Thin Black Line
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Imagine the next anti-2nd amendment president with this kind of "broad power":
http://www.newsobserver.com/nation_world/story/1024446.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/nation_world/story/1024446.html
Apr 04, 2008
Secret memos assert broad powers
Jettisoning Fourth Amendment
Dan Eggen and Josh White, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - 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 should al-Qaida conduct further attacks, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Administration officials declined to detail what domestic military operations were being contemplated at the time, and the legal status of the secret memo is now unclear. Although the memo has not been formally withdrawn, the Justice Department on Thursday repudiated the idea that there are no constitutional limits to military searches and seizures in a time of war, saying it depends on "the particular context and circumstances of the search," according to a statement.
The Fourth Amendment assertion is one of several far-reaching legal arguments revealed by the disclosure Tuesday of a 2003 Justice Department memo that authorized harsh military interrogations. In its footnotes, asides and central text, that 81-page memo asserted nearly unlimited presidential powers during a time of war, although the Justice Department later said the military should not rely on its reasoning.
The document disclosed, for example, that the administration's top lawyers had declared that the president has unfettered power to seize oceangoing ships as commander in chief; that Congress has no ability to pass legislation governing the interrogations of enemy combatants; and that federal laws prohibiting assault and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaida captives.
How far can it go?
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."
These bold assertions surprised many experts, including career officials and Bush appointees at the Justice and Defense departments, who said the previously secret opinions are overly broad and improperly granted vast powers to the president without adequate internal debate or judicial oversight.
No court has ever ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the military, said Jameel Jaffer, national security director at the American Civil Liberties Union. "In general, the government can't send an FBI agent to search your home or listen to your phone calls without a warrant, and it can't send a soldier to do it either," Jaffer said. "The applicability of the Fourth Amendment doesn't turn on what kind of uniform the government agent is wearing."
The memo was made public Tuesday in response to an ACLU lawsuit and requests from Congress; the Fourth Amendment issue was first noted by the Associated Press.
Attorneys for soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said they should have received copies of the memo as part of the legal discovery process, and argued that it shows that the highest levels of government condoned activities that later were practiced in U.S. detention facilities abroad.