WORLD: THE UNITED STATES
THE TIMES OF INDIA|POWERED BY INDIATIMES
7 Jan, 2007| Updated at 0702hrs IST

Now I feel completely safe!

WASHINGTON: A signing statement attached to postal legislation by President Bush last month may have opened the way for the government to open mail without a warrant. Although the White House denies any change in policy.

The law requires government agents to get warrants to open first-class letters. But when he signed the postal reform act, Bush added a statement saying that his administration would construe that provision "in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."

"The signing statement raises serious questions whether he is authorising opening of mail contrary to the constitution and to laws enacted by Congress," said Ann Beeson, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. "What is the purpose of the signing statement if it isn't that?"

Beeson said the group is planning to file a request for information on how this exception will be used and to ask whether it has already been used to open mail. White House press secretary Tony Snow said there was nothing new in the signing statement.

In his daily briefing Snow said: "All this is saying is that there are provisions at law for in exigent circumstances for such inspections. It has been thus. This is not a change in law, this is not new."

Postal vice-president Tom Day added: "As has been the long-standing practice, first-class mail is protected from unreasonable search and seizure when in postal custody.

Nothing in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act changes this protection. The president is not exerting any new authority."

Senator Susan Collins , Republican from Maine, who guided the measure through the Senate, called on Bush to clarify his intent. The bill, Collins said, "does nothing to alter the protections of privacy and civil liberties provided by the constitution and other federal laws."

"The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and our federal criminal rules require prior judicial approval before domestic sealed mail can be searched," she said.

Senator Charles E Schumer, Democrat from New York, criticised Bush's action. "Every American wants foolproof protection against terrorism. But history has shown it can and should be done within the confines of the Constitution.

This last-minute, irregular and unauthorised reinterpretation of a duly passed law is the exact type of maneuver that voters so resoundingly rejected in November," Schumer said.

The ACLU's Beeson noted that there has been an exception allowing postal inspectors to open items they believe might contain a bomb. "His signing statement uses language that's broader than that exception," she said.

It sounds like Richard Nixon all over again or the Salem witch hunts. The president feels he can do as he pleases and answers to no one. To me personally, It's a matter for the Us Supreme court as it's a violation of the right to privacy.
The president needs to remember he isn't king with absolute authority. He still is accountable to the laws that govern our land. I understand that there is a need to take steps to guard against terrorism but not at the expense of our already fragile peace of mind.
The president made a last ditch effort in a show of strength. But after the mid terms and a new congress now in session, it'll probably be repealed.

Hey, if they want to go through my mail have at it, I gave up on Publishers Clearing House weeks ago!

They can already monitoring your email and phone conversations so this was the next logical step. I think we are more free in Canada than in the Land of the Free.

NeedKarma, Just wait until the North American Union comes into effect. You can sit up there and look down upon our madness now but it is all on a fast train to your doorstep as well.

I can't seem to comment on anyone's post. Perhaps that is because this is a member discussion board.

I agree!

That will NEVER happen.

There will NEVER be a total United NORTH AMERICAN union.

At least not in my lifetime.


Canada has enough problems on its own.

Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, the West.

Now add the US and Mexico.

We can barley agree now, we aren't going to bring in even more.

And Quebec will NEVER agree to add MORE non-French people to our nation.

Building a North American Community - Council on Foreign Relations

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

North American Union to Replace USA?

By Jerome R. Corsi

05/19/06 "Human Events" -- -- President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration's true open borders policy.

Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S. Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.

President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.

The blueprint President Bush is following was laid out in a 2005 report entitled "Building a North American Community" published by the left-of-center Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR report connects the dots between the Bush administration's actual policy on illegal immigration and the drive to create the North American Union:

At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint action. We welcome this important development and offer this report to add urgency and specific recommendations to strengthen their efforts.

What is the plan? Simple, erase the borders. The plan is contained in a "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" little noticed when President Bush and President Fox created it in March 2005:

In March 2005, the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States adopted a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), establishing ministerial-level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America and setting a short deadline for reporting progress back to their governments. President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment "to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security." The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.

To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of the three leaders that "our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary." Its boundaries will be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.

The perspective of the CFR report allows us to see President Bush's speech to the nation as nothing more than public relations posturing and window dressing. No wonder President Vincente Fox called President Bush in a panic after the speech. How could the President go back on his word to Mexico by actually securing our border? Not to worry, President Bush reassured President Fox. The National Guard on the border were only temporary, meant to last only as long until the public forgets about the issue, as has always been the case in the past.

The North American Union plan, which Vincente Fox has every reason to presume President Bush is still following, calls for the only border to be around the North American Union -- not between any of these countries. Or, as the CFR report stated:

The three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments' physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America. A long-term goal for a North American border action plan should be joint screening of travelers from third countries at their first point of entry into North America and the elimination of most controls over the temporary movement of these travelers within North America.

Discovering connections like this between the CFR recommendations and Bush administration policy gives credence to the argument that President Bush favors amnesty and open borders, as he originally said. Moreover, President Bush most likely continues to consider groups such as the Minuteman Project to be "vigilantes," as he has also said in response to a reporter's question during the March 2005 meeting with President Fox.

Why doesn't President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union. The administration has no intent to secure the border, or to enforce rigorously existing immigration laws. Securing our border with Mexico is evidently one of the jobs President Bush just won't do. If a fence is going to be built on our border with Mexico, evidently the Minuteman Project is going to have to build the fence themselves. Will President Bush protect America's sovereignty, or is this too a job the Minuteman Project will have to do for him?

Copyright © 2006 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
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