Newly Released Bush-Era Legal Memos Are ‘Deeply Disturbing,’ ACLU Says

[Magda Hassan]

The American Civil Liberties Union called newly released Bush-era legal memos "deeply disturbing" Friday night, after obtaining the documents from the Department of Justice through an open records request.
The decade-old memos offer the fullest public account of the Bush administration's legal justification for the warrantless wiretapping of Americans, the Washington Post reported. The Justice Department released the documents to the ACLU Friday night.
"What these memos show is that nearly three years after President Bush authorized the warrantless wiretapping of Americans' e-mails and phone calls, government lawyers were still struggling to put the program on sound legal footing," Patrick Toomey, staff attorney for the ACLU, told the Post.
Former US President George W. Bush arrives to speak at a panel discussion Investing in Our Future' at the US-Africa Leaders Summit at the Kennedy Center August 6, 2014 in Washington, DC. (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

"Their conclusions are deeply disturbing," he added. "They suggest that the president's power to monitor the communications of Americans is virtually unlimited by the Constitution, or by Congress when it comes to foreign intelligence."

"Their conclusions are deeply disturbing."

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Memos authored by then-Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith, who headed President George W. Bush's legal counsel, contend the president has "inherent constitutional authority" to order the wiretapping.
"We conclude only that when the nation has been thrust into an armed conflict by a foreign attack on the United States and the president determines in his role as commander in chief . . . that it is essential for defense against a further foreign attack to use the [wiretapping] capabilities of the [National Security Agency] within the United States, he has inherent constitutional authority," a 108-page 2004 memo said.
According to the Post, Goldsmith also argued in the memos that the president has the ability to "provide specific authority … that overrides the limitations" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires a court order to legally wiretap an individual in the U.S.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/09/...aclu-says/

[Dawn Meredith]

This is the same man who called the Constitution a "G D piece of paper". And Obama has shown equal distain.

[David Guyatt]

This is the same man who called the Constitution a "G D piece of paper". And Obama has shown equal distain.

Just the sort then to become presidents and head their respective political parties.

And here was me thinking that it was a presidential duty to serve and protect the constitution, not undermine it.

[Drew Phipps]

"thrust into armed conflict" implies to me that the fighting is on US soil, or by necessity, nearby. Not a less-than-carefully-considered "war on bad guys de jure" conducted thousands of miles from home.

"foreign" attack implies to me a governmental type entity, as opposed to non-specific non-American actors.

9/11 was a mercilessly criminal and reprehensible act of mass murder conducted by people with no conscience and no concern for the welfare of the thousands of American victims. Unless, and until, we prove that it was a foreign government-sponsored activity, the "war powers" of the President should not be invoked. We should use all our resources to track down and bring to justice those responsible, wherever they might be found.

[David Guyatt]

Unless, and until, we prove that it was a foreign government-sponsored activity, the "war powers" of the President should not be invoked. We should use all our resources to track down and bring to justice those responsible, wherever they might be found.

Good luck with proving that Drew. It's going to be a tough thing to prove, I think.

Although, on the other hand, I suppose the US still has a fairly strong argument to invade Saudi Arabia which clearly represents as close as you're going to get to a foreign state sponsor - plus maybe Pakistan as a distant outsider. Strange that that hasn't happened though. Maybe "friends" can do things that enemies simply can't?

Otherwise, just stab your finger in the map and start a war in one of the most backward nations in the world, a million miles from the USA in a region a great many Americans had never even heard of before and which, coincidentally, had plans to build a gas pipeline through it that would export gas to western nations (via Pakistan of course) and, as a designer consequence, was intended to reduce western reliance on Russian gas exports. Odd that. You don't think Uncle had a long term geopolitical plan in place do you?

Afghanistan remains the very best opium growing and exporting nation in the world who's "product" also is destined for western nations. It accounts for three quarters of the world's annual illicit supply. Oddly enough, since the USA's democratic and peaceful involvement in Afghanistan since 2002, opium production has steadily been on the rise. Nowadays, more land is cultivated for poppy cultivation in Afghanistan than cocoa production in Latin America. And to think those nasty ol' Taliban actually banned opium back in the day, and almost brought to a halt a perfectly profitable global business opportunity that was estimated to be worth more than $ 4 billion as at 2008. And all this growth despite the US spending $7.5 billion on Afghanistan counter-narcotics (whoops!). There's tax dollar prudence for you. Spend twice as much and get less than half as much in return. Ain't capitalism wonderful. Meanwhile, that far off backward country remains the single largest producer of cannabis in the world too (hash-hish). These same sort of things happened in Indochina during the US war there too.

Times change, nations destined for democracy change too, but the constants of oil, gas, narcotics and guns never vary. And money laundering, obviously. Our trusty banks take care of that for us though. When they're not too busy setting up even more profitable scams. Like the securitisation of worthless real estate in the years prior to 2008. But at least they had the opportunity to test drive that scam by running the Savings and Loans scam back in 1980's when George "Poppy" Bush was the vice president. And a not too distant relative of his, actually his son Neil, gained personal experience of how the scam worked as one of the Board Directors of Silverado Holdings and was responsible responsible for losing a piddly $100 million of loan money that he lent without authorisation to two of his other business partners who didn't pay it back -- a mafia speciality conjuring trick btw -- now you see it, now you don't. It's been trousered. But then the Bush family had some very close friends who were also very close to the Mafia (see HERE)

For my money, all it would take to find those truly responsible for 9/11 would be to dig deep into the political and power structure of Washington, Texas and a large five sided building near Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. Not to mention another address in Virginia. Those would be the current whereabouts of some of the domestic state sponsors, I think - which I imagine is why they all need a war powers act to avoid personal arrest, prosecution and life sentences behind bars where big men who enjoy pumping iron would spend their evenings buggering them blind for the rest of their lives. For me it would be a fitting reward for the almost endless public service they have provided to their country. But I suppose I'm being vindictive...

Where are George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and chums hanging out these days?

I doubt that vaseline is on their urgent shopping lists these days.

It should be though...

[Drew Phipps]

Dawn says GWB is in Washington making a speech.

We definitely need more chocolate. So I guess invading Bolivia is right around the corner?

[Lauren Johnson]

David,

John Connally, who is on the list from The Mafia CIA and George Bush, is noted as having said (I believe, anyway): 'If the American people knew what was really going on, there would be a revolution.'

[David Guyatt]

David,

John Connally, who is on the list from The Mafia CIA and George Bush, is noted as having said (I believe, anyway): 'If the American people knew what was really going on, there would be a revolution.'

I've certainly heard that before Lauren, but am not sure of its origin (I thought it was from the mouth of Poppy Bush?). But I suspect it is de facto true, even if it's a sort of urban myth too. What governments do in the name of the people, have to be kept secret to stop citizen revolutions. Same thing here in Blighty, imho.

[Dawn Meredith]

Dawn says GWB is in Washington making a speech.

We definitely need more chocolate. So I guess invading Bolivia is right around the corner?

I did? I have no clue where the sob is.

[Albert Doyle]

The real context of this is there's good reason to believe 9-11 was a pre-planned false flag operation in line with the Plan For A New American Century which derived from a Nixon-era wish list item of invading the Middle East's oil producing nations. There's reason to believe 9-11 was conducted deliberately by extra-governmental forces overlapping national security agencies and existing with a separate agenda that doesn't preclude killing 3000 Americans in order to induce its plans. Since the killing of 3000 Americans dismisses any notion of protecting those same Americans one can safely conclude that the efforts to undermine the Constitution were based on a need to further the power and agenda of that extra-governmental force. The people are at war but not with those who the government would lead them to believe. I'm surprised the people gave up their Lincolnian common sense of fooling some of the people some of the time when they saw the obviously phony WMD claims and did nothing about it. Those claims were a deliberate war crime committed by the US government that went unpunished. You are looking at a monster here that won't be restrained by quaint ACLU protest.