[Vision2020] Bush Claims Right to Open Private Mail

[Paul Rumelhart]

Signing statements need to be outlawed.  The arrogance of this procedure 
(and I'm aware it's not just our current President who has abused this) 
is extreme.

We have to find some way, as a people, to get back the many civil rights 
that we have lost over the last decade or so.  I don't know how to do 
it, but I know it needs to be done.

My only hope is that this particular event will spur people to work on 
simple encryption solutions for email.  I've used GPG (Gnu Privacy 
Guard, I think).  The only problem is that everyone has to get on board 
for it to work well.  Before anyone jumps on me with the old "if you're 
not doing anything wrong, there is no need to hide" line - it's abuse of 
this procedure by ordinary humans that worries me.  Corporations buying 
info on competitors, people in charge reading every email they can find 
with no restrictions, or the government keeping tabs on people who have 
done absolutely nothing wrong but who are swapping emails that express 
opinions that disagree with the government on some level.

Paul

Tom Hansen wrote:

>>From today's (January 4, 2007) Spokesman Review -
>
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>Bush claims right to open private mail 
>James Gordon Meek 
>New York Daily News
>January 4, 2007
>
>WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open
>Americans' mail without a judge's warrant.
>
>The president asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill
>into law 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 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.
>
>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."
>
>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.
>
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>
>Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
>Tom Hansen
>Moscow, Idaho
>
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>
>"In America, anybody can become president.  
>That's one of the risks you take . . ."
>
>- Adlai Stevenson
>
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