WASHINGTON - President
Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail
without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he
signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a
"signing statement" that declared his right to open people's
mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and
contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed
it.
Bush's move came during the winter congressional
recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping
program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
"Despite the President's statement that he may
be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law
continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail
without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming
House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.
Experts said the new powers could be easily abused
and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.
"The [Bush] signing statement claims authority
to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite
alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National
Security Studies in Washington.
"The danger is they're reading Americans'
mail," she said.
"You have to be concerned," agreed a
career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's
claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've
ever known."
A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised,
"It's something we're going to look into."
Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement
Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced
protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.
Yet in his statement Bush said he will
"construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an
item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner
consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent
circumstances."
Bush cited as examples the need to "protect
human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for
physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence
collection."
White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush
was claiming any new authority.
"In certain circumstances - such as with the
proverbial 'ticking bomb' - the Constitution does not require warrants for
reasonable searches," she said.
Bush, however, cited "exigent
circumstances" which could refer to an imminent danger or a
longstanding state of emergency.
Critics point out the administration could quickly
get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block
delivery in the meantime.
But the Bush White House appears to be taking no
chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national
security experts agreed.
Martin said that Bush is "using the same legal
reasoning to justify warrantless opening of domestic mail" as he did
with warrantless eavesdropping.
Originally published on January 4, 2007
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