Chief Executive as Editor-in-Chief

Text of Presidential Signing Statement

See also Jurist for coverage and additional resources: Bush adds signing statement on privacy review to security spending bill

Promoted to top because additional information added to post.

The AP is reporting:

President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists

In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.

But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency's 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

Read the entire AP story.

More press coverage (compiled by Ron Jones):

From the Washington Post:

"President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists."

From the Boston Globe:

"President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

File under "Bush beefing up his resume for editorial gig with Rupert Murdoch's New York Post." [JH]