Along with much of the world, I have watched with increasing disquiet as the United States of America morphed under President Bush into a lawless soft dictatorship more like the USSR than the USA. Under his theory of the "unitary executive" the laws that Congress enacted were disapplied by signing statements and secret legal opinions. The protections of the Constitution were eroded and marginalized by police powers and warrantless surveillance. International treaties governing the protection of sovereignty, rules of war and the universal rights of man were distorted by unilateral interpretation and willfully hidden misconduct. Court rulings and judicial review were avoided, and where forced, were ignored or overridden or negated by executive pardon. Transparency and audit became a joke with refusals to cooperate with tribunals or to comply with supeonas or produce evidence. This lawlessness has not made the world or the United States or its allies safer in the age of terrorism as it has degraded and confused what we might have hoped to defend.
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