Pete Hendrickson (@LostHorizons)

A Few Words About Executive Department Latitude Spoiler alert: there is none. NEITHER EXECUTIVE ORDERS nor executive agency latitude can authorize executive department behavior which is not pursuant to either a direct Constitutional authorization or to properly-enacted Congressional legislation. Congressional legislation, in turn, cannot lack or exceed a Constitutional delegation of authority, nor violate or conflict with any Constitutional prescription or proscription. These limitations are without exception. They apply even regarding executive orders or department policies which are nominally confined solely to the internal activities of executive department personnel but which could or will have the effect (whether overtly intended or not) of influencing, or interacting in any way with, anyone else (as all will do, or be utterly and manifestly pointless). This brings us to the subject of this discussion-- the "Disinformation Governance Board" put in place in the Department of Homeland Security some months ago and just recently announced to the rest of us, the obvious purpose of which is to create a means or an atmosphere by which expressions disfavored by the state can and will be discouraged, suppressed, censored and/or stigmatized. This "board" and its purposes are illegal. TO BEGIN WITH, there is no Constitutional authorization for a "Disinformation Governance Board". Nor is there any Constitutional provision from which such an authority can be derived, even under the pretense of a presidential "national security" responsibility. The only Constitutional provision relating to the president and the subject of security is that the president be commander-in-chief of the armed forces and active duty militias when called into the actual service of the United States (per the first clause of the second section of Article II). That's it. SINCE THE CONSTITUTION lacks authorization for a "Disinformation Governance Board" (or the latitude to create one), that authority could only be found in a congressional enactment. And any congressional enactment must conform to the provisions of, for instance, the First Amendment... Continued at https://losthorizons.com/N/192.htm#1