Hadn't seen this. I am surprised that the writer considers it surprising On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Larry Lyons <[email protected]> wrote: > > You have to give them credit at least for being consistent. I'm surprised > that no one has commented on this already. > > http://www.newsweek.com/id/187342?from=rss > > Extraordinary Measures > > A new memo shows just how far the Bush administration considered going in > fighting the war on terror. > Michael Isikoff > Newsweek Web Exclusive > > In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave > the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and > office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance > against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment > freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according > to a memo released Monday. > > Many of the actions discussed in the Oct. 23, 2001, memo to then White House > counsel Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief > lawyer, William Haynes, were never actually taken. > > But the memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counselâalong > with others made public for the first time Mondayâillustrates with new > details the extraordinary post-9/11 powers asserted by Bush administration > lawyers. Those assertions ultimately led to such controversial policies as > allowing the waterboarding of terror suspects and permitting warrantless > wiretapping of U.S. citizensâsteps that remain the subject of ongoing > investigations by Congress and the Justice Department. The memo was > co-written by John Yoo, at the time a deputy attorney general in the Office > of Legal Counsel. Yoo, now a professor at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the > University of California, Berkeley, has emerged as one of the central figures > in those ongoing investigations. > > In perhaps the most surprising assertion, the Oct. 23, 2001, memo suggested > the president could even suspend press freedoms if he concluded it was > necessary to wage the war on terror. "First Amendment speech and press rights > may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," > Yoo wrote in the memo entitled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat > Terrorist Activity Within the United States." > > This claim was viewed as so extreme that it was essentially (and secretly) > revokedâbut not until October of last year, seven years after the memo was > written and with barely three and a half months left in the Bush > administration. > > At that time, Steven Bradbury, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel > throughout Bush's second term, concluded that Yoo's statements about > overriding First Amendment freedoms were "unnecessary" and "overbroad and > general and not sufficiently grounded in the particular circumstance of a > concrete scenario," according to a memo from Bradbury also made public Monday. > > Kate Martin, the director for the Center for National Security Studies, a > Washington think tank, said the newly disclosed memo by Yoo and Robert > Delahunty, another OLC lawyer, was part of a broader legal reasoning that > gave President Bush essentially unfettered powers in the war on terrorism. > "In October 2001, they were trying to construct a legal regime that would > basically have allowed for the imposition of martial law," said Martin. (Yoo, > also a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, > did not respond to a request for comment. Gonzales's lawyer, George > Terwilliger, said he had not yet had a chance to review the newly released > memo and also declined to comment.) > > On Jan. 15, 2009âwith only five days left before Bush left > officeâBradbury also rescinded three other legal memos written during the > president's first term that claimed broad powers to unilaterally suspend > treaties, bypass restrictions on domestic surveillance and take other actions > to combat terrorism without the approval of Congress. Bradbury said in a > separate legal memo that the claims made in these earlier memos were based on > unsound legal reasoning and should not be viewed as "authoritative." But he > offered no explanation for why he waited until the waning days of Bush's > presidency to withdraw them. > > The most controversial, and best known, of Yoo's legal opinions was his Aug.. > 1, 2002, memo that effectively approved the president's right to disregard a > federal law banning torture in ordering the interrogation of terror suspects. > An accompanying (and still unreleased) memo from the same day approved the > CIA's authority to use "waterboarding" (or simulated drowning) against terror > suspects. > > In a related matter, the CIA acknowledged in a legal filing Monday that it > has destroyed 92 interrogation tapes of two suspects who were subjected to > waterboarding. While it was previously known that the agency had destroyed > some tapes, the number of destroyed tapes was far more "systemic" than had > previously been known, according to Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the American > Civil Liberties Union, which has been seeking records about the destroyed > evidence under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. > > A U.S. government official familiar with the matter said all of the > destructions took place in November 2005 and mostly involved the > interrogations and detention of Abu Zubaydah, a "high-value" detainee who was > captured in March 2002 and remains today at the U.S. detention facility at > Guantánamo Bay. A small number of the destroyed tapes also involved the > interrogation and detention of another suspect, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an > alleged architect of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Justice > Department special counsel John Durham, who is investigating the destruction > of the tapes, previously said he planned to finish his interviews by the end > of February, but has given no indication of whether he plans to charge > anybody involved with a crime. > > The newly disclosed Oct. 23, 2001, memo was in response to a request from > Gonzales, at the time President Bush's top lawyer, and Haynes, who was chief > counsel at the Pentagon, to determine if there were any restrictions on the > use of the U.S. military inside the country in targeting terror suspects. The > Yoo memo essentially concluded there were none. The country, he argued, was > in a "state of armed conflict." The scale of violence, he argued, was > unprecedented and "legal and constitutional rules" governing law > enforcementâsuch as the Fourth Amendment prohibition on "unreasonable" > searches and seizuresâdid not apply. > > At one point, the memo says, the U.S. military could be used for "targeting > and destroying" a hijacked airline or "attacking civilian targets, such as > apartment buildings, offices or ships where suspected terrorists were thought > to be." At another point, the memo advices: "Military action might encompass > making arrests, seizing documents or other property, searching persons or > places or keeping them under surveillance, intercepting electronic or > wireless communications, setting up roadblocks, interviewing witnesses or > searching for suspects." > > URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/187342 > >
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