""We're not breaking the law; we're rewriting it."
The above words are those of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, spoken at a press conference only days before he was illegally held in contempt of congress. While this statement is not astoundingly unexpected on its own, it is overshadowed and confused by the words of the other members of the administration. Shortly after Mukasey's press conference, President Bush corrected his Attorney General's statement by insisting that the administration is not "rewriting the law so much as we're amending it." While the members of the press worked day and night to untangle the web of fuzzy logic that hangs over these statements, Press Secretary Dana Perino made another convoluted statement in a secret interview. "We're not changing the law," she said, "we're expanding on it." The UACL is concerned about the general ramifications of these goings-on, as well as the individual problems with each official's statement. The primary concern is the President's implication that he has the legal authority to amend the law; the ability of the Executive to amend existing laws is limited; in addition, the constitutional amendment that the President has singlehandedly carried out legally requires a 2/3 majority of Congress to pass. Both Mukasey and Perino implied that the Executive Branch has the ability to make law, and the UACL would like to remind them that while Executive Power exists and extends limited lawmaking powers to the President, it in no way serves as a substitute for democracy. The UACL's own Kelly McCarthy contends that the controversial executive order does in fact rewrite law by extending the emergency authorization provision of FISA by four days, as well as by allowing the administration to bypass the FISC.
--Matt Lerner
