Torture memo puts focus on Nevada judge

[Tellurian]

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A legal memo advising the White House that torturing al-Qaida captives "may be justified" in the war on terror has focused attention on Jay Bybee, a Nevadan who signed the document as a top Justice Department adviser in 2002.

Bybee, a former professor at the UNLV Boyd School of Law, headed a team that provided legal guidance to the Bush administration on a range of issues, including its course in pursuing terrorists and those with potential knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

An authority on constitutional and administrative law, Bybee, 50, returned to Las Vegas last year as a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He was confirmed by the Senate on a 74-19 vote in March 2003.


Bybee's signature on a controversial 50-page memo was reported on Tuesday after being obtained by The Washington Post. Bybee was assistant attorney general and chief of the Office of Legal Counsel.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2004/jun/10/061010210.html

...a Bush 03' appointee..

[Joanne98]

1. A christian judge no doubt.

At least this is one appointee we can get rid of.

[Fridays Child]

4. Worse--Mormon.

[Eloriel]

12. Insight into their fascist minds --

The F Scale
(Measures one's authoritarian personality profile, which makes one receptive to fascism, based on research done after WW2)
http://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm

[stevedeshazer]

14. OMG

I'm a Whining Rotter!

[supernova]

18. I'm A Liberal Airhead!

I'm so proud! :D

[notadmblnd]

16. send him off to his own planet to make his own laws.

nt

[porkrind]

22. exactly right.

:sigh:

[Tellurian]

2. chuckle...

"Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee challenged Attorney General John Ashcroft on the issue Tuesday, but he refused to release the policy memo, describing it as confidential advice to President Bush."

Asscroft guilty of Obstruction of Justice?

Arbitrarily deciding what is advise and/or what is evidence?

[Kurt Remarque]

3. blame my lawyer scapegoat? eom

[teryang]

5. Maybe someone "told him to write it?"

This is a disgrace. He should be impeached.

[Dover]

6. Las Vegas judge? Must have been one of those quicky legal counselors.

Wouldn't bet on this judgement lasting...

[SpiralHawk]

7. Bye Bye ByBee

Just had to say that -- for the good of the nation.

[Just Me]

8. In exchange for a favorable memo, he gets a judicial appointment.

He was a conspirator to commit war crimes.

Are there not also crimes associated with securing political favors for doing illegal acts?

[UpInArms]

9. these "lawyers for *Co" have been working non-stop

to subvert the Constitution

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/3938859.htm?1c

Posted on Mon, Aug. 26, 2002

WASHINGTON - Lawyers for President Bush have concluded that he can launch an attack on Iraq without new approval from Congress, in part because they say that permission remains in force from the 1991 resolution giving Bush's father authority to wage war in the Persian Gulf, according to administration officials.

...more...

[seemslikeadream]

10. Jay Bybee --- boy does that ring a bell

going googling I'll be back!

[seemslikeadream]

11. War is Golden for the Bush Administration - Jay Bybee

The Italian bank BNL was one of BCCI's main tentacles. BNL's Atlanta branch was the primary funnel used by the first Bush Administration to send millions of secret dollars to Saddam for arms purchases, including deadly chemicals and other WMD materials supplied by the Chilean arms dealer Cardoen and various politically-connected operators in the United States like, weapons merchant Matrix Churchill. (As always with the Busha Nostra, geopolitics--in this case, helping Saddam wage aggressive war against Iran--and crony profits go hand in hand. Once the war was over and Iran was left a shattered hulk, with millions dead and displaced, the useful idiot Saddam was expendable, swiftly morphing from good buddy into budding Hitler.)

As soon as the BNL case broke, President Bush I moved to throttle the investigation. He appointed lawyers from both Cardoen and Matrix to top Justice Department posts--where they supervised the officials investigating their old companies. Meanwhile, White House aides applied heavy pressure on other prosecutors to restrict the range of the probe--especially the fact that Bush cabinet officials Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger had served as consultants for BNL during their pre-White House days as spear-carriers for yet another secretive international front that profits from war, weapons, etc., etc.: Kissinger Associates.

Which brings us to the judicial appointment. One of the White House aides who unlawfully intervened in the BNL prosecution was a certain factotum named Jay S. ByBee. Last week, said factotum was nominated by the current warmer of the Oval Office seat, George W. Bush, to a place on the federal appeals court--a lifetime sinecure of perks and power. Well done, thou good and faithful servant!

And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

more
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html

[stickdog]

17. Damn. Well, I guess we'll have to throw out the Bybee with Bath water!

[Kool Kitty]

19. Thank you for the best laugh I had today!!!

:yourock:

[Oilwellian]

20. Ohhhhhh!

That was too good. :D

[salin]

23. interesting find - and good memory.

[Edmond Dantes]

13. Bybee is admitted to the practice of law in DC and NV

Maybe we should look at the code of legal ethics for each of those two jurisdictions and file ethics complaints against him. I'd love to see him disbarred.

http://www.usdoj.gov/olp/bybeeresume.htm

[Tellurian]

15. part of the Christian Coalition?

ths should be reason enough, not to appoint anymore Right Wing judges.

[struggle4progress]

21. kick

:kick:

[LiberalFighter]

24. His biography

Jay S Bybee

Jay S. Bybee currently serves as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. He graduated Magna Cum Laude and with Highest Honors from Brigham Young University and earned his J.D., Cum Laude, from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, where he was on the editorial board of the BYU Law Review.

Following graduation, Mr. Bybee served as law clerk to the Honorable Donald Russell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In 1981, he became an associate in the Washington, DC office of Sidley & Austin. In 1984, he joined the Department of Justice, working first in the Office of Legal Policy and then on the Appellate Staff of the Civil Division. In the Civil Division, Mr. Bybee prepared briefs and presented oral arguments in the U.S. Courts of Appeals and drafted Supreme Court briefs. Mr. Bybee served at the White House from 1989-91 as Associate Counsel to the President.

In 1991, he joined the faculty of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University as Assistant Professor of Law. He became Professor of Law in 1998. In 1999, Mr. Bybee joined the founding faculty of the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. At both LSU and UNLV, he taught constitutional law, administrative law, and civil procedure. His scholarly interests have been primarily in the areas of constitutional and administrative law. He has published articles in numerous journals, including The Yale Law Journal, Vanderbilt Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, The George Washington University Law Review, and Tulane Law Review. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to his current position in 2001.

[LiberalFighter]

25. Facts about this corrupt judge

Bybee has written extensively about his view that Congress and even American voters have too much power to regulate actions by the states. Bybee believes that the direct election of US Senators by voters in each state provided for by the 17th amendment to the Constitution has worked against federalism by making Senators responsible to the voters rather than to state legislatures. If Bybee’s views on federalism became law, the federal government would lack the power to enforce a right to privacy that is the bedrock of reproductive rights and the right to abortion.

Bybee has asserted that Congress has no power to enforce the First Amendment’s guarantees, including freedom of religion, through legislation. He has written that the First Amendment does not protect individuals’ free exercise of religion but only bars Congress from interfering with the states’ regulation of religion. Even if the First Amendment does apply to states’ actions, he believes that only the Supreme Court can act to protect First Amendment rights against state-level violations.

Based on his novel reading of an obscure clause in the Constitution, Bybee believes that many federal criminal statutes are unconstitutional because, he argues, Congress has only very limited power to enact criminal laws. He concludes therefore that the Violence Against Women Act is unconstitutional on grounds much broader that those invoked by the Supreme Court when it ruled parts of that law unenforceable. His logic, if followed, would invalidate most gun laws, drug laws, and much commercial law, among other statutes.

Bybee has also argued that conditions on state action tied to federal aid are unconstitutional because they are coercive, a view that would invalidate dozens of congressional mandates protecting civil rights. He argues that Bob Jones University should not have had to give up its tax-exempt status because of its discriminatory policies, calling the government’s policy in that case "capricious."

Source: Why does NCJW oppose Bybee's nomination?

[seemslikeadream]

26. Yes he was very helpful to the BFEE

Which brings us to the judicial appointment. One of the White House aides who unlawfully intervened in the BNL prosecution was a certain factotum named Jay S. ByBee.

[Edmond Dantes]

27. Commentary: Tout Torture, Get Promoted (LA Times)

TOUT TORTURE, GET PROMOTED
Defending cruelty can be a career booster in Bush's administration.
By Robert Scheer

What a revelation to learn that the Justice Department lawyer who wrote the infamous memo in effect defending torture is now a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge.

<snip>

On Sunday, the Washington Post published on its website an internal White House memo from Aug. 1, 2002, signed by then-Assistant Atty. Gen. Jay S. Bybee, which argued darkly that torturing Al Qaeda captives "may be justified" and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" conducted under President Bush. The memo then continued for 50 pages to make the case for the use of torture.

Was it as a reward for such bold legal thinking that only months later Bybee was appointed to one of the top judicial benches in the country?

<snip>

It's hard to shake the notion that his memo to Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales established Bybee's hard-line credentials for an administration that has no use for moderation in any form.

<snip>

For Bybee and his ideologue cohorts, however, the American president is now more akin to a king, and legal or moral restraints are simply problems that can be overcome later, if anybody bothers to question the tactics: "Finally, even if an interrogation method might violate Section 2340A , necessity or self-defense could provide justification that would eliminate any criminal liability."

In fact, though, this was an argument of last resort for Bybee, whose definition of torture "covers only extreme acts … where the pain is physical, it must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure…. Because the acts inflicting torture are extreme, there is significant range of acts that, though they might constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, fail to rise to the level of torture."

Bybee's generous standard should bring comfort to the totalitarian governments that find the brutal treatment of prisoners a handy tool in retaining power or fighting wars.

<snip>

When confronted by the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee with the content of Bybee's torture defense, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft responded that the memo did not guide the administration. Yet, the Bybee memo was clearly the basis for the working group report on detainee interrogations presented to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld a year later. And if Bybee's work was rejected as reprehensible, why was he rewarded — with Ashcroft's deepest blessings — with a lifetime appointment on the judicial bench only one level below the Supreme Court?

<snip>

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-scheer15jun15,1,4726979.story

I feel sick inside....