The Rule of Secret Law in the Bush Administration

[maddezmom]

The Rule of Secret Law in the Bush Administration

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on the proliferation of secret law in the Bush administration. In particular, the subcommittee focused on the role of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Justice Department in the development of secret law governing the executive branch.

The hearing began with disagreement between the chairman and ranking member, Sens. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), respectively, over what constituted secret law. Feingold argued that OLC memoranda and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions are binding law and are often issued in secret. Brownback maintained that those issues do not comport with the notion of "secret laws," which he argued were limited to secret agency rules and regulations.

~snip~

Dawn Johnsen, former acting head of the OLC, testified that a contributing factor in the failure to provide the president with accurate legal advice is the failure to make such advice public. "OLC has been terribly wrong to withhold the content of much of its advice from Congress and the public — particularly when advising the executive branch that in essence it could act contrary to federal statutory constraints."

Johnsen stressed that the OLC should be required to disclose opinions that state the president has the authority to operate in contravention to existing statutes or executive orders. It is particularly important that these memoranda be released, because without such disclosures, Congress and the public would not be given any notice that the president is not abiding by written law. Moreover, OLC memoranda often persist as binding on the executive without being reviewed by courts because they are never challenged or even known to exist.

more:http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/4249/1/1?TopicID=1

[midnight]

1. I don't understand all of this, but this is so important. Any smart

people want to interpret this?

[jimshoes]

2. Chimpy tells his gorillas in the DOJ

what laws he wants to subvert, sidetrack, dodge, eliminate, etc,... and some DOJ stooge writes an opinion telling hims why it's OK to subvert, sidetrack, dodge, eliminate, etc, that particular law or treaty or convention and "presto" there it is. It's a simplified version, but that's what's been going on.