Yoo Memo: 4th Amendment? Nah.

[SirNitram]

Link

WASHINGTON (AP) — For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism.

That view was expressed in a secret Justice Department legal memo dated Oct. 23, 2001. The administration on Wednesday stressed that it now disavows that view.

The October 2001 memo was written at the request of the White House by John Yoo, then the deputy assistant attorney general, and addressed to Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time. The administration had asked the department for an opinion on the legality of potential responses to terrorist activity.

The 37-page memo is classified and has not been released. Its existence was disclosed Tuesday in a footnote of a separate secret memo, dated March 14, 2003, released by the Pentagon in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations," the footnote states, referring to a document titled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States."

Exactly what domestic military action was covered by the October memo is unclear. But federal documents indicate that the memo relates to the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program, or TSP.

That program intercepted phone calls and e-mails on U.S. soil, bypassing the normal legal requirement that such eavesdropping be authorized by a secret federal court. The program began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and continued until Jan. 17, 2007, when the White House resumed seeking surveillance warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Wednesday that the Fourth Amendment finding in the October memo was not the legal underpinning for the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

"TSP relied on a separate set of legal memoranda," Fratto told The Associated Press. The Justice Department outlined that legal framework in its January 2006 white paper.

The October memo was written just days before Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, briefed four House and Senate leaders on the NSA's secret wiretapping program for the first time.

The government itself related the October memo to the TSP program when it included it on a list of documents that were responsive to the ACLU's request for records from the program. It refused to hand them over.

On Wednesday, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the statement in the footnote does not reflect the current view of the department's Office of Legal Counsel.

"We disagree with the proposition that the Fourth Amendment has no application to domestic military operations," he said. "Whether a particular search or seizure is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment requires consideration of the particular context and circumstances of the search."

Roehrkasse would not say exactly when that legal opinion was overturned internally. But he pointed to a January 2006 white paper issued by the Justice Department a month after the TSP was revealed by The New York Times.

"The white paper does not suggest in any way that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to domestic military activities, and that is not the position of the Office of Legal Counsel," he said.

Suzanne Spaulding, a national security law expert and former assistant general counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, said she found the Fourth Amendment reference in the footnote troubling, but added: "To know (the Justice Department) no longer thinks this is a legitimate statement is reassuring."

"The recent disclosures underscore the Bush administration's extraordinarily sweeping conception of executive power," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The administration's lawyers believe the president should be permitted to violate statutory law, to violate international treaties, and even to violate the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S. They believe that the president should be above the law."

"Each time one of these memos comes out you have to come up with a more extreme way to characterize it," Jaffer said.

The ACLU is challenging in court the government's withholding of the October 2001 memo.

Guess the Second Amendment couldn't guarantee that one either.

[Elfdart]

And to think that this douchecock is a law professor at UC Berkeley.

I hope whoever gets sworn in next January includes the following words in his inaugural addresswhen he or she looks over at Dubya:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

[SirNitram]

And to think that this douchecock is a law professor at UC Berkeley.

I hope whoever gets sworn in next January includes the following words in his inaugural addresswhen he or she looks over at Dubya:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

Please. The GOP will deify Bush into the Second Coming Of Reagan.

[Patrick Degan]

And to think that this douchecock is a law professor at UC Berkeley.

I hope whoever gets sworn in next January includes the following words in his inaugural addresswhen he or she looks over at Dubya:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

Please. The GOP will deify Bush into the Second Coming Of Reagan.

They might well try. The problem is that you can't make shit smell good no matter how much anybody tries.

[The Yosemite Bear]

remind me to add "judgement at neurenburg" to the wish list for books/movies to send to political figures....

you know:
revolt in the desert- T.E. Lawrence, to whoever is in charge of Iraq policy.
etc.

[SirNitram]

And to think that this douchecock is a law professor at UC Berkeley.

I hope whoever gets sworn in next January includes the following words in his inaugural addresswhen he or she looks over at Dubya:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

Please. The GOP will deify Bush into the Second Coming Of Reagan.

They might well try. The problem is that you can't make shit smell good no matter how much anybody tries.

You can, however, convince people there was never any shit there once someone else has been there long enough, either to clean it up, or deal with the problems.

[Darth Wong]

And to think that this douchecock is a law professor at UC Berkeley.

I hope whoever gets sworn in next January includes the following words in his inaugural addresswhen he or she looks over at Dubya:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

Please. The GOP will deify Bush into the Second Coming Of Reagan.

They might well try. The problem is that you can't make shit smell good no matter how much anybody tries.

On the other hand, Reagan doesn't deserve his near-deification much more than Bush would, yet it seemed to work for him. You can bring up all of the facts and arguments you like, but the general public refuses to give up its love affair with Reagan's mouldering corpse. Even though the worst predictions of the people who criticized his economic platform have essentially all come true, the man is still hailed as a visionary.

[Durandal]

And to think that this douchecock is a law professor at UC Berkeley.

I hope whoever gets sworn in next January includes the following words in his inaugural addresswhen he or she looks over at Dubya:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

Well, the president doesn't Mirandize the suspect, unfortunately. Though he could perform a last act of rendition and have Bush shipped off to a jail cell in one of our friendlier Middle Eastern shitholes for sedition.

What we really need is for Harrison Ford to tell Bush "I'm sorry, Mr. President. I don't dance."

[The Yosemite Bear]

I'm suprised that the californian conservatives didn't mummify him or preserve his body like Lenin....

[Patrick Degan]

Please. The GOP will deify Bush into the Second Coming Of Reagan.

They might well try. The problem is that you can't make shit smell good no matter how much anybody tries.

On the other hand, Reagan doesn't deserve his near-deification much more than Bush would, yet it seemed to work for him. You can bring up all of the facts and arguments you like, but the general public refuses to give up its love affair with Reagan's mouldering corpse. Even though the worst predictions of the people who criticized his economic platform have essentially all come true, the man is still hailed as a visionary.

I think it's that Reagan had the kind of luck Chimpus Caesar won't: he was able to get out before the 80s bubble burst, which was what brought down Bush the Elder. He looked better than his predecessor in terms of perceptions. He was also lucky enough to be there for the endgame of the Cold War when the Soviets really were on the ropes and couldn't put up much more than a token protest to our sabre-rattling. Reagan also was a far better speaker than Chimpy could ever manage. And for all his suspect mental acuity, Reagan at least had the sense not to dump America into a never-ending war (Grenada and our half-assed intervention in Beirut don't really count on that score). And finally he was the landslide choice of the voters twice. Reagan was actually very popular and remains so.

By contrast, Chimpus Caesar —who got into the White House only through a stolen election and barely squeaked through to reelection against a punching bag— has proven to be the anti-Midas; everything he's touched has turned to shit and the sewers are backing up before he gets to skate away to Crawford or Paraguay or whichever place will have him. He won't even sound good on the archival footage because every time that man talks, even after he's been coached, he still manages to sound like a moron. Millions of people hate him, especially in comparison to his still-popular predecessor, Bill Clinton.

I think the Right are going to redouble effort on their Reagan Deification Project to help bury the legacy of the stupid chimp. They're not going to want him as part of the popular memory any more than Nixon.

[Scottish Ninja]

Looking back at the example of Wilson, I suspect that his veneration will come - though certainly not for a few decades, when it becomes convenient. I hope that we will be able to discredit whatever bullshit comes up then to tell people that he really was a hero of the times.