Who Owns Secret Service Logs At White House ?

During the Clinton administration, Republicans eagerly used the White House Secret Service visitor logs to track who was visiting the president and his top aides. But now that Bush is president, they want a different set of rules.

A federal judge has recently ordered the Secret Service to release the visitor logs regarding visits to the vice-president, but Bush's lawyers are fighting this in court. They say the visitor logs don't belong to the Secret Service, but to the White House -- thus making them presidential records and not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

To back up this argument, they have revealed the existence of a secret agreement signed last May. This secret agreement between the White House and the Secret Service declares the visitor logs are the property of the White House, and may not be released by the Secret Service, even to satisfy a judicial order.

The secret agreement was put in place so Bush could keep secret the many contacts the White House had with Jack Abramoff. It allowed Bush to mislead Americans into believing that the White House had only minimal contacts with Abramoff, even though his aides had met with Abramoff 485 times, including 10 visits with Karl Rove.

Bush wants to keep his and Cheney's dirty little misdeeds a secret, but he certainly doesn't think ordinary Americans should have any privacy or be able to keep anything secret. We already knew that Bush had claimed the right to eavesdrop on the phone and electronic communications of Americans without a judicial warrant. Now we learn he has been opening our mail also.

Last month, Bush signed a postal reform bill that was supposed to help guarantee the privacy of the mail. However, Bush attached another of his presidential "signing statements" to the bill declaring that he has the right to open any mail without a judicial warrant under emergency conditions.

Bush has issued 750 of these signing statements -- more than all other presidents combined. Other presidents issued these statements to clarify a point of law. Bush is different. He issues the statements to declare that he does not have to obey the law, regardless of the intent of Congress in passing the law.

This is what his statement attached to the postal bill says:

The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of the Act, which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.

In plain old english, it says he can open anybody's mail any time he wants to, and he doesn't need any warrant to do it. The crazy part is that the signing statement violates the very law it was attached to.

WHEN ARE WE GOING TO IMPEACH THIS CRIMINAL?