Alito's ideology captures everything extremist about Bush administration

[dajoki]

American Progress
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053

SUPREME COURT
Bush's Enabler

Samuel Alito's view of presidential powers will be a central issue in today's Supreme Court confirmation hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Alito's position is consistent with Vice President Dick Cheney's statement, "The president of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy." According to the Boston Globe, "At this moment in American history, it would be hard to find a worse Supreme Court nominee than Samuel A. Alito Jr. His ideology captures everything extremist about the Bush administration. If confirmed, Alito would serve as Bush's enabler." In this week's hearings, Alito will need to prove his independence from the White House and his distance from his past work pushing an all-powerful executive. (For more on the Alito nomination, including info on how to make your voice heard, check out AlitosAmerica.org.)http://www.alitosamerica.org

ALITO WOULD HELP BUSH EAVESDROP ON AMERICANS: Bush could use a friend like Alito as he faces criticism over his secret warrantless spying on American citizens. As a Reagan administration lawyer in 1984, Alito wrote that the U.S. attorney general "should be shielded from being sued for approving illegal, warrantless wiretaps on the grounds of national security." The surveillance case began in 1970 when Attorney General John Mitchell gave the FBI permission to wiretap the phone calls of Vietnam protestors without the approval of a judge. The Supreme Court rejected Alito's immunity argument, concluding it would be "an invitation to deny people their constitutional rights." But Alito knew that 1984 was not the right time to win his case and argued that the administration's chances of winning immunity would be "improved in a case involving a less controversial official and a less controversial era."

ALITO WOULD HELP BUSH BYPASS TORTURE BANS: President Bush has issued at least 108 "signing statements," which lay out the president's interpretation of the law. "In the past, presidents rarely issued such legal statements when signing bills. But in 1986, when Alito was working for former attorney general Edwin Meese III, the future nominee proposed that President Reagan issue signing statements more frequently." Thanks to Alito's 1986 work on signing statements, last week, Bush "quietly reserved the right to bypass" restrictions on a bill outlawing the torture of detainees. Alito's 1986 work was part of his "pattern of elevating the presidency above the other branches of government," hoping to "shift courts' focus away from 'legislative intent' - a well-established part of interpreting the meaning of a statute - toward what he called 'the President's intent.'"

ALITO WOULD HELP BUSH WEAKEN CONGRESS, CREATE AN 'ALL-POWERFUL EXECUTIVE': Alito's past speeches to the conservative Federalist Society have shown a nominee with an expansive view of presidential powers. In a 1989 debate, Alito criticized the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the creation of independent counsels as an act that "hit the doctrine of separation of powers about as hard as heavyweight champ Mike Tyson usually hits his opponents" and paved the way for more "congressional pilfering." In a 2000 speech, Alito endorsed the theory of the "unitary executive," where "all federal executive power is vested by the Constitution in the president." In 2004, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas used the unitary executive theory to justify the president's unilateral power to lock up U.S. citizens in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. But other legal scholars rejected Alito's expansive views: "Some people would argue that the whole point of the Revolution was not to have a king," said Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami.

[mom cat]

1. Great resources and info. K&R

[dajoki]

2. well worth a read n/t