January 22, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
President Bush’s Statements Leave Many Unanswered Questions, Groups
Say
NEW YORK - The
American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for National Security Studies
today filed three Freedom of Information Act requests seeking the immediate
release of records related to President Bush’s asserted authority to search
Americans’ mail without a warrant. The president claimed this unprecedented
authority in a "signing statement" attached to a statute that expressly
prohibits opening First Class mail without a warrant.
The groups say there
are major facts that need to be made public, including whether and how often
this asserted power has been used, whether people whose mail is searched are
notified after the fact, and what policies have been put in place to conduct the
searches.
"No president has the authority to decide on his own what the law
is," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "From Pentagon and
FBI surveillance of peace activists to unchecked NSA wiretapping, the executive
branch is trampling on the privacy and free speech rights of Americans. The
public needs to know if the president is undermining the democratic process by
abusing his power and violating the Constitution."
The Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) requests were filed today with the United States Postal Service, the
Department of Justice, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The requests seek any rules, regulations, policies, procedures, practices, or
guidance from 2001 to the present concerning warrantless searches of mail
originating from within the United States. The ACLU and CNSS are specifically
seeking statistical data and any information on whether the government has
authorized warrantless searches; who is allowed to conduct these searches; any
actual or potential violations of policies on warrantless searches; and all
legal analysis on the constitutionality of warrantless searches.
The "signing
statement" issued by President Bush accompanied H.R. 6407, the Postal
Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. The Act reiterated the 30-year-old
prohibition on opening First Class mail of domestic origin without a warrant. In
1996, the postal regulations were altered to permit the opening of First Class
mail without a warrant in narrowly defined cases where the Postal Inspector
believes there is a credible threat that the package contains dangerous material
like bombs. Instead of referencing the narrow exception in the postal
regulations, the president’s signing statement suggests that he is assuming
broader authority to open mail without a warrant.
"The president appears to be relying on the same legal argument used to
justify warrantless eavesdropping to claim a new and alarming power to read
Americans’ mail without a court order," said Brittany Benowitz, a CNSS staff
attorney.
The groups say that the warrantless searches may violate existing
law and regulations, as well as circumvent the judicial oversight required by
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Congress enacted FISA in
response to revelations about widespread political surveillance by the FBI under
the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover. Following those revelations, Congress
convened hearings and established a commission to investigate the government’s
abuses and explore how best to prevent future excesses. The hearings, chaired by
Idaho Senator Frank Church, revealed that the FBI had operated a secret
mail-opening program in which it submitted names of "domestic political radicals
and black militants" to the CIA for inclusion in its own mail-opening "Watch
List."
The December 20 "signing statement" came just one year after the
president revealed the existence of a secret National Security Agency domestic
electronic surveillance program. Last August, in a landmark case brought by the
ACLU, a federal district judge in Detroit declared the program unconstitutional.
Last week, the Justice Department announced that the surveillance program will
now be subject to review by the FISA court, but the ACLU expressed skepticism
that the program complies with FISA and the Constitution. A hearing in the case
is scheduled for January 31 before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Today’s FOIA requests are online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/28089lgl20070122.html
For
more information on ACLU v. NSA, go to www.aclu.org/nsaspying
