750 “signing statements” — more than all previous presidents combined [View All]

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USA Today
Susan Page
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060606/1a_coverside06.art.htm

How Bush has asserted powers of the executive

The Bush administration has asserted broad executive powers, among them:

•To keep deliberations private — Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 refused to release the names of industry executives consulted during its deliberations. A U.S. District Court judge in December 2002 dismissed a lawsuit by the non-partisan General Accounting Office seeking the information.

•To restrict access to presidential papers — Bush signed an executive order in 2001 permitting current and former presidents and vice presidents to restrict release of their papers, which under a 1978 law become available 12 years after the end of an administration.

•To set aside laws and treaties — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in his previous job as White House counsel, issued a memo asserting that the president could violate federal laws and international treaties when he viewed it as necessary for the nation's security.

•To interpret and curtail new laws — Bush has issued more than 750 “signing statements” — more than all previous presidents combined — to state his own interpretation of new laws and in some cases to claim a presidential prerogative not to enforce provisions that he says encroach on executive authority.

•To permit warrantless surveillance on certain domestic phone calls — Bush authorized the National Security Agency to wiretap domestic phone calls of terror suspects without a court warrant if one of the participants on the call is abroad. The White House cites his constitutional powers and a congressional resolution passed within days of 9/11.

•To limit judicial oversight — The president claims the authority to designate U.S. citizens as “enemy combatants” who can be held indefinitely without charges, a stance upheld last year in a decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. He also has asserted the right to hold terror suspects overseas and try them before special military commissions. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling this month in a case on the issue.