WT wrote: In the absence of a strong labor movement, and decent labor legislation, employers will commit all sorts of atrocities -- extended psychological testing, evaluation of spouses, monitoring of phone calls and e-mail, refusal to hire people with prior medical conditions -- and on and on.

I've always believed that a balance of power is just as necessary and important between labor and employers as it is between the branches of government. I think that's what helped sensitize me early on to the authoritarians. If you see the abuses in one place, it's easy to see them in another.

The Duke Law Journal article bushworse... mentioned above is here. It also contains some history:

Before Bill Clinton’s election, presidents expected that such resignations would be offered.30 After Clinton’s inauguration, several sitting U.S. Attorneys balked at offering to resign their posts once the Senate confirmed Janet Reno as President Clinton’s Attorney General.31 After becoming Attorney General, Reno had made what she thought was the routine request that sitting U.S. Attorneys submit their resignations to her, so she could consider whether to reappoint them. She did not expect negative backlash because similar requests had been made by her predecessors in the Carter, Reagan, and Bush administrations and honored by previous U.S. Attorneys. Their refusals to tender their resignations embarrassed Reno, and, in fact, the desire to cause Reno embarrassment may have been the impetus for the refusals.32 After sending mixed signals on whether all sitting U.S. Attorneys should proffer their resignations to Attorney General Ashcroft,33 President George W. Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft requested the resignations of all but a few of the nation’s U.S. Attorneys.34 Not a single Republican leader questioned the propriety of Bush’s and Ashcroft’s actions.

NORM THEORY AND THE FUTURE OF THE FEDERAL APPOINTMENTS PROCESS by MICHAEL J. GERHARDT (Arthur B. Hanson Professor of Law, William & Mary Law School, [Duke Law Journal, https://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dlj/downloads/dlj50p1687.pdf] vol 50, page 1687.

Via Watching the Watchers http://watchingthewatchers.org/story/2007/3/13/15406/0864

The Senate has begun consideration of S.214 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN214:) a bill to preserve the independence of United States attorneys. Returns the process of appointing attorneys to its pre-Patriot Act reauthorization state, which includes the Senate's involvement.

C-SPAN 2 http://www.cspan.org/watch/index.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS3&ShowVidDays=30&ShowVidDesc=&ArchiveDays=30

Yeah, there's no excuse for that. What else did the WH have slipped into legislation that was overlooked?

Bush has established the principle...

In a letter to the panel, the White House sought written assurances that Rice’s testimony would set no precedent and that no more public testimony from any White House official would be requested.

The commission accepted the terms, saying in its response that “Dr. Rice’s appearance before the Commission is in response to the special circumstances presented by the events of September 11 and the Commission’s unique mandate.”...

The White House and Rice had maintained that requiring a national security adviser to testify under oath would compromise “executive privilege,” which allows a president to exchange ideas freely with an adviser without fearing that they would be made public.

“A president and his advisers, including his advisers for national security affairs, must be able to communicate freely and privately without being compelled to reveal those communications to the legislative branch,” Bush said.

“We have observed this principle while also seeking ways for Dr. Rice to testify,” he added. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4623066/print/1/displaymode/1098/ (Via POGO blog - http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2007/03/executive_privi.html)

There's an interesting account of Bush's claim of executive privilege here: http://www.law.duke.edu/adminlaw/execpriv.pdf pages 51-57. Bush refused to turn over DoJ documents to the House Government Reform Committee in 2001-2002:

The resolution of this controversy was somewhat reminiscent of many former executive privilege battles, especially the ones during the Reagan years. In each of those battles the administration staked out a strong stand on executive privilege and signaled a refusal to compromise; Congress persisted and used its authority to pressure the administration to turn over the disputed materials; the administration ultimately relented on either all the documents, or at least the key ones; both sides walked away and declared victory [but it took a lot of time, of course].

a few Senate Republicans will have the opportunity to blow a gasket, too!

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing on "Misuse of Patriot Act Powers: The Inspector General’s Findings of Improper Use of the National Security Letters by the FBI” for Wednesday, March 21, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building.

Video here: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=2616

On matters that ought to be considered re: subpoenas for Rove, et al. Rough transcript:

If we have a confrontation btwn the president and congress and if we have to go to court, we face very long delays. The most recent landmark decision about executive privilege - In Re Sealed Case DC Circuit court. The OIC motion to compel in 1995 and it was not until June 17 1997 that the DC circuit ruled on the matter. ...

Exec privilege depends on the facts, so it's hard to tell if congress or the pres will prevail....

Condi Rice - 9/11 commission - precedent for not challenging on the basis of exec privilege....

If these individuals come forward for interviews - there is a tough penalty, equivalent to perjury I think, for false official statements....

I love this - history and civics on my desktop.