No, President Bush isn’t trying to do you any favors. President Bush wants to invade your privacy. According to an article in yesterday’s New York Daily News, Bush gave himself permission to open people’s mail without a warrant in “emergency situations”.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court’s approval.

Yet in his statement Bush said he will “construe” an exception, “which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent … with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances.”

Bush cited as examples the need to “protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.”

Via / The New York Daily News