Obama: Don't hurt the bad guys, they just need a hug.

Secret anti-terror Bush memos made public by Obama

Mar 2 04:11 PM US/Eastern
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.

Even after the Bush administration rescinded that legal analysis, the Justice Department refused to release its contents, prompting a standoff with congressional Democrats.

The memo was one of nine released Monday by the Obama administration.

Another memo showed that, within two weeks of Sept. 11, the administration was contemplating ways to use wiretaps without getting warrants.

[This was not a new idea. It was used under the Clinton administration - Emergency wiretaps afford a 24 hours wiretap window during which no authorization is required. After 24 hours, the wiretap is 'moved' to another suspect and could very easily be 'moved' back - every 24 hours - and it wouldn't violate the law. So why make a big deal of this now?????? Hmmm. Politics.]


The author of the search and seizure memo, John Yoo, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

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.

[Morally, anyone who would not authorize the action would be culpable for any deaths that result from the inaction. Legally - knowing a crime is about to be committed and not acting on that information to stop the crime would place the knower of the information at risk of prosecution. Mr. Yoo is not arguing anything the law has not already provided for.]

Yoo also suggested that the government could put new restrictions on the press and speech, without spelling out what those might be.

[Based on every court case before the Supreme Court, beginning under Lincoln - the answer is yes, restrictions could be placed upon First Amendment rights by the Executive, and the Court would more than likely uphold it based upon precedent. So why raise this issue? Politics.]


"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."

While they were once important legal pillars of the U.S. fight against al-Qaida, all of the memos were withdrawn in the final days of the Bush administration.

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."

[If you are not prepared to win Mr. Holder, we will lose. It IS that simple, it IS that black and white. You will not defeat them by providing them with a Court room to argue their case and a lawyer to defend them. It is naive and dangerous to think you can, and that is the basic problem with Obama - naive and reckless.]

That "has done us more harm than good," he declared. "I've often said that the test of a great nation is whether it will adhere to its core values not only when it is easy but when it is hard."

[I suppose there is another way to look at this - come out opposed to all these actions, shout from the rooftop how you will be different, and then give the same permissions to carry on the war ... but require scapegoats every so often to show how committed you are to ideals. Those, I believe Mr. Holder are the only two options - and I doubt you would choose the later - which only leaves naivete. And sir, naivete only gets Americans dead.]











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