President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAUWASHINGTON – 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.