New Memos are Mind-numbing
To expand on an item that I mentioned last night: These new memos are truly remarkable. In the post-9/11 confusion, John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Special Counsel, and Robert Delahunty, a special counsel, wrote extraordinary memos. Basically, as they saw it, the president had the power to do anything and ignore everyone. They saw a “legal” way to do anything. There is much, much more to this story. Keith talked about it last night. Watch:
From NYT:
“The law has recognized that force (including deadly force) may be legitimately used in self-defense,” Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty wrote to Mr. Gonzales. Therefore any objections based on the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches are swept away, they said, since any possible privacy offense resulting from such a search is a lesser matter than any injury from deadly force.
The Oct. 23 memorandum also said that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” It added that “the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”
Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty said that in addition, the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars the military from domestic law enforcement operations, would pose no obstacle to the use of troops in a domestic fight against terrorism suspects. They reasoned that the troops would be acting in a national security function, not as law enforcers.
In another of the opinions, Mr. Yoo argued in a memorandum dated Sept. 25, 2001, that judicial precedents approving deadly force in self-defense could be extended to allow for eavesdropping without warrants. (more… )
