

They don't have to

[melted (227442)]

Guess what, Russia still has enough nukes to sterilize the planet, chemical, biological and more recently space weapons and a huge conventional army. And it doesn't do what the US tells it to do anymore. A little bit of a propaganda campaign on TV and the populace will be just about as rabid about it as it was back then.

Re:Damnit, why did the USSR have to collapse?

[spun (1352)]

I don't think for a millisecond that the threat is real. We've lost more Americans to lightning strikes than we have to terrorism. You've a better chance of winning the lottery than getting killed by a terrorist. Terrorism is a matter for law enforcement, not the military.

The threat is manufactured, those in power know exactly what they are doing. It's all laid out by right wing think tanks in a plan called The Project for a New American Century [wikipedia.org]

Hyperbole and smoke, or substantiated story?

[zooblethorpe (686757)]

Al Qaeda is in fact actively trying to build multiple nuclear weapons. We KNOW they have already acquired the weapons-grade uranium, and are simply working on the devices themselves and logistics.

Citations, please?

Cheers,

Hedging our Bets with ParanoidLinux

[graveyhead (210996)]

Hi guys. This seems like a good opportunity to talk a bit about this new distro we've been working on.

ParanoidLinux is a distribution with a focus on privacy. All network comms will be encrypted and run through TOR by default. IM programs, etc, will be configured for secure communications by default. You'll have to go out of your way *not* to have a secure conversation in ParanoidLinux.

This idea comes from Cory Doctorow's latest book "Little Brother" which describes a Linux distro similar to what we are building, with the same name.

It's a new concept, only a couple weeks old, so don't go looking for downloads... but we are looking for help! Come join us. We're looking for programmers, artists, security experts and unix gurus to help us bring this project together.

If the government takes this basic human right from you, be proactive. Take it back. See you there!

http://www.paranoidlinux.org [paranoidlinux.org]

irc.freenode.net, #paranoidlinux

One word must be missing here

[temcat (873475)]

We do not know what lies are ahead in our nation's fight against radical Islamic extremists

There, that's closer to the truth.

Perpetual War?

[Thelasko (1196535)]

So, by remaining continuously at war, the President has unlimited power?

Brilliant!

What defines a war? Does it have to be against another country? Can it be...
a war on terror [wikipedia.org]?
a war on drugs [wikipedia.org]?
a war on cancer [wikipedia.org]?
a war on poverty [wikipedia.org]?

Re:Perpetual War?

[Digestromath (1190577)]

I'd like to see the war on poverty treated with the same concern. Iraq costs over 300 million a day. Imagine if that budget was applied to poverty and unemployment. Or education. Hell we could split that 300 million a day, 100 million a day for poverty and unemployment issues, 100 million for cancer research and 100 million for HIV/AIDS research. I bet alot of the troops in Iraq would perfer to be back in America helping feed the homeless instead, or working on a cure for cancer.

Clear as mud

[cfulmer (3166)]

That's an absurd argument -- "McCain says he'll follow the Constitution." "You mean, the same Constitution that President Bush says gives him the right to abuse small farm animals? Why McCain must want to abuse small farm animals too!"

There isn't much question that tapping *international* calls is within the government's power. (At least I haven't heard any major Democrats argue with this). There just isn't enough information in this post to know if this is what McCain is talking about, or if it's domestic surveillance.

You should leave the political hack jobs to the professionals.

Obama is Against Warrantless Wiretaps

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

When Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) [wikipedia.org] used his presidential primary campaign to lead the Congressional campaign to stop Bush's FISA violations [wikipedia.org], Obama supported Dodd's filibuster [talkingpointsmemo.com], specifically saying (through his spokesperson Bill Burton):

Senator Obama has serious concerns about many provisions in this bill, especially the provision on giving retroactive immunity to the telephone companies. He is hopeful that this bill can be improved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form, he would support a filibuster of it.

this comes as a surprise?

[gadabyte (1228808)]

be afraid of president mccain [reason.com] makes a rather compelling case that mccain is an "authoritarian maverick," and exposes many of his worrisome positions. my personal favorite:

McCain said, "I would rather have a clean government than one...where 'First Amendment rights' are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice I'd rather have a clean government."

if he views a clean government as more important than our petty first amendment rights (religion, speech, assembly, press, etc) - what does his penchant for associating with lobbyists, and his history with charles keating [wikipedia.org] say about his respect for our freedoms?

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON.

Article I Makes Congress More Powerful

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

The Congress is not only essential to the government's power to do anything, it is actually the only indispensible branch. With a supermajority of voting members, Congress can not only write and pass laws, but can override a presidential veto, meaning the Executive branch is not required for making laws. The Executive is, however, required to enforce all acts passed by Congress, even if the president vetoed them - or just doesn't like them. But even if the Executive doesn't enforce the laws as it's required to, Congress has the power to try people for violating them, and to direct Federal (and Washington, DC) police to arrest and imprison them, including in a prison inside the Capitol building. If there is a "Unitary" branch in the Federal government, it's Congress, not the Executive.

And just look at some of the "war powers" that Congress is instructed by the Constitution to execute, in the section 8 of the Article I [wikipedia.org] that defines Congress:

Section 8: The Congress shall have power

[...]

        To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

        To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

        To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

        To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

        To provide and maintain a navy;

        To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

        To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

        To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

        To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

        To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

These "Article II powers" arguments making Bush a king are lies. Talking about them is bad enough, but protected as free speech. However, acting on them by actual officials, whether to make war despite Congress, or as an official campaign to prevent Congress from exercising its powers, is usurping Congress' rightful power by creating Executive powers that do not exist.

If the Congress passes a law or otherwise officially acts to, say, direct the US armed forces (and subcontractors to it) to put on their boots and march out of Iraq tomorrow (even if that's not quite a good idea), Congress has the power to do so. It is the president who does not have the power to stop them, and is legally obligated to follow Congress' instructions in that march.

I've said it before

[wickerprints (1094741)]

and I'll say it again:

The extent to which those who watch over us are unwilling to be watched by us is the precise extent to which we are not a free and just society.

This has nothing to do with war, or terrorism. It is simply a matter of accountability. The people have a right to know what our elected officials do in the name of ensuring our safety, regardless of whether they actually live up to that goal or not. That we are not able to do so is the true barometer of our freedom, despite whatever a centuries-old piece of paper might proclaim.

Re:Parity

[Jor-Al (1298017)]

I found out in 2 seconds using Google: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9845595-7.html [cnet.com]

Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me

Who knows what might happen when he gets in office, though.

Re:Parity

[tritonman (998572)]

warrantless is meaningless if you have judges in your pocket to give you warrents no?

Re:Parity

[evilRhino (638506)]

If bribing a judge is an extra impediment, I welcome it.

Re:Parity

[Jor-Al (1298017)]

You'd think so, but apparently even the rubber-stamp FISA court had too high of standards for Bush & Co. And that's saying something since it's ridiculously easy for the government to get a warrant from FISA (hell there is even an exemption so that you can apply for the warrant 72 hours after the fact).

To quote a bit from the article on wikipedia just to give some perspective:

In the period 1979-2006 a total of 22,990 applications for warrants were made to the Court of which 22,985 were approved (sometimes with modifications; or with the splitting up, or combining together, of warrants for legal purposes), and only 5 were definitively rejected.[4]

Re:Parity

[Shagg (99693)]

The only reason for warrantless is so you can hide what you're doing from the other branches of government.

Re:Parity

[mean pun (717227)]

The only reason for warrantless is so you can hide what you're doing from the other branches of government.

... or you're doing it on such a large scale, getting court approval is not practical.

DISCLAIMER: this is purely speculation, although I consider it in character for the current US administration.

Re:Parity

[Original Replica (908688)]

That is what the 72 hour after the fact warrant request is for. If the authorities must act right now they can, but that doesn't excuse them from judicial oversight. Nothing should ever exclude law enforcement from judicial oversight, ever. Not gag orders, not the need for expediency, not national security letters, not "sorry it's classified". Law enforcement without oversight and transparency is Fascism.

Re:Parity

[element-o.p. (939033)]

Mod parent up. Shagg is right on the money, although I would throw in the extra possibility of "or if you want to hide what you're doing from the populace."

While it is very, very unlikely that the FISA court would leak a request for a wiretap, if the request were groundless/abusive enough, I suppose it is a possibility.

Re:Parity

[mako1138 (837520)]

That's really one of the most disturbing things about Bush's view of presidential power. Why don't they do things according to the law, especially when Congress has made it so easy? They seem to pick and choose which laws apply to them.

It's not surprising that McCain will follow suit. McCain lost my respect when he started flip-flopping like a fish out of water. Now it seems every day brings another reason not to trust him.

Re:Parity

[Lost Engineer (459920)]

Just to follow up on what you've said:

I recommend this article [reason.com] for a critical view of McCain's attitude towards personal freedom.

In short, he doesn't believe you should have it. You're all soldier's in McCain's American army and insubordination will not be tolerated.

Re:Parity

[Jor-Al (1298017)]

You just made his point.

Was I trying to dispute his point? I was in fact clarifying the situation for anyone who may not know as to how ridiculous your request would be to have it rejected by a FISA judge.

And it is not at all apparent that the standards(what fucking standards???) of the FISA court were too high for Bush.

I don't know how substantiated they were, but at around the time this whole thing broke, I remember reading about how such a thing was actually a problem. That the Bush Administrations requests were even too ridiculous for even a FISA judge to approve.

It's a system of checks and balances

[n0-0p (325773)]

The real value of FISA warrants is more reactive than proactive. FISA judges show pretty broad discretion in what they will approve, but they do so with the understanding that the warrant creates a paper trail of justification and accountability. Without that paper trail, it's almost impossible to conduct a real investigation and hold people responsible for any abuses.

Personally, I consider the original FISA requirements to be reasonable in the context of an intelligence collection mission (not traditional law enforcement). However, what Bush did to FISA is an abuse of Executive power specifically because it removes not only the weaker proactive checks, but also the stronger retroactive balances of an investigative trail.

Re:Parity

[hostyle (773991)]

Hippy!

Re:Parity

[revscat (35618)]

Who knows what might happen when he gets in office, though.

That's a stupid objection that could be applied anywhere to anyone. Why bother with what the candidates say or have done at all, in that case? "Vote Hitler! I know he *said* he'd kill all the Jews, but who knows what might happen when he gets in office?"

how about

[Phantom of the Opera (1867)]

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

â" Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." - Governing Magazine, July, 1998

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it." - Business Week, July 30, 2001

Re:Parity

[Goobergunch (876745)]

From Obama's site [barackobama.com]:

Obama supports updating surveillance laws and ensuring that law enforcement investigations and intelligence-gathering relating to U.S. citizens are done only under the rule of law.

Not particularly useful. However, I did find this reference to a January speech:

For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and "wiretaps without warrants," he said. (He was referring to the lingering legal fallout over reports that the National Security Agency scooped up Americans' phone and Internet activities without court orders, ostensibly to monitor terrorist plots, in the years after the September 11 attacks.)

It's hardly a new stance for Obama, who has made similar statements in previous campaign speeches, but mention of the issue in a stump speech, alongside more frequently discussed topics like Iraq and education, may give some clue to his priorities.

Re:Parity

[Jor-Al (1298017)]

The warrantless wiretaps may, technically, be illegal (indeed, they probably are).

There is no may about it as such acts are codified as illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It should be quite telling when a president has such a shaky foundation for wanting to do wiretaps that they have to bypass the FISA court because they might reject your request.

Re:Parity

[jeiler (1106393)]

Responding to my own post.

Yes, I can imagine plenty of situations where a president might commit an act that, while technically illegal, prevents more harm than it causes. By the same token, I cannot imagine any such situation that could not be horribly abused.

Warrantless wiretaps could catch criminals, but it is precisely the penchant for abusing authority that we, as human beings, have that led to laws requiring a court order for warrants. Bush has abused that authority, and in doing so has broken the law.

Warrantless wiretaps may be useful for preventing crimes and terrorism ... but only in the hands of a saint. Bush is no saint, and neither is McCain.

Re:Parity

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Can anyone here imagine a situation where a technically illegal act by the President prevents more harm than it causes?"

President Bush going on a shooting spree in the White House before turning the gun on himself?

Re:Parity

[G00F (241765)]

I don't see any harm other than the fact that he may miss someone

Re:Parity

[parcel (145162)]

Obama's voting record, from the ACLU's viewpoint:
http://action.aclu.org/site/VoteCenter?congress=110&repId=25424&session_num=0&page=legScore [aclu.org]

And for fun, McCain's:
http://action.aclu.org/site/VoteCenter?congress=110&repId=122&session_num=2&page=legScore [aclu.org]

Obama's Stance

[eldavojohn (898314)]

Barack seems to vote to update FISA to support the ACLU's desires to banish Telecom Immunity.

If you want to read it from his site, there's a pdf that explains [barackobama.com]:

Revise the PATRIOT Act: Barack Obama believes that we must provide law enforcement the tools it needs to investigate, disrupt, and capture terrorists, but he also believes we need real oversight to avoid jeopardizing the rights and ideals of all Americans. There is no reason we cannot fight terrorism while maintaining our civil liberties. Unfortunately, the current administration has abused the powers given to it by the USA PATRIOT Act. A March 2007 Justice Department audit found the FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the PATRIOT Act to secretly obtain personal information about American citizens. As president, Barack Obama would revisit the PATRIOT Act to ensure that there is real and robust oversight of tools like National Security Letters, sneak-and-peek searches, and the use of the material witness provision.

Strengthen Warrantless Wiretap Approval Process: Barack Obama opposed the Bush Administrationâ(TM)s initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens. As president, Obama would update the Foreign Intelligence Paid for by Obama for America Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional Intelligence Committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law.

And another that goes on to say [barackobama.com]:

Eliminate Warrantless Wiretaps. Barack Obama opposed the Bush Administrationâ(TM)s initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens. As president, Obama would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional intelligence committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law.

I'd say (even from a few of his voting records [senate.gov]) that he is against it for the most part. Or at the very least, revising it severely.

Doesn't really matter in a two party system though, does it? Take what you can get over the crap I read about in this article from McCain's campaign.

Re:Parity

[sammy baby (14909)]

This is from an Obama Q&A with the Boston Globe [boston.com]. Very first question:

1. Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?

The Supreme Court has never held that the president has such powers. As president, I will follow existing law, and when it comes to U.S. citizens and residents, I will only authorize surveillance for national security purposes consistent with FISA and other federal statutes.

I think that's about as clear a statement as you're likely to get.

(link courtesy of Glenn Greenwald [salon.com].)

ECHELON anyone?

[thule (9041)]

Maybe Obama will go back to using surveillance for more important things like helping create jobs: ECHELONG [wikipedia.org].

It is amazing to me that people go with their guts on the domestic wiretap stuff. First of all, from what I've been able to figure, there has been no domestic wiretaps without FISA. Any NSA wiretaps that lead to a domestic connection can be follow up with a FISA warrant. FISA was just worried about where the requests were coming from. Previously the FBI could not get a warrant from a NSA lead. After 9/11 this was allowed. See:
Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data [washingtonpost.com]: [...] "the government's failure to share information about its spying program had rendered useless a federal screening system that the judges had insisted upon to shield the court from tainted information."

That was deemed stupid and changed after 9/11. There are some hold outs though.

Remember that you can I can call a tapped number and law enforcement can listen to our call. The tap request only covers the tap target, but they can certainly listen in to anyone that calls that number. So when NSA is listening in to communications in the battlefield, that routes to a domestic number, that does not constitute "domestic wire tapping" since the tap is on the foreign source.

The other aspect of the "domestic" part is Call Detail Records. You do no own your call history, the phone company does. They can do whatever the heck they want with that information. Some states are making CDR's private, but traditionally, it is owned by the phone company. The FBI could use CDR's to see who has been talking to you and get a FISA warrant based on that information.

So, do I think things will change under Obama? Nope, not at all. Even under Clinton's "wall" of separation between the NSA and the FBI, there were still warrantless wiretaps.

Re:hrm

[KGIII (973947)]

Probably not a whole lot happened to them but they haven't done much in the way of making the news for violence termed "terrorism" in a long time. This, I suspect, is because they "won" the war, at least for a while. So, well, now we call it just plain war when it is done by the extreme Christians (Fundamental Right Wing Republicans seem to fit the bill nicely) and we call what they do "terrorism."

Just for the record I don't support either side in this and the above is just my guess so take it as a grain of salt. I just don't see much extremism (from the view of the masses) from the Christians lately but I'd happily see the view that what is going on could be extreme Christan workings specifically the war in Iraq.

Oh - and if modded troll, well I don't mind. However, this is NOT "Informative." It may be interesting, it may even be insightful, but it surely isn't informative. (I keep getting odd moderations.)

Re:Signing Statements.

[MobyDisk (75490)]

Not true.

First Google hit [boston.com] on a search for obama and signing statements [google.com]

Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?

Signing statements have been used by presidents of both parties, dating back to Andrew Jackson. While it is legitimate for a president to issue a signing statement to clarify his understanding of ambiguous provisions of statutes and to explain his view of how he intends to faithfully execute the law, it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability.