So… what about the POTUS asking for the medical history of a government employee being treated by a Veteran’s Hospital? HIPPA privacy regs apply to the POTUS or not?
It doesn’t say anything of the sort.
Ranger Jeff says in so many words that the information was sent to him. As of course it would be and should be. As it still is for every president.
Provide an actual cite for your assertion.
I disagree. Laws apply to the President as well. Say the law were, for example, that only those authorized by the Secretary of Defense could view a certain classification level. If the SoD refused to give the President authorization then the President would be denied access. If the President ordered a soldier to give him access without the proper authorization, then the soldier ought to refuse to obey as it is an illegal order. If the President really wants access his recourse is to fire the Secretary of Defense and hire one that will give him the authorization.
To use a real life example, during Watergate there was a special prosecutor (Cox) investigating Nixon. He was under the authority of the Attorney General and could not be fired directly by the President. Nixon ordered his Attorney General to fire Cox. When he refused, Nixon fired* the Attorney General and then fired the next guy in line when he also refused. The third guy in line complied with Nixon’s request so it ended there. But theoretically, everyone in line could have refused Nixon’s request and Cox would have remained.
*You can say he was fired or he resigned. Practically it was the same.
I would also like a cite for this.
Yeah, what about it? HIPAA (TWO A’s!!!) is codified in law. The president doesn’t decide what is or is not private health information so this analogy is faulty. HIPAA privacy rules are not REGs, they are actual laws. And yes, the President has to follow LAWS.
The President could simply say no information will EVER be that classification, since classification guidance derives from Executive Orders. So the law would be moot.
That’s a nice synopsis of historical events, but in no way related to classification guidance derived from Executive Orders.
:smack: I intended to direct that comment at watchwolf49. My apologies; I totally agree with you.
Except you don’t understand the basis of the national security classification system. It’s based on Executive Order 13526 (at least I think that’s the most recent update). The classification of information for national security purposes is not derived from a law, in contrast to statutes that protect information such as the Privacy Act of 1974 and others.
A law that would direct that only a subordinate to the President, but not the President himself, could only view certain information or take some related executive actions (like deciding whether to classify or declassify) would almost certainly run afoul of the first words in Article II of the Constitution: “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Not executive powers delegated by law, not some executive powers; THE executive power. A law cannot give the Secretary of Defense powers that the President cannot exercise.
I honestly can’t say this about the Federal gov’t … but our State government will pass a law directing the Governor to write up rules to administrate some program. Violation of any of these rules also violates the law, and one can be prosecute under that law for a second offense.
Again, I have no idea if Congress has ever passed a law requiring a classification regulation.
Why would the regulation say the President can always scratch out the “Unclassifed” stamp and write in “Secret” … but he has to follow the declassification process before he scratches out “Secret” and writes in “Unclassified” … if it wasn’t true?
Are you still going on about the DoD manual that you linked to? First of all, it is not a regulation. It is a Manual - it’s right there in the heading of the first page.
Second, if you can’t understand why the President would not be bound by an executive agency manual, then maybe this will help - Look in there at paragraph 2.a., and read who the Manual applies to. Do you see “President of the United States” there? Of course you don’t.
I was speaking hypothetically. Note the “say the law were” portion of my post. Saying that the President is the one that currently has the legal authority to classify things doesn’t answer the meat of the OP.
That’s not true. A litany of laws specifically authorize/require the secretary of such and such department to do something. Do you have a cite to back up your interpretation?
I think the confusion arises from a lack of clarity about the nature of different types of rules. On the one hand, you have proper laws: Acts of Congress, adopted through the legislative procedure provided for in the Constitution - in short, adoption by both House and Senate, and either signed by the President, or vetoed by the President but veto overridden by Congress. These Acts of Congress are actual laws, and binding on anybody, including the President, whose job is not only to obey the law but also ensure that it is faithfully executed.
But the document classification system is not based on laws in that sense. It is based on Executive Orders. Executive Orders are a type of rule-setting not explicitly provided for in the Constitution, but accepted by practice and jurisprudence. They are based on the President’s executive power; in essence, an Executive Order is an instruction by the President to the executive agencies of the government (who are subordinate to him) to do something. In practice, they look suspiciously like laws, but legally they are not, and if a law and an Executive Order collide, the law prevails.
Since the document classification system comes from such Executive Orders, it originates in the President’s own authority, and cannot be binding on him; he has the power to decide how he executes the law, and since Executive Orders are simply a way for him to instruct how the law is to be executed he can deviate from his own Orders.
This!
People who do not understand how the classification system works and how information is classified and by what authority should read this paragraph over and over until they get it.
If Congress passed a law restricting the President’s access to some classified material, then that law would be unconstitutional. Just as the President is still subject to the law, so too are the President and Congress alike subject to the Constitution. It would therefore be a lawful order for the President to order any soldier, or member of the CIA, or anyone else in the executive branch to give him that information, and it would be an unlawful order if any such person ordered such information withheld from the President.
If the law is on the books it’s the law of the land until a court deems otherwise. If the President wants to go to court and get the law declared unconstitutional, he can. But until then, it remains the law and the order would be unlawful. The President could go to court and would likely win. However, Congress ties these restrictions to the funding of agencies. When he wins, the President could order a soldier to give him classified information except that he would have no soldiers.
It seems your hypotheticals are becoming more and more outlandish. Congress defunding the military?
What if Congress passed a law that said the President couldn’t leave the Oval Office? He would have to stay there until a court declared it was unconstitutional!!! :rolleyes:
You could simply read what people who actually know about the classification system are writing instead.
Except there’s the Andrew Johnson precedent to the contrary: he fired Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, contrary to the terms of the Tenure of Offices Act.
Johnson argued that Congress could not place restrictions on his ability to decide who he wanted working in the Executive branch, and that the law was unconstitutional so he could ignore it and fire Stanton.
Now, that resulted in his impeachment, but he was acquitted and remained in office. Several decades later he was vindicated when the SCOTUS held the Tenure in Offices Act unconstitutional.
Overall, though, the Supreme Court ruling helps to show the breadth of the President’s executive powers and the limits on Congress’ ability to restrict those powers by statute.
“The ordinary duties of officers prescribed by statute come under the general administrative control of the President by virtue of the general grant to him of the executive power, and he may properly supervise and guide their construction of the statutes under which they act in order to secure that unitary and uniform execution of the laws which article 2 of the Constitution evidently contemplated in vesting general executive power in the President alone.” Myers v. United States
Do you have a cite for your view that statutes can subordinate the President to the executive officers he appoints?
This thread is a good reminder to me of how frustrating it is to deal with factual questions in a factual forum when several interlocutors admit that they don’t have factual knowledge of the matter at hand. If one is talking about classified information and one starts with the assumption that the foundation of the classification system must be some kind of statute, *you don’t know what you’re talking about, and therefore you shouldn’t assume you’re contributing facts. *
The Johnson episode also demonstrates the major game of chicken that can occur if the President truly believes a statute is unconstitutional by restricting his constitutional authority and is prepared to take on the Congress over the issue.