Obama Releases Secret Bush Memos

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

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If you thought the Bush years came awfully close to tyranny, then it turns out you were correct.

The Obama Justice Department on Monday released a long-secret legal document from a 2001 legal memo written about a month after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The details are chilling. It says:

The Bush administration claimed the military could search and seize terror suspects in the United States without warrants

Constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure would not apply to terror suspects in the U.S., as long as the president authorized the action

Within two weeks of Sept. 11, the Bush administration contemplated ways to use wiretaps without getting warrants

The government could put new restrictions on the press and speech, without spelling out what those might be, subordinating the First Amendment

In one of his first official acts, President Barack Obama also signed an order negating the memos’ claims until his administration could conduct a thorough review.

In a speech Monday, Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder said that too often in the past decade the fight against terrorism has been put in opposition to “our tradition of civil liberties.”

That “has done us more harm than good,” he declared. “I’ve often said that the test of a great nation is whether it will adhere to its core values not only when it is easy but when it is hard.”

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8 Responses to Obama Releases Secret Bush Memos

  1. DB says:

    the test of a great nation is whether it will adhere to its core values not only when it is easy but when it is hard.”

    I cannot top that one line.

  2. MacDaddy says:

    In opening these memos up to the public, Obama is doing the things. But Republicans are going to hate with even greater fierceness. Next to them fighting each other, I love this the most. Maybe Steele and Limbaugh will disagree as to whether the memos should be exposed or not.

  3. bradfrmphnx says:

    The Republicans are fractured.

    We always knew Bushy could care less about rights, especially when they encroached on his agenda.

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  5. Aunt Peg says:

    Obama said he was going to do this.

    Now that the papers are out, it is going to be impossible not to prosecute the war crimes and Constitutional violations of the past 8 years. There is no putting the Genie back in the bottle.

  6. libhomo says:

    Thanks to the ACLU for providing the legal pressure which made this happen.

  7. Personally I could not be happier. Bush should be prosecuted at the Hague for War Crimes. We don’t need no stinking Pelosi to investigate him. Let them cart his arse off to the Hague before an international tribunal.

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