Schneier on Security The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power - The Diigo Meta page

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  Bruce Schneier, one of the two people I most respect on issues of security of most types, has a cogent and urgent comment on the Bush assumption of unlimited powers revealed by the wiretaps the New York Times disclosed. Important to read.

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  • This is indefinite dictatorial power.
  • This is indefinite dictatorial power.
  • This is indefinite dictatorial power.

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  mcurry
  • The result is that the president's wartime powers, with its armies, battles, victories, and congressional declarations, now extend to the rhetorical "War on Terror": a war with no fronts, no boundaries, no opposing army, and -- most ominously -- no knowable "victory." Investigations, arrests, and trials are not tools of war. But according to the Yoo memo, the president can define war however he chooses, and remain "at war" for as long as he chooses.  This is indefinite dictatorial power. And I don't use that term lightly; the very definition of a dictatorship is a system that puts a ruler above the law. In the weeks after 9/11, while America and the world were grieving, Bush built a legal rationale for a dictatorship. Then he immediately started using it to avoid the law.  This is, fundamentally, why this issue crossed political lines in Congress. If the president can ignore laws regulating surveillance and wiretapping, why is Congress bothering to debate reauthorizing certain provisions of the Patriot Act? Any debate over laws is predicated on the belief that the executive branch will follow the law.

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