The Progressive Truth

Thursday, January 4, 2007

New Law Lets Bush Read Your Mail

Using signing statements Bush now has sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant.

The Carpetbagger Report has more:

Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail. The legislation in question, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, is mostly mundane, but as the New York Daily News noted, it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court’s approval. Bush's...signing statement said he’d ignore the privacy provisions under “exigent circumstances.” That could refer to an imminent danger, or it could refer to “a longstanding state of emergency.”
Once again, Bush has pushed the limits of the executive branch. I do not understand how any American could support such behavior. A nearly completely incompetent man now was the right to read our mail. This is truly disgusting and frightening.