Recent events in Pakistan shed interesting light on the mindset of our current administration, ala King George (genuflect you bastards, or he’ll send you to Giuliani for some “Rigorous Interrogation Techniques” that are all quite “legal”, nope, all above board, nothing to see here, move along, move along!).
During a White House Press Conference on the subject of President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan suspension the country’s constitution and declaration of a state of emergency the Press Secretary Dana Perino had this interesting exchange with a reporter.
REPORTER: Is it ever reasonable to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism?
MS. PERINO: In our opinion, no.
You can see it in this video here.
Now, what is ironic to me, is that restricting the constitution is just what the current administration is doing. Sure, they don’t call it that, they call it Interpretation, and it takes the form of Signing Statements, but it amounts to the same thing. Our current administration likes to brush aside those inconveinent parts of the Constitution that get in the way of their Hegemony… I mean War on Terror.
For example:
First Amendment: In September, a federal judge ruled that the FBI’s use of secret “national security letters” to obtain citizens’ personal data from private companies for counterterrorism investigations “violate[d] the First Amendment and constitutional provisions on the separation of powers.”
First Amendment, Fourth Amendment: In Aug. 2006, a federal district court in Detroit ruled that the Bush administration’ss NSA warrantless wiretapping program was unconstitutional, violating the “separation of powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III.”
Article I: Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June, then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales attempted to justify the administration’s detainee policy by claiming, “There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.” (Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Contitution reads: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”)
Article II: In June, House investigators revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney had exempted his office from an executive order order designed to safeguard classified national security information by claiming that he was not an “entity within the executive branch.” (Read the duties of the Vice President, outlined in Article II of the Constitution HERE.)
Thanks to this article on Think Progress for the above list.
