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Via Laura Rozen, Newsweek:

The Bush administration is refusing to disclose internal e-mails, letters and notes showing contacts with major telecommunications companies over how to persuade Congress to back a controversial surveillance bill, according to recently disclosed court documents.

The existence of these documents surfaced only in recent days as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by a privacy group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The foundation (alerted to the issue in part by a NEWSWEEK story last fall) is seeking information about communications among administration officials, Congress and a battery of politically well-connected lawyers and lobbyists hired by such big telecom carriers as AT&T and Verizon. Court papers recently filed by government lawyers in the case confirm for the first time that since last fall unnamed representatives of the telecoms phoned and e-mailed administration officials to talk about ways to block more than 40 civil suits accusing the companies of privacy violations because of their participation in a secret post-9/11 surveillance program ordered by the White House.

At the time, the White House was proposing a surveillance bill-strongly backed by the telecoms-that included a sweeping provision that would grant them retroactive immunity from any lawsuits accusing the companies of wrongdoing related to the surveillance program....

The recent responses in the Electronic Frontier Foundation lawsuit provide no new information about the administration's controversial post-9/11 electronic surveillance program itself, but they do shed some light on the degree of anxiety within the telecom industry over the litigation generated by the carriers' participation in the secret spying. One court declaration, for example, confirms the existence of notes showing that a telecom representative called an Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) lawyer last fall to talk about "various options" to block the lawsuits, including "such options as court orders and legislation." Another declaration refers to a letter and "four fax cover sheets" exchanged between the telecoms and ODNI over the surveillance matter. Yet another discloses e-mails in which lawyers for the telecoms and the Justice Department "seek or discuss recommendations on legislative strategy."

The declarations were filed in court by government lawyers only after U.S. Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco, who is overseeing the case, ordered them to fully process the Electronic Frontier Foundation's FOIA request for documents showing lobbying contacts by the telecoms. The government initially resisted even responding to the FOIA request, but White found that disclosure was in the public interest because it "may enable the public to participate meaningfully in the debate over" the pending surveillance legislation.

... But while complying with the judge's order to confirm the existence of some documents, administration officials have told the judge they cannot actually disclose the documents themselves, in part because to do so would undermine national security. Even to confirm the identity of any of the carriers with whom administration officials have discussed the surveillance issue would implicitly identify the carriers that participated in the program and therefore "would provide our adversaries with a road map" that would help them thwart surveillance against them, according to a court declaration filed by Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, director of the ODNI's intelligence staff.

Communication between the president and his advisors is one thing, but this is something else entirely. They were working with corporate lobbyists to determine the best lobbying strategy to pass legislation that would cover up the illegal conduct of both the administration and the corporations. To protect this sort of communication would put everyone involved above and beyond the law.

For the 5,479th time: He is a president, not a king. This is a republic, not a monarchy. We are ruled by laws, not men. To allow this sort of behavior is to turn our entire system of government upside-down.

UPDATE: As if on cue, here's a great story from today's NYT that shows precisely where this sort of logic leads:

John P. Elwood, disclosed a previously unpublicized method to cloak government activities. Mr. Elwood acknowledged that the administration believed that the president could ignore or modify existing executive orders that he or other presidents have issued without disclosing the new interpretation.

Mr. Elwood, citing a 1980s precedent, said there was nothing new or unusual about such a view.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, challenged Mr. Elwood, saying the administration's legal stance would let it secretly operate programs that are at odds with public executive orders that to all appearance remain in force.

The hearing, of a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was called by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin. Mr. Feingold accused the administration of a "sinister trend" of promoting "secret law."

He referred to the refusal by the Justice Department to release opinions on interrogation and domestic surveillance from the Office of Legal Counsel, whose interpretations are binding on the executive branch.

"It is a basic tenet of democracy that the people have a right to know the law," Mr. Feingold said.

Mr. Elwood, deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, disputed that declining to make legal opinions public created improper "secret law." He said some legal opinions had to be kept from public release, at least for a time, because they deal with classified programs or to ensure that government lawyers can give confidential legal advice.

Let's be perfectly clear about this.

A system in which the head of state can modify laws whenever and however he or she wants, and in which the ruler has no obligation to inform the citizens of such changes, is not a democracy. It is a monarchy. That we elect our monarchs does not in any way change this fact. If the law is whatever the head of state says it is, then that head of state has for his or her term in office the very same powers as the King of England in the late 18th century.

You might recall that there once was a revolution to overthrow that form of government. You might further recall that the result of that revolution was the creation of a constitution explicitly designed to prevent that form of government from ever existing in that land again. And if you are really well educated, you might even recognize that these events took place here in the United States of America.

Our entire constitution is premised on a rejection of precisely the argument that is being put forth here. It is the bedrock upon which everything else in our society is built. Not just our government, but our entire way of life. Without the rule of law, nothing else would be the same. Nothing.

Explain to me how their interpretation of government fits with this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Or better yet, from the same document, this:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them....

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries....

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.

This is not a minor point. If the President can change the law in secret, at any time, and for any reason he believes related to national security, he can do anything. Everything King George did, all of the offenses listed in our Declaration of Independence, he did in the name of national defense. That's why our revolution was considered to be an act of treason, and why all of the men who signed the Declaration were named traitors. According to the King, their actions threatened the state and must be stopped, whatever the cost.

It doesn't matter if you believe Bush to be doing the right thing. Grant him these powers and eventually someone else will come along who uses them in ways you cannot abide. Power corrupts, but absolutely power corrupts absolutely. And if this is not absolute power, then what is?

Why is it so few people seem to understand just how dangerous this is? History shows beyond any shred of doubt that the rule of law offers far more protection for individuals than any benevolent monarchy ever could. That debate was settled in this country over 200 years ago. Two world wars were fought to defend that principle. And the war on terror, at least in theory, is being fought to defend freedoms that the president himself argues do not exist. How does this make any sense to anyone?

Madison was exactly, precisely right:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other -- that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.