Posted on 05/08/2008 9:17:42 AM PDT by The_Republican
The Bush administration recently announced it will allow select members of Congress to read Justice Department legal opinions about the CIA's controversial detainee interrogation program that have been hidden from Congress until now. But as the administration allows a glimpse of this secret law -- and it is law -- we are left wondering what other laws it is still keeping under lock and key.
It's a given in our democracy that laws should be a matter of public record. But the law in this country includes not just statutes and regulations, which the public can readily access. It also includes binding legal interpretations made by courts and the executive branch. These interpretations are increasingly being withheld from the public and Congress.
Perhaps the most notorious example is the recently released 2003 Justice Department memorandum on torture written by John Yoo. The memorandum was, for a nine-month period in 2003, the law that the administration followed when it came to matters of torture. And that law was essentially a declaration that the administration could ignore the laws passed by Congress.
The content of the memo was deeply troubling, but just as troubling was the fact that this legal opinion was classified and its content kept secret for years. As we now know, the memo should never have been classified because it contains no information that could compromise national security if released. In a Senate hearing that I chaired April 30, the top official in charge of classification policy from 2002 to 2007 testified that classification of this memo showed "either profound ignorance of or deep contempt for" the standards for classification.
The memos on torture policy that have been released or leaked hint at a much bigger body of law about which we know virtually nothing.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Gee Mr. Russ Feingold, I would have at least expected you to know that the Founding Fathers hated democracy and created a Republic instead.
Mr. Feingold is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
It sounds like Mr. Fiengold is bitter that President Bush did in fact follow the laws. Maybe he is just sad that he won’t be able to whip the public into an ‘impeach the president’ frenzy. It looks like there could be a new round of calls to weaken the definition of ‘National Security’ in order to allow politicians to impede and intrude on the power of the executive.
Yes, let’s all ridicule the messenger so we don’t have to discuss potentially damning criticism of our President.
They aren't, strictly speaking, mutually exclusive. A republic is merely any country that doesn't have a hereditary monarch. Democracies are, by definition, republics. For that matter, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were republics.
The US is probably best described as a constitutional democratic republic.
Ahhh, those Democrats. Still trying to to prove that someone, somewhere was tortured on personal orders from George Bush.
Well, the guy that normally gets ridiculed here is off today and the messenger was willing to hang around for a while so the fellas said, “Why not?”.
Yes, it did take some time before the messenger realized he was being ridiculed but once he did and got into the spirit of the thing....you can picture the rest.
One of the big problems is semantics.
The US is a nation of laws. But also of executive orders, bureaucratic regulations, judicial precedents, statutory neglect, and unequal application.
All of these other things undermine our laws, neuter our Bill of Rights, violate our Constitution, and provide no recourse or appeal.
Since WWII, almost every President has seen fit to award themselves extra-Constitutional authority by executive order, that would in effect make them absolute dictators. And even though these orders remain in effect, subsequent Presidents feel the bizarre need to reiterate their ability to lead without question, as they see fit.
Fortunately, none of them has seen fit.
Not yet, anyway!
Carolyn
And Mr. Feingold based his assertion that nothing should be private to the people on the fact that the USA is a democracy. This premise was flat out wrong so his conclusion was flat out wrong.
I know that Rusty makes an easy target, but just because he's the one crying doesn't mean that the President was right.
A free republic cannot abide secret laws. If a man in the White House was a Democrat we'd be howling with outrage.
“It looks like there could be a new round of calls to weaken the definition of ‘National Security’ in order to allow politicians to impede and intrude on the power of the executive.”
You don’t think the chief executive should be bound by the law? How can this be a good idea? Do you think our founding fathers believed that the Chief executive should be free to do as he pleased, so long as it was done in the name of “national security”?
I believe extreme measures are sometimes called for in times of war. I don’t believe the founders intended to tie the hands of the executive in such matters. I believe this is why they gave the power of Commander in Chief to the executive branch where a single person could wield the power without having to constantly get the approval of a committee. They did not call the position “The Commander in Chief as long as the legislative branch doesn’t mind”. The founders studied the strengths and weaknesses of many forms of governments. I believe they recognized that in times of crisis the power of an autocracy held distinct advantages in terms of being able to get things accomplished.
Q.E.D.
If you look at the etymology of the word, it's "rule of the people." It doesn't mean that everyone votes on everything. Even the Greek democracies didn't do that. We vote to elect representatives, who in turn cast votes. Maybe we should describe the US government as a Constitional Democratic Representative Republic, but that's starting to get unwieldly.
If you're going to start attacking politicians because they've used the word democracy too imprecisely for your taste, you may as well start with the president and work down from there. You can start with this speech. I doubt you can find a politician who hasn't referred to American democracy at one time or another.
I'd go so far as to say that secret laws could be the dictionary definition of a totalitarian regime.
I voted for Bush, twice, so I guess I have to look in the mirror.
“I believe extreme measures are sometimes called for in times of war.”
What is the war of which you speak? What if our occupation in Iraq goes on for another decade, or more? Or is it our “war on terror”? How long will that last? The radical Islamists don’t show any signs of quitting. So should we just have a king, or a dictator for the duration?
If we abandon the concept of rule of law, then haven’t the Islamists already won a big victory?
Errrr... when the term "democracy" is used by President Bush in terms of oppressed peoples being able to vote, he is correct, When Feingold says that we are a democracy therefore the people have a right to all documents he is wrong.
And the U.S. Constitution clearly states in Article. IV. - The States - Section 4:
"Section 4 - Republican government
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."
I beleve one of the big points of the article was the fact the the president did in fact follow the law.
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