WASHINGTON – President Bush has made broad use of his executivepowers: authorizing warrantless wiretaps, collecting telephonerecords on millions of Americans, holding suspected terroristsoverseas without legal protections. His administration even isconsidering using the military to patrol the U.S. border.

Congress is on notice from the president that he will notenforce parts of legislation he believes interfere with hisconstitutional authority.

These are extraordinary times, for sure, and the president sayshe is acting to safeguard the country. But Democrats and someRepublicans, along with human rights activists and legal scholars,suggest Bush has gone too far in stretching presidentialpowers.

”I do think the president has pushed the envelope,” saidGeorgetown University political scientist Stephen J. Wayne. ”Heseems so determined for another act of terrorism not to occur onhis watch that he has forgotten the constitutional protections thatmost Americans value as highly as they value their security.”

Bush is using a variety of techniques and strategies to maximizehis power – at the expense of Congress, some say. It’s a course,critics suggest, that both he and Vice President Dick Cheney havepursued since they took office in January 2001.

Administration officials insist they have acted withinconstitutional limits, citing added flexibility that comes during atime of war.

The disclosure last week that the National Security Agency isbuilding a data base of domestic telephone numbers has touched offan intense debate about whether the administration and phonecompanies are undermining people’s privacy rights.

Expressions of concern came from some prominent Republicans,including House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and added toearlier questions about the NSA’s domestic eavesdroppingprogram.

These once-covert programs pose potential trouble for thepresident’s nomination of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to be CIAdirector. Hayden oversaw both programs as NSA director from1999-2005.

”Everything that the agency has done has been lawful,” Haydenasserted last week as he visited the offices of the senators whowill vote on his nomination.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican chairman ofthe Senate Judiciary Committee, says his committee will scrutinizeHayden’s role in both the NSA’s phone data bank and theeavesdropping program.

Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner is among those critical ofthe administration’s eavesdropping program and Hayden’soversight.

”I’m concerned that he had a role in wiretapping Americantelephones without warrants. I interpret that, if it happened, asagainst the law. Apparently, the president and others interpret itotherwise,” said Turner, who was CIA chief in the Carteradministration.

In projecting his powers widely, Bush has made extensive use ofstatements that accompany the signing of a bill into law. Thesestatements claim a presidential prerogative not to enforce parts ofthe legislation that he deems to encroach on executive authority.He has issued hundreds of such statements.

Among provisions he has challenged is a requirement to givedetailed reports to Congress about his use of the Patriot Act andabout a ban on torture.

”The president apparently believes, based on a number of recentstatements and policy directives, that anything he approves isautomatically legal,” said Stephen Cimbala, a Pennsylvania StateUniversity professor who studies national security issues.

Because Bush has not vetoed any bill sent to him, Congress hasnot had the chance to challenge such pre-emptive assertions ofpresidential authority.

”It undercuts the whole legislative process of veto andoverride,” said James Steinberg, deputy national security adviserin the Clinton White House. He said Clinton issued such signingstatements, but only rarely.

”Concentrating that kind of authority in one person isdangerous,” said Steinberg, now dean of the LBJ School of PublicAffairs at the University of Texas.

Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt bothsuspended various constitutional protections, claimingall-consuming wars as the reason.

President Kennedy drew criticism for ordering the abortive Bayof Pigs invasion of Cuba. He blamed the disaster on poor planningand lack of reliable intelligence from the CIA, just as the BushWhite House would do when U.S. forces failed to find weapons ofmass destruction in Iraq.

President Nixon was accused of widespread abuse of theConstitution in the Watergate scandal that forced him to resignrather than face certain impeachment.

Human rights leaders continue to decry the treatment ofdetainees in U.S. prison camps in Afghanistan, Iraq and GuantanamoBay, Cuba, and allegations of secret CIA-run prisons in EasternEurope.

Criticism that the administration is undermining privacy rightsof Americans has failed to generate wide opposition from thegeneral public. In an ABC-Washington Post poll taken late lastweek, almost two-thirds of Americans said it was acceptable for theNSA to collect phone records.

Carroll Doherty, associate director of the Pew Research Center,said in repeated polls taken since Sept. 11, 2001, ”a solidplurality, around 50 percent” continues to say they would ratherthe government went too far in restricting civil liberties than notgoing far enough in protecting the country.

”There’s a concern about terrorism that continues to this day.And, on balance, people are saying, ‘protect us,”’ saidDoherty.

Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Presssince 1973, including five presidencies.