“L’Etat? Ce’st Moi”
The idea that America is becoming essentially a dictatorship is one that has gained much traction even in respectable circles recently, if you consider Supreme Court justices, former generals, and prominent academics among them to be respectable, and most of us do.
But after Bush’s latest outrage – though outrage is a much devalued word now – it’s not a question of the US becoming a dictatorship any more. It is one already.
What Bush has done is something he’s done before – when signing bills into law, he has also used the provision for a president to make a comment on the legislation by way of a signing statement. He has twisted the convention to claim executive privilege to specifically exempt himself and his administration from laws he doesn’t like. Yup, that means what you think it does, that Bush and his cronies really believe that their power is absolute and the law does not apply to them if they don’t want it to. Bad enough, you might think.
But this time he’s done it with the Patriot Act, and Americans are furious, not least Firedoglake :
When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act?s expanded police powers?.
Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ??a piece of legislation that?s vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people.” But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ??signing statement,” an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law?s requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ??impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive?s constitutional duties.”
Bush wrote: ??The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president?s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . “
I can?t begin to tell you how angry this makes me ? that the separation of powers mean so little, let alone the need for meaningful oversight by a third party to reduce the potential for misuse of power. And I didn?t want us to head into the weekend without everyone have a chance to really read this article.
The President of the United States does not get to just pick and choose which laws apply to him. The same laws apply to everyone. Period. And if Congress does not stand up and say so and hold him accountable for this, then they might as well stop taking my tax money as a paycheck.
But quietly, while we British political bloggers, obsessed with US politics and its potential to send the rest of the world into destruction by its sheer self-centeredness, are hyperventilating over Bush, Tony Blair and New labour are exercising a silent but deadly coup against Parliament and the electorate.
How? And why has no-one noticed? By the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, that innocuous sounding little piece of paper that’s slowly wending its way through Parliament right now – a little piece of paper that has the power to turn our political system upside down, and allow ministers to overturn, rewrite, or pass any law they like, with no parliamentary oversight. The bill’s nothing less than a wholesale demolition of the British democratic system of law and government as we’ve known it, in favour of the rule by fiat of the governing party. Which will, obviously, be Labour.
it’s worth taking a look at the text of the bill, though couched in parlaimentese it’s very plain what the intention is.
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
[…]A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision for either or both of the following 5 purposes?
(a) reforming legislation;
(b) implementing recommendations of any one or more of the United Kingdom
Law Commissions, with or without changes.(2) An order under this section must be made in accordance with this Part.
10(3) In this Part ?legislation? means a provision of?
(a) any public general Act or local Act, or
(b) any Order in Council, order, rules, regulations, scheme, warrant, byelaw or other subordinate instrument made under a public general Act or local Act,
15 but does not include any instrument which is, or is made under, Northern Ireland legislation.
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
Part 1 ? Power to reform legislation etc
An order under section 1 may for either purpose specified in subsection (1) of
that section make provision amending, repealing or replacing any legislation.(2) Provision under subsection (1) may amend, repeal or replace legislation in any
way that an Act might, and in particular may amend, repeal or replace legislation so as to?10(a) confer functions on any person (including functions of legislating or functions relating to the charging of fees);
(b) modify the functions conferred on any person by legislation;
(c) transfer, or provide for the transfer or delegation of, the functions
conferred on any person by legislation.15 This is subject to sections 4 to 7.
(3)
An order under section 1 may for the purpose specified in subsection (1)(b) of
that section also make?(a) provision amending or abolishing any rule of law;
(b) provision codifying rules of law.
20(4) An order under section 1 may make such consequential, supplementary, incidental or transitional provision (including provision amending, repealing or replacing any legislation or other provision) as the Minister making it considers appropriate.
(5) An order under section 1 may bind the Crown.
This blatant power-grab is the British counterpart of that taking place on the other side of the Atlnntic. There’s no doubt that Blair and New Labour have been encouraged by the success of the Republicans in having manged to get so far along the road to absoklute power without serious challenge. If a moron like George can do it, why shouldn’t clever Tony? After all, he and his nice lady ministers only want to do what’s best for us. Not like those nasty greedy Americans, who’re just in it for themselves. Oops.
On the face of it there’s much to cheer about now spring is finally here: Blair and the Labour Party are on their last legs, and Bush is about as toxic as it’s possible to be in US politics right now. But that doesn’t really matter, because the legilslation they passed will still be in place and so will their successors. International business is engaged in dismantling democratic, representative government worldwide by attrition, and it’s going to be a decades-long battle. Bush and Blair and signing statements and reulatory reformn bills, they have to be fought and won, but they’re all just skirmishes in a long war.
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