Another bizarre Woo memo: Administration Asserted a Terror Exception on Search and Seizure

[laststeamtrain]

Administration Asserted a Terror Exception on Search and Seizure

By Dan Eggen and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 4, 2008; A04

The Justice Department concluded in October 2001 that military operations combating terrorism inside the United States are not limited by Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, in one of several secret memos containing new and controversial assertions of presidential power.

The memo, sent on Oct. 23, 2001, to the Defense Department and the White House by the Office of Legal Counsel, focused on the rules governing any deployment of U.S. forces inside the country "in the event of further large-scale terrorist activities" by al-Qaeda, a Justice Department official said yesterday.

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One section discussed to what extent the president might be allowed to legally maim a prisoner, such as through the use of a "scalding, corrosive, or caustic substance." A footnote argued that Fifth Amendment guarantees of due-process rights "do not address actions the Executive takes in conducting a military campaign against the Nation's enemies."

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The memo was written by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who also wrote or co-wrote many of the key legal opinions that asserted an expansive view of presidential power in the Bush administration's early years. Now a California law professor, Yoo has defended his work as a "near boilerplate" defense of presidential prerogatives and said subsequent criticism has been motivated by politics.

Two memos written or drafted by Yoo, including the 2003 memo released this week, have been formally withdrawn by the Justice Department. However, the October 2001 memo arguing for unregulated military searches on U.S. soil has not been formally withdrawn and remains a secret but unclassified document, according to Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040304136.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
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"the president might be allowed to legally maim a prisoner, such as through the use of a "scalding, corrosive, or caustic substance." "---Yikes!!!

What is wrong with these people? Are they insane?

[aquart]

1. John Woo needs to be on Post Office wanted posters.

[laststeamtrain]

2. Yeah he should. But, instead, he's on the payroll at UC-Berkeley! It's nuts. n/t