President Obama released a children's book November 16,
2010 titled "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters" which was
published by Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Reader's. The 40 page book is
intended for readers of 4-8 years old, and President Obama said the book was
written before he came to office. If that were true, why would he wait until
more than two years into his term to release the book?
Knowing how the publishing world works, Boycott Watch
believes the book must have been worked on while President Obama was serving in
office. That is significant in terms of who owns the rights to it.
U.S. Courts have long determined any work by a sitting
President is property of the U.S. Government. All emails of the President, for
example, must be preserved as both historical record and U.S. government
property. While a President may remove an email from his desktop, they cannot
be erased and there have been legal cases about deleted emails. Before that
there was a major case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a sitting
President cannot keep audio recordings he made in the White House, even if the
content had nothing do to with government work, private. That was the Watergate
case where President Nixon was ordered to hand over recordings of conversations
which dealt with party politics. The fact is, all documents produced by the
government, except classified documents, are public domain.
Presidents have a unique standing within the United States
government. They are not only on-duty 24 hours a day every day, but is the only
person who has no replacement, proxy, and when incapacitated for any reason,
must have an official in place sworn in to office. In one such case, President
G.W. Bush had Vice President Cheney sworn in for a two-hour surgery. There
simply is no time a President is off duty, thus anything a President does is on
official time. Any and all work President Obama performed on his book
therefore, makes his work public domain.
Boycott Watch therefore believes President Obama's copyright
to his book is invalid and the publishing company has no more of a claim to
publishing rights than anyone who wants to reproduce and publish any other
government document.
In order to avoid conflicts of interest, lawmakers routinely
put their investments into blind trusts, thus allowing them to profit, but not
have any clue as to their actual investment status. By agreeing to a publishing
contract while in office, even for a children's book, President Obama has
engaged in a business deal which puts him in a position to have a conflict of
interest. President Obama therefore may not be able to sign bills into law
pertaining to any publishing businesses since that may evoke a conflict of
interest. In fact, any bill presented to President Obama for signature
affecting the publishing world may force him to resign, Promoting Vice
President Biden to the Presidency since he can accept or reject such
legislation.
Additionally, the proceeds of the book inherently belong to
American people since it is a public domain work and income from the publishing
contract came from work performed by a sitting government official. That
revenue cannot be appropriated to charities since Presidents do not have the
power to allocate funds without Congress.
While President Obama may have had good intentions with his
book, the fact is he put himself and the Presidency in a potential legal
quagmire. |
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