January 05, 2006

Bush's Shadow War A Salon article by Sidney Blumenthal which suggests that Bush & Co. have been up to more than just secretly spying on civilians and "renditions". Maybe the people on the inside are getting nervous too . . .

" . . Bush has built a secret system, without enabling legislation, justified by executive fiat and presidential findings alone, deliberately operating beyond the oversight of Congress and the courts, and existing outside the law. It is a national security state of torture, ghost detainees, secret prisons, renditions and domestic eavesdropping. During his first term, President Bush issued an unprecedented 108 statements upon signing bills of legislation that expressed his own version of their content. He has countermanded the legislative history, which legally establishes the foundation of their meaning, by executive diktat. In effect, Bush engages in presidential nullification of any law he sees fit. He then acts as if his gesture supersedes whatever Congress has done. . . Not coincidentally, the legal author of this presidential strategy for accreting power was none other than the young Samuel Alito . . . . . . Now Bush's Justice Department has launched a "leak" probe, complete with prosecutors and grand jury, to investigate the disclosure of the NSA story. It is similarly investigating the Washington Post's reportage of the administration's secret prison system for terrorist suspects. The intent is to send a signal to the reporters on this beat that they may be called before grand juries and forced to reveal their sources."

posted by petebest 18 years ago