Post-9/11 Memos Show More Bush-Era Legal Errors

[kpete]

Source: Washington Post

Post-9/11 Memos Show More Bush-Era Legal Errors

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 3, 2009; Page A05

The number of major legal errors committed by Bush administration lawyers during the formulation of its early counterterrorism policies was far greater than previously known, according to internal Bush administration documents released for the first time by the Justice Department yesterday.

Those policies were based on at least 10 legal opinions conferring broad powers on the president that the Justice Department later deemed flawed and ordered withdrawn, including several approving the military's search, detention or trial of civilians in the United States without congressional input, according to the documents.

While the Bush administration had previously acknowledged rescinding two of those memos -- authorizing the infliction of pain and suffering on detainees and claiming unquestioned authority to interrogate suspects outside the United States -- the government's eventual repudiation or rewrite of the eight other early legal memos was secret until now.

In one of the newly disclosed opinions, Justice Department appointee John Yoo argued that constitutional provisions ensuring free speech and barring warrantless searches could be disregarded by the president in wartime, allowing troops to storm a building if they suspected terrorists might be inside. In another, the department asserted that detainees could be transferred to countries known to commit human rights abuses so long as U.S. officials did not intentionally seek their torture.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/02/AR2009030202906.html

[ixion]

1. "far greater than previously known"

BS.

I think it's been known since it began. This is just more "who could have foreseen" logic.

[TrogL]

2. "errors"? How about "treason"

[heliarc]

6. Yeah... What you said... nt

[HillWilliam]

7. Roight! How can it be an "error"

when they damnwell did it on purpose. They broke, evaded, twisted, and otherwise misused the law. They knew what they were doing when they did it -- and they did it with malice aforethought. They did it with premeditated viciousness and with the purpose of enriching themselves and their cronies at the expense of the Constitution and the taxpaying American citizen.

We paid through the nose to finance their misadventures. Now we're paying to clean up the mess.

WTF are THEY paying for? Huh? What?

Seems to me that they're still rich, still loose, still a danger, still unpunished, and we're still taking it up the ass.

[yurbud]

13. exactly--it it were errors they wouldn't add to his power and his friends bottom lines 100% of the

time

[jtrockville]

3. "Professional standards" were still satisfied even though TORTURE was ok'd.

[ozymandius]

4. "approving the military's search, detention or trial of civilians in the United States"

So in order to enforce law, they wantonly break the law. This item, in itself, violates the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This administration operated like an organized crime unit.

[B o d i]

5. They weren't mistakes, they were blatant violations.

Throw the book at em, they deserve nothing less.

[No Elephants]

8. We MUST establish that the WOT is NOT a real war. We are at war in

Iraq and Afghanistan. Terrorists are criminals we try to thwart and apprehend. We are not literally "at war" with terror or terrorism or terrorists, any more than we were literally "at war" with poverty when LBJ established the War on Poverty.

Calling our attempts to stop criminals a war has confused everything, just as Buschco intended. Someone has to start calling them on this President can do whatever he wants with suspected terrorists because we are at war crap. We are not at war with anyone inside the US.

[Metta]

9. Happy karma, Bush justice dep't. You get to inherit the suffering you caused.

Maybe you'll wake up before you cause more suffering. Maybe.

[Maine-i-acs]

10. "Yes I know I was doing 75, officer. It was just a legal error. Buh-bye!"

[Xipe Totec]

11. Legal Errors - nice euphemism for crimes

[badgervan]

12. Look No Further....

... than cheney and addington. All the others were pawns: yoo, gonzo, all their liberty college grad aides.... they all must answer to crimes against our Constitution and Bill of Rights.