Nine secret, Bush-era documents that the Obama administration released this week demonstrate the hubris of a powerful government and the danger posed by it.
Some of these documents are among the dozens of memos that the ACLU has been suing the Department of Justice to release. To echo Glenn Greenwald from last year: “Yet again, the ACLU has performed the function which Congress and the media are intended to perform but do not.”
One of the legal opinions, written in October 2001 by John Yoo, a lawyer with the Office of Legal Counsel, one who needs a Conscience, argued that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to military activities inside the United States. That is, the federal government thought it could get away with illegal searches and seizures and spying on innocent U.S. citizens, all without a warrant, as long as it could make it look like part of a military operation.
Yoo also advised that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war,” without saying specifically how that might play out, adding that the fight against “terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.” read more »
