This Law Does Not Apply To Me... I Am King Of The World!

Bush Adds Signing Statement on Privacy Review To Security Spending Bill

In yet another example of President Bush's disregard of the Constitution, he has offered a signing statement that excuses himself and his administration from some or all aspects of a bill he signed into law. The problem I have is that there is no constitutional basis for the legality of a signing statement. While a signing statement may have a historical purpose, much like the "legislative intent" of a law does by virtue of the congressional record, it has no legal importance in terms of allowing the president to sidestep or circumvent the law. Once the law is signed, it applies to the president, his cabinet, his officials and the entire nation except as provided for by congress. Under our form of government, the specifications of a law are assigned by congress and there is no legitimate manner for the administration to deny the applicability of a law. Period. End of the argument.

But once again Bush is trying to justify his wanton breach of our civil liberties by a signing statement.

US President George W. Bush attached a signing statement [text] to the 2007 spending bill for the Homeland Security Department Thursday, giving himself the authority to make changes to the agency's annual Privacy Office reports. Congress stated that only the Department's Privacy Officer could edit the reports, designed to ensure that the Department obeys privacy rules. Bush's statement would nonetheless allows him to construe the bill's section on privacy reports "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

Signing statements attached to legislation during the Bush presidency became controversial earlier this year when the Boston Globe and other papers reported that he had added them to some 750 bills since the outset of his presidency. In July, the American Bar Association criticized the practice as undermining congressional authority. The US Department of Justice, however, has said that Bush's frequent use of signing statements is not abnormal.