Secret anti-terror Bush memos made publi
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| Mon, 03-02-2009 - 5:19pm |
Secret anti-terror Bush memos made public by Obama
By DEVLIN BARRETT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department on Monday released a long-secret legal document from 2001 in which the Bush administration claimed the military could search and seize terror suspects in the United States without warrants.
The legal memo was written about a month after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It says constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure would not apply to terror suspects in the U.S., as long as the president or another high official authorized the action.
Another memo showed that, within two weeks of Sept. 11, the administration was contemplating ways to use wiretaps without getting warrants.
In that memo, Yoo wrote that the president could treat terrorist suspects in the United States like an invading foreign army. For instance, he said, the military would not have to get a warrant to storm a building to prevent terrorists from detonating a bomb.
Yoo also suggested that the government could put new restrictions on the press and speech, without spelling out what those might be.
"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Yoo wrote, adding later: "The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically."
In one of his first official acts as president, Barack Obama also signed an order negating the memos' claims until his administration could conduct a thorough review.
In a speech Monday, Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder said that too often in the past decade the fight against terrorism has been put in opposition to "our tradition of civil liberties."





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Post-9/11 Memos Show More Bush-Era Legal Errors
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/02/AR2009030202906.html?nav=hcmodule
>"In releasing some of the discredited memos, including three that the Bush administration had argued must be kept secret as recently as November, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. declared that "Americans deserve a government that operates with transparency and openness." He also said he hoped to make future legal opinions by his department on such matters "available when possible while still protecting national security information and ensuring robust internal" debate."<
Memoranda see link.....
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/olc-memos.htm
Adobe Acrobat Reader available at link.
A Truth Commission for the Bush Era?
A USA Today/Gallup poll in February found that 62 percent of Americans favor a criminal investigation or an independent panel to look into the use of torture, illegal wiretapping, and other alleged abuses of power by the Bush administration. But that idea has been dismissed by many as politically infeasible. And President Obama has said he was “more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards.”
Still, that hasn’t deterred Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, from calling for a “truth commission” and scheduling a hearing on the issue this Wednesday. Already, Rep. John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has introduced a bill to set up an inquiry panel.
Should Congress create a truth commission? Or is it time to move on?
Lots more at link.........
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/a-truth-commission-for-the-bush-era/?hp
I'm really torn about this...while I want the truth to be told & all the cover-ups (aside from those that TRULY are attached to national security) laid bare...I also want to focus on the future & getting out of the mess we're currently in.
I'd like to see it happen in spite of the timing for it being bad due to all the other things of more immediate importance happening right now.
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"I'd like to see it happen in spite of the timing for it being bad due to all the other things of more immediate importance happening right now."
I agree.
Read an interesting POV about this matter... That President Obama could offer pardons to Bush/Cheney et al. By issuing pardons that would be on record. They wouldn't suffer any physical punishment, jail, but it would say you're guilty so you've been pardoned.