USA - George Bush wants to look at your mail

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W pushes envelope on U.S. spying

New postal law lets Bush peek through your mail

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.


That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.


Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It 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.


Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.


"The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.


"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.


"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."

A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."


Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.


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."


Bush cited as examples the need to "protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection."


White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush was claiming any 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" which could refer to an imminent danger or a longstanding state of emergency.


Critics point out the administration could quickly get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block delivery in the meantime.


But the Bush White House appears to be taking no chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national security experts agreed.


Martin said that Bush is "using the same legal reasoning to justify warrantless opening of domestic mail" as he did with warrantless eavesdropping.

Originally published on January 4, 2007

Reputation Comments on this post:

important article, glad you brought it to our attention.

[grandbaby]

Gawd blay-ass Amurricah.

[rxbandit]

I wonder if the DEA is going to take advantage of this or if they are allowed the advantages of the new govermental "anti terrorist" powers.

Think how many jobs are going to be created... but really why would any domestic mail need to be searched. No emergency comes to my mind that would involve searching mail, or did they redefine emergency as well?

[Allez]

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.
In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains
seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we
must be aware of change in the air, however slight,
lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

- - Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas - -

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

- Julius Caesar

[old hippie 56]

Swim asked his mailman about this yesterday, all he said with a laugh, bush must knowns who mail to read. Because they haven't the time or manpower to read mail.

[Allez]

That's beside the point though. Was it in Farenheit 9/11 that a society of elderly peace activists were infiltrated by an undercover police officer in order to keep them under surveillance? If such an irrelevant group can be the target of government attention, then eventually any expression of dissent or opposition will be ill advised.

[BeetleJuice]

Gawd damn, seems like where living in nazi germany these days, a politicly correct nazi germany that is ( without the mass murder.......Yet)