Hillary Clinton blasted the Bush administration's expansion of executive power today, pledging to conduct a review of Bush's abuses if elected to the White House. She explained her general thoughts in a substantive interview with The Guardian's Michael Tomasky:
I think it is clear that the power grab undertaken by the Bush-Cheney administration has gone much further than any other president and has been sustained for longer. Other presidents, like Lincoln, have had to take on extraordinary powers but would later go to the Congress for either ratification or rejection. But when you take the view that they're not extraordinary powers, but they're inherent powers that reside in the office and therefore you have neither obligation to request permission nor to ask for ratification, we're in a new territory here. And I think that I'm gonna have to review everything they've done because I've been on the receiving end of that. There were a lot of actions which they took that were clearly beyond any power the Congress would have granted or that in my view that was inherent in the constitution. There were other actions they've taken which could have obtained congressional authorization but they deliberately chose not to pursue it as a matter of principle.
This is an important and informed critique of administration abuse. But Clinton's impressive historical grasp of the problem is still crabbed by her diplomatic knack for avoiding specifics. (To be fair, this applies to most candidates.) Tomasky noted that Clinton's "reputation for avoiding actually answering the question, and reverting to a pre-ordained script ... [was] on display at times" during the interview. This is a long campaign, though, so here are some specific executive power questions for Clinton and all the other candidates. (If you live in a primary or fundraising state, feel free to print this out and bring it to the next candidate event...) As President, will you:
- Halt the use of presidential signing statements that evade the legislative intent of Congress?
- Return to the more limited, pre-Bush use of the "state secrets privilege" in national security litigation?
- Issue a blanket executive order rescinding any grants of immunity to government officials and private citizens for illegal conduct? (This might also require a legislative fix, given the War Crimes Act and current spying legislation.)
- Establish a US-style "Truth Commission" to fully investigate allegations of US-sponsored rendition and torture of people like Canadian citizen Maher Arar and German citizen Khalid El-Masri? (El-Masri's case was never adjudicated by US courts because it was preempted by the state secrets privilege.)
- Halt all illegal domestic spying on American citizens, and work with Congress to conduct the first full investigation into the evolution and targets of domestic surveillance?
Feel free to add more questions in the comments.
And if you manage to ask any executive power questions at future campaign events, please file them here at OffTheBus -- or you can email me directly at amelberAThotmail.com.
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PDD-62, issued on the pretext of fighting terrorism, grants the FBI the power to maintain surveillance on Second Amendment groups and civic organizations opposed to the U.N., as well as "extremist" Christian fundamentalist groups.
PDD-63, supposedly signed to prevent unauthorized access to government computers, instead allows executive agencies to spy on the electronic communications of private citizens using the Internet.
Yep, that'll happen!
ANY good corporation reviews their 'job descriptions' and 'responsibilities' on a regular basis.
When asked very specifically whether she would support increasing the level of income to which the social security taxes apply, a very intelligent and fair idea, she said she would "review" it. When asked if she planned to do anything to ensure social security would continue to be available, she said she would "review" it.
Then said she was against privatization. But then came out just like her Wall Street supporters told her to do, and said everyone should have an individual 401k and maybe the government could contribute too (instead of social security?) And the boys on Wall Street will charge 10%/year to every single working person in this country to "handle" the 401ks. Sounds like, smells like, looks like privatization.
She's not unclear and she's not subtle. She's about as coy as a Blackwater assault team. Hillary will keep every single dictatorship law put into place by Bush including the complete destruction of the bill of rights. She'll "review" it. Then leave it the same.