[RickSp]

More assaults on the 4th Amendment by the Bush administration.

Warrantless mail searches may be allowed

A statement attached to postal legislation by President Bush last month may have opened the way for the government to open mail without a warrant. The White House denies any change in policy, but civil libertarians are alarmed, saying the government has never publicly claimed that power before. Federal law has long required a search warrant to open first class mail unless postal inspectors suspect it contains something dangerous, like a bomb or a hazardous chemical, reports NBC News' Pete Williams. "What the signing statement indicates is what present law allows, in making it clear what the provisions are," Snow said Thursday in his daily briefing. But members of Congress — Republicans and Democrats alike — say that's not what they intended the law to do. And they call it another example of a president claiming new legal authority while signing a bill into law. “I was really surprised. There was absolutely nothing in the Postal Reform bill that in any way diminished or changed the privacy protections for domestic sealed mail,” Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said. The law requires government agents to get warrants to open first-class letters. But when Bush signed the Postal Reform act, he added a statement saying that his administration would construe that provision “in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances. ...”

Once again the Bush thugs show their contempt for both the rule of law and the Constitution. Based on what we have seen so far, the Bush administration will define "exigent circumstances" as "when we feel like it."