| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"j smith" |
| Date: |
05 Oct 2006 08:18:33 PM |
| Object: |
Bush claims right to disregard requirements in bills passed by Congress |
President asserts power to edit privacy reports
Bush defies Congress, says he has right to change Homeland Security
bills
The Associated Press
Updated: 5:01 p.m. CT Oct 5, 2006
WASHINGTON - President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the
power to edit the Homeland Security Department’s reports about whether
it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and
watchlists.
In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the
privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual
report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy,
including complaints.
But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency’s 2007
spending bill, said he will interpret that section “in a manner
consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to supervise
the unitary executive branch.”
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it’s appropriate for the
administration to know what reports go to Congress and to review them
beforehand.
“There can be a discussion on whether to accept a change or a nuance,”
she said. “It could be any number of things.”
The American Bar Association and members of Congress have said Bush
uses signing statements excessively as a way to expand his power.
The Senate held hearings on the issue in June. At the time, 110
statements challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according
to numbers combined from the White House and the Senate committee.
They include documents revising or disregarding parts of legislation
to ban torture of detainees and to renew the Patriot Act.
Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg said Bush is trying to subvert
lawmakers’ ability to accurately monitor activities of the executive
branch of government.
“The Homeland Security Department has been setting up watch lists to
determine who gets on planes, who gets government jobs, who gets
employed,” said Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center.
He said the Homeland Security Department has the most significant
impact on citizens’ privacy of any agency in the federal government.
New ID cards in the works
Homeland Security agencies check airline passengers’ names against
terrorist watch lists and detain them if there’s a match. They make
sure transportation workers’ backgrounds are investigated. They are
working on several kinds of biometric ID cards that millions of people
would have to carry.
The department’s privacy office has put the brakes on some
initiatives, such as using insecure radio-frequency identification
technology, or RFID, in travel documents. It also developed privacy
policies after an uproar over the disclosure that airlines turned over
their passengers’ personal information to the government.
The last privacy report was submitted in February 2005.
Bush’s signing statement Wednesday challenges several other provisions
in the Homeland Security spending bill.
Bush, for example, said he’d disregard a requirement that the director
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency must have at least five
years experience and “demonstrated ability in and knowledge of
emergency management and homeland security.”
His rationale was that it “rules out a large portion of those persons
best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office.”
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| User: "Jesus Christ, Pug Hunter" |
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| Title: Re: Bush claims right to disregard requirements in bills passed by Congress |
06 Oct 2006 08:56:02 AM |
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"j smith" <smith@nonenet.no> wrote in message
news:embbi29eo7a5nes5it0pki3m2go9cpa0ng@4ax.com...
President asserts power to edit privacy reports
Bush defies Congress, says he has right to change Homeland Security
bills
The Associated Press
Updated: 5:01 p.m. CT Oct 5, 2006
"How can Bush be white when his 2 parents are black"?
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| User: "princeandy" |
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| Title: Re: Bush claims right to disregard requirements in bills passed by Congress |
06 Oct 2006 09:22:16 AM |
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"Jesus Christ, Pug Hunter" <look@bush.net> wrote in message
news:SftVg.13861$7I1.10768@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net...
"j smith" <smith@nonenet.no> wrote in message
news:embbi29eo7a5nes5it0pki3m2go9cpa0ng@4ax.com...
President asserts power to edit privacy reports
Bush defies Congress, says he has right to change Homeland Security
bills
The Associated Press
Updated: 5:01 p.m. CT Oct 5, 2006
"How can Bush be white when his 2 parents are black"?
Hmmm black jews who endorse torture??
http://www.nowar-paix.ca/nowar/forum/6973
HOW TO KEEP ACADEMICS QUIET
The Real Issue Is Israel's Human Rights Record:
A statement by Norman G. Finkelstein upon publication of Beyond Chutzpah
Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard University is currently best known
for
his advocacy of the "most excruciating" torture against terrorist suspects
such as a "needle being shoved under the fingernails." The alleged purpose
of this torture is to extract a truthful confession but its real
consequence, as human rights organizations have pointed out, is to produce
whatever statements are necessary to end the suffering.
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