But as President, Mr. Obama has provoked bipartisan anger by issuing a handful of his own signing statements. Four senior House Democrats said in a letter to Obama that they were "chagrined to see {Obama} appear to express a[n] attitude" similar to that of President Bush. And the out-going president of the American Bar Association, H. Thomas Wells, said this last summer to the New York Times:
"We didn't think it was an appropriate practice when President Bush was doing it, and . . . we don't think it is an appropriate practice when President Obama is doing it."
But it was the effort in the spring of 2009 by the Obama Justice Department to get the warrantless wiretap case dismissed that left some of the President's own supporters feeling that the move smacked of a Bush-era executive power grab. Some of those supporters and civil libertarians are hoping the Administration will accept the Judge's decision and choose not to appeal.
In a broader way, Obama's willingness to test the limits of executive authority, mirroring the defense strategy of the last White House in the warrantless wiretap case, underscores a fundamental truth about power. Once it's deployed, it's like toothpaste out of a tube: it's not likely to find its way back in by itself. And with increasing executive power a worldwide trend, this trajectory looks even more ominous. That's why vigilance is needed on any new assertions of executive authority, even under a President who insists that he will deploy his power more judiciously than the last.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janine-r-wedel/emshadow-eliteem-warrantl_b_529769.html
Should we not be alarmed by President Obama's new assertions of executive authority and his disrespect for the Constitution? Look at how many of his campaign promises he has broken. Plus, he has not repudiated the Patriot Act, even though it:
- violates the Fourth Amendment right of all people within the USA to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure. :
- grants extraordinary government powers to spy on Americans' private lives, grabbing records of their communications, commercial activities, and even checking on which library books we're reading.
- makes it crime for anyone conscripted into aiding these government spying programs to tell people that they're being spied on instead, they're required by law to lie, and pretend that nothing happened.
Nor has he made any attempt to restore due process, as badly eviscerated by Bush as it was. http://www.lectlaw.com/def/d080.htm
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