Unconstitutional Concentration of Power in President, June 25 2011

Terence P. Jeffrey
CNS News
A scholar who served for 40 years as a constitutional law expert at the Library of Congress is pointing to President Barack Obama’s use of military force in Libya without congressional authorization–and, in the longer-term, a lack of effective action by Congress to protect its constitutional prerogatives–as evidence the United States has begun putting an unconstitutional “concentration of power” in the hands of one man.

“We’re ending up with a concentration of power in the president which is not constitutional,” Louis Fisher, now a scholar in residence at the Constitution Project, told CNSNews.com’s Online With Terry Jeffrey.
Fisher, who is the author of Presidential War Power, a definitive scholarly account of the drafting and historical implementation of the constitutional war power, said President Obama cannot use the United Nations or NATO to authorize his use of military force in Libya because under the U.S. Constitution only Congress can authorize a U.S. military action not needed to defend the United States against an attack.



“I think President Obama had an obligation to get authority up front,” said Fisher. “Obama, as you know, reached out to NATO, reached out to Security Council, reached out to the Arab League.”

Full article here