"Mother‽ I've turned the cooling units back on! Mother... ?"

[elfs]

Bush rescinds authority of executive espionage oversight board.

Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority. ...

Under the old rules, whenever the oversight board learned of intelligence activity that it believed might be "unlawful or contrary to executive order," it had a duty to notify both the president and the attorney general. But Bush's order deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, and the new order said the board should notify the president only if other officials are not already "adequately" addressing the problem. ...

Bush's order also terminated the board's authority to oversee each intelligence agency's general counsel and inspector general, and it erased a requirement that each inspector general file a report with the board every three months. Now only the agency directors will decide whether to report any potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they have no schedule for checking in. ...

Executive orders were once widely understood to be binding unless a president revoked them, an act that would notify Congress that the rules had changed. But the administration has decided that Bush is free to secretly authorize spies to ignore executive orders - including one that restricts surveillance on US citizens traveling overseas - without rescinding them.

Comments

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I had to double-check if that link was legitimate. Alas, it looks legit.

So... Bush doesn't want anyone (but himself) to know about unlawful intelligence activity? Doesn't that mean that he's covering up apparent spying activity?

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

I find this all VASTLY amusing, really?

I mean, what do you suppose is going to happen when President Obama gets ahold of these sorts of powers? Or President Hillary Clinton? Or McCain?

Out of all of those choices, I want to believe that Obama would eliminate them and turn back the tide of damage that's been done, and perhaps McCain would do a little in that regard as well. But if Hillary were to have that kind of power, I'd be very afraid.

But then, the first people to be black bagged would be the previous administration, along with Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Anne Coulter, so I'm torn as to whether it would be all that bad in the end?

Or course, this is all assuming that President Bush even steps down...