[The Government's position] cannot be mandated by any reasonable view of the separation of powers, as this view only serves to condense power into a single branch of government. We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens. Youngstown Steel and Tube, 343 U.S. at 587. Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in times of conflict with other Nations or enemy organizations, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.
In
Federalist 26 Alexander Hamilton wrote:
In England, for a long time after the Norman Conquest, the authority of the monarch was almost unlimited. Inroads were gradually made upon the prerogative, in favor of liberty, first by the barons, and afterwards by the people, till the greatest part of its most formidable pretensions became extinct. But it was not till the revolution in 1688, which elevated the Prince of Orange to the throne of Great Britain, that English liberty was completely triumphant. As incident to the undefined power of making war, an acknowledged prerogative of the crown, Charles II had, by his own authority, kept on foot in time of peace a body of 5,000 regular troops. And this number James II increased to 30,000; who were paid out of his civil list. At the revolution, to abolish the exercise of so dangerous an authority, it became an article of the Bill of Rights then framed, that ``the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, UNLESS WITH THE CONSENT OF PARLIAMENT, was against law.''
In that kingdom, when the pulse of liberty was at its highest pitch, no security against the danger of standing armies was thought requisite, beyond a prohibition of their being raised or kept up by the mere authority of the executive magistrate. The patriots, who effected that memorable revolution, were too temperate, too wellinformed, to think of any restraint on the legislative discretion. They were aware that a certain number of troops for guards and garrisons were indispensable; that no precise bounds could be set to the national exigencies; that a power equal to every possible contingency must exist somewhere in the government: and that when they referred the exercise of that power to the judgment of the legislature, they had arrived at the ultimate point of precaution which was reconcilable with the safety of the community.
Article 1, Section 8 of the the United States Constitution states, in part, that the Congress will have the power:
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress . . .
Despite the clear and unmistakable words of Hamilton; despite the clear and unmistakable grant of authority to the Congress regarding the raising of military forces, the promulgation of Rules for the governing and regulation of the military, and for the declaration of war, and despite the ringing statements of the Supreme Court in Hamdi, some Conservatives and Republicans insist that the President, when acting in his capacity as Commander in Chief, has plenary power, unchecked and unfettered.
Some conservatives, it appears, favor a little bit of monarchical powers for the President. Orin Kerr, a respected conservative lawyer who blogs at Volokh Conspiracy, appears to be one of those:
Was the secret NSA surveillance program legal? Was it constitutional? Did it violate federal statutory law? It turns out these are hard questions, but I wanted to try my best to answer them. My answer is pretty tentative, but here it goes: Although it hinges somewhat on technical details we don't know, it seems that the program was probably constitutional but probably violated the federal law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Say what? It is Constitutional for the President of the United States to violate a duly enacted federal law? How does that work exactly? Is FISA unconstitutional? Does the President have plenary powers when acting as Commander in Chief? Well, contradictorily, not according to Kerr:
I have been unable to find any caselaw in support of this argument [that Congress has no power to legislate in a way that inteferes with the President's Commander-in-Chief power] Further, the argument has no support from the cases cited in the government's brief. In all three of those cases -- Butenko, Truong, and Keith - the Courts were talking about whether the President's interest in conducting foreign intelligence monitoring creates an exception to the Warrant Requirement of the Fourth Amendment. In other words, the issue in those case was whether the Constitution bars warrantless surveillance absent Congressional action, not whether Congressional prohibitons in this area cannot bind the Executive branch.
. . . While the Court [has] recogniz[ed] the President's constitutional role, it was in a very specific context: balancing reasonableness in the context of Fourth Amendment law to determine whether the surveillance required a warrant. Again, this doesn't seem to go to whether Congress can impose binding statutory prohibitions beyond the Fourth Amendment.
So how does this work Mr. Kerr? Congress has passed a law that is consistent with the Constitution and the President can disregard it? That's a Constitutional action by the President? Even though the violation of FISA is a crime? Come again? Ahhh, a little bit of monarchy I suppose.
More on the other side.
It is a bitter irony that while asserting plenary power as Commander in Chief and defending the violations of FISA by President Bush as supported by the Article II powers accorded the President, at the same time Republicans have played Chicken Little regarding the possible expiration of the Patriot Act and the potential enactment of the ban on torture. These two lines of argument are irreconcilable. What need for the Patriot Act when the President can do whatever he pleases? What harm can a ban on torture cause when the President can violate federal law as he pleases?
Of course this is all nonsense. The arguments regarding the War Powers have always centered on whether the President has the power to wage war without Congressional authorization. Emblematic of this dispute is the War Powers Resolution. And that debate is entirely about who has the power to initiate hostilities. Once hostilities are properly commenced there is no dispute that the President is the sole Commander in Chief.
But never before has a President argued that this power as Commander in Chief provides the President carte blanche to violate federal law. Indeed, in Hamdi, the idea is treated as beneath consideration as the Court does not even address the idea that the President, acting as Commander in Chief, can abolish the right to a writ of habeas corpus, as that power resides SOLELY with the Congress:
All agree that, absent suspension, remains available to all persons detained in the United States. U.S. Const., Art. 1, Section 9 . . . Only in the rarest circumstances has the Congress seen fit to suspend the Writ. . . . At all other times, it remains a critical check on the Executive, ensuring that it does not detain individuals, except in accordance to law.
Well maybe it is only Constitutional rights that check the power of the President as Commander in Chief? Well no. The Hamdi court said:
It is undisputed that Hamdi is properly before an Article III court under 28 U.S.C. Section 2241. Further all agree the Section 2241 and its companion provisions provide at least the outline of a skeletal procedure to be afforded a petitioner for habeas review.
Implicitly, the Hamdi Court rejects the notion that the President, acting as Commander in Chief has plenary power, unchecked by federal law or the Constitution. And Hamdi involved an act, as the Court expressly acknowledged, that is a traditional and recognized military function -- the detention of enemy combatants in a war zone. In this case, Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan. Bush's deliberate violations of FISA involves actions which clearly do NOT fall into the realm of traditional military activity. Electronic surveillance, wiretapping and other similar activities IN THE UNITED STATES are far removed from the capture of enemy combatants in Afghanistan.
Thus, if the President's actions in Hamdi are subject to Congressional acts and judicial review, it is unfathomable that his violations of FISA somehow escape these checks.
It is particularly interesting how the Bush Administration and Republicans in Congress were able to pass a law restricting the right to habeas corpus without arguing that the President had unfettered Commander in Chief power in response to Hamdi.
If they could do it for the traditional military act of detaining enemy combatants, why not with FISA? Why did the President of the United States choose instead to deliberately violate federal law? And why do some legal commentators choose to be apologists for this nefarious act?