Larisa Alexandrovna at Huffington Post: "Oh. My. God. 4th Amend. Doesn't Apply To Military In U.S.?"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.atlargely.com/2008/04/oh-my-god.html

Oh. My. God!!!!

Another presser from ACLU... you need to sit down and have a drink for this one (emphasis mine):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/fourth-amendment-does-not_b_94763.html

Larisa Alexandrovna

Fourth Amendment Does Not Apply To Military Operations Within U.S.?
Posted April 2, 2008 | 07:16 PM (EST)

Welcome to the Monkey House. I will be your tour guide for the duration of this particular shocker. The ACLU issued the following presser this evening (a stiff drink will be needed before you delve into this):

Bush Administration Memo Says Fourth Amendment Does Not Apply To Military Operations Within U.S.
ACLU Calls For Immediate Release Of Withheld Legal Memo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


April 2, 2008


CONTACT: James Freedland, [phone] or [phone]; [e-mail]


NEW YORK - A newly disclosed secret memo authored by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in March 2003 that asserts President Bush has unlimited power to order brutal interrogations of detainees also reveals a radical interpretation of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure. The memo, declassified yesterday as the result of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, cites a still-secret DOJ memo from 2001 that found that the "Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations."
The October 2001 memo was almost certainly meant to provide a legal basis for the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, which President Bush launched the same month the memo was issued. As a component of the Department of Defense, the NSA is a military agency.

"The recent disclosures underscore the Bush administration's extraordinarily sweeping conception of executive power," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The administration's lawyers believe the president should be permitted to violate statutory law, to violate international treaties, and even to violate the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S. They believe that the president should be above the law."

The Bush administration has never argued publicly that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to military operations within the nation's borders. The memo released yesterday publicizes this argument for the first time.

The ACLU has been aware of the Justice Department's October 2001 memo since last year, but until now, its contents were unknown. The Justice Department informed the ACLU of the memo's existence as a result of a FOIA lawsuit seeking information concerning the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. The Justice Department acknowledged the existence of "a 37-page memorandum, dated October 23, 2001, from a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in OLC, and a Special Counsel, OLC, to the Counsel to the President, prepared in response to a request from the White House for OLC's views concerning the legality of potential responses to terrorist activity." Until now, however, almost nothing was known about the memo's contents - except that it was related to a request for information about the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. The ACLU has challenged the withholding of the October 2001 memo and the issue is pending before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The memo released to the ACLU yesterday cites the October 2001 memo but takes its argument even further. Relying on the earlier memo, the March 2003 memo argues that the president has authority as Commander-in-Chief to bypass not only the Fourth Amendment but the central due process guarantee of the Fifth Amendment as well.

"This memo makes a mockery of the Constitution and the rule of law," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "That it was issued by the Justice Department, whose job it is to uphold the law, makes it even more unconscionable."

- snip -

The 2003 Department of Justice memo can be found online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/34745res20030314.html

Documents relating to the ACLU's NSA FOIA lawsuit are available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/30022res20060207.html

To date, more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit related the abuse of prisoner in U.S. custody abroad. These documents are available online at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia"

If I am reading this correctly, it seems to me that this administration has justified its crimes by NOT suspending the state of emergency that went up on September 11, 2001. They are using emergency powers if you look at the whole of the spying, military actions inside the US, etc. I would wager that if asked, this administration will admit that we have been in a state of emergency for their tenure in office. Congress? Was the state of emergency lifted, yes or no?

Oh, just one more question: what are "military operations inside the U.S" actually and how often have these "operations" been carried out? Anyone? Bueller? Congress? Impeachment Table? Anyone?

[Bonobo]

1. 3 words: "Off. The. Table."

[SharonAnn]

9. 5 Words: "I was just following orders." If the commander in chief orders it, then ....

[puebloknot]

25. Shades of Nazi Germany! What have we become? nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Impeachment???? You've got to be kidding me

This CONGRESS has taken it off the damn table...

In the process they have destroyed the Constitution TOGETHER with Bush.

[fascisthunter]

3. Congress is Now Complicit

and Bush knows. There are some stupid people in our government being jerked around by many sociopaths.

[aquart]

11. "Now"?

[fascisthunter]

13. In General...

you know what I mean

[aquart]

17. Yeah, but it's been so shamefully ongoing.

[Wizard777]

43. We got nothing from the wave of democrats we sent to Washington.

Now I think we should send a wave Republicans to Washington. Because you can trust a Republican to impeach and jail a democrat just for farting. Just tell teh Congressional Democrats. You had your chance and got your way. Bush and Cheney will not be going to jail. BUT YOU ARE! The only thing that could be more corrupt than what Bush and Cheney have done. Is letting them get away with it. So now we're gonna see how you like it. We The People are going sit around twitling our thumbs while the Republicans lock you up and throw away the key. :nopity:

[fascisthunter]

4. I'm Really Sick of Reading about the Crimes Committed by This Administration

I want impeachment and imprisonment and will never be satisfied with this crap until I see the two. Anyone willing to go along with this crap doesn't deserve to be an American... then again, maybe they do, and I don't. Fucking ship of tools.

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. No shit. It's gotten beyond unbearable. I am curious what April 16 will bring when...

the vote for impeachment comes up in the New Hampshire state legisture. Not that it will ultimately make any difference invoking the Jefferson rule at this point in time.

What sort of surreal painting am I a brush stroke in anyway?

[kestrel91316]

15. I, for one, won't even be satisfied by impeachment and imprisonment.........

[axollot]

5. And Darth Cheney's "So" coment is all the more poigant is it not? n/t

[angrycarpenter]

10. How do you like my sig line?

Made it myself.

[axollot]

16. LOL! n/t

[PSPS]

6. The lie: "wiretapping program, which President Bush launched the same month the memo was issued"

The October 2001 memo was almost certainly meant to provide a legal basis for the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, which President Bush launched the same month the memo was issued.

Um, no. Bush began this particular criminal behavior in February 2001.

[jimshoes]

7. Fuck me. I don't really know what their game plan

is unless it is the complete overthrow of the United States into a fascist dictatorship. They seem to be hellbent on achieving that status before they get either indicted or voted out of office. And at this point I am not even certain about them getting voted out of office, merely a continuation with a hand picked sock puppet a.k.a. john mcSame and of course a new office created for the new High Chancellor, deadeye dick cheney so he can continue to run things from his secret bunker.

[bluesmail]

14. would you ever willingly give up this enormous power grab? If you were them and had no conscience?

if there was a legal way around it? I've been scared, not only for me but for the younger generation that will have to endure this fascism.

[KatyaR]

23. More and more I think that they plan to suspend elections in the fall.

It's the perfect setup. They already have the camps to detain dissenters, what more do they need? Although I wonder how well it would work seeing as how most of the National Guard is overseas.

[unapatriciated]

36. They don't need the Guard...

They have Blackwater.

[WinkyDink]

45. Um,,,yes. IT IS "complete overthrow of the United States into a fascist dictatorship."

SERIOUSLY. TOTALLY.

Bush IS his GRANDFATHER'S GRANDSON.

[JDPriestly]

12. It's important to keep the text in mind.

Here is the text of the Fourth Amendment

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Article II and some relevant portions of Section 8, which enumerates the powers of Congress:

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

It's up to Congress to make the rules for regulation of military courts.

I believe that the Fourth Amendment routinely applies in Military Courts.

For those who doubt this, here are a couple of secondary sources that describe the application of the 4th Amendment in Military Courts.

http://fourthamendment.com/blog/index.php?blog=1&m=20080226

http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2007/06/fourth-amendment-privacy-and-operating.html

[Bonobo]

18. I just called. Staffer asked me to email links giving impeachment rationale. PLEASE SEND!!!

<[e-mail]>

I sent them this:

Bush Administration Memo Says Fourth Amendment Does Not Apply To Military Operations Within U.S.

ACLU Calls For Immediate Release Of Withheld Legal Memo
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 2, 2008

CONTACT: James Freedland, [phone] or [phone]; [e-mail]

NEW YORK - A newly disclosed secret memo authored by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in March 2003 that asserts President Bush has unlimited power to order brutal interrogations of detainees also reveals a radical interpretation of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure. The memo, declassified yesterday as the result of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, cites a still-secret DOJ memo from 2001 that found that the "Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations."

The October 2001 memo was almost certainly meant to provide a legal basis for the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, which President Bush launched the same month the memo was issued. As a component of the Department of Defense, the NSA is a military agency.

"The recent disclosures underscore the Bush administration's extraordinarily sweeping conception of executive power," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The administration's lawyers believe the president should be permitted to violate statutory law, to violate international treaties, and even to violate the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S. They believe that the president should be above the law."

The Bush administration has never argued publicly that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to military operations within the nation's borders. The memo released yesterday publicizes this argument for the first time.

The ACLU has been aware of the Justice Department's October 2001 memo since last year, but until now, its contents were unknown. The Justice Department informed the ACLU of the memo's existence as a result of a FOIA lawsuit seeking information concerning the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. The Justice Department acknowledged the existence of "a 37-page memorandum, dated October 23, 2001, from a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in OLC, and a Special Counsel, OLC, to the Counsel to the President, prepared in response to a request from the White House for OLC's views concerning the legality of potential responses to terrorist activity." Until now, however, almost nothing was known about the memo's contents - except that it was related to a request for information about the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. The ACLU has challenged the withholding of the October 2001 memo and the issue is pending before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.


The memo released to the ACLU yesterday cites the October 2001 memo but takes its argument even further. Relying on the earlier memo, the March 2003 memo argues that the president has authority as Commander-in-Chief to bypass not only the Fourth Amendment but the central due process guarantee of the Fifth Amendment as well.

"This memo makes a mockery of the Constitution and the rule of law," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "That it was issued by the Justice Department, whose job it is to uphold the law, makes it even more unconscionable."

The March 2003 memo was declassified in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and other organizations in June 2004 to enforce Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad. The ACLU has been fighting for the release of the March 2003 Yoo memo since filing the lawsuit. A few weeks ago, after the court ordered additional briefing on whether the Defense Department could continue to withhold the memo, the government reluctantly agreed to conduct a declassification review by March 31. The Defense Department released this memo after conducting the review.

The 2003 Department of Justice memo can be found online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/34745res20030314.html

Documents relating to the ACLU's NSA FOIA lawsuit are available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/30022res20060207.html

To date, more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit related the abuse of prisoner in U.S. custody abroad. These documents are available online at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia"

[moodforaday]

19. Continuity of Government

was instituted on 9-11 and never rescinded. Whatever emergency powers it enables, they remain in force.

Check out this speech by Peter Dale Scott:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2978244787099383010

or this recent article in Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/scott03312008.html

[mike_c]

20. outrage fatigue....

A year ago this report would have sent me into spasms of outrage. Now I'm just skaking my head, wishing this national nightmare was over.

[bonito]

27. Heh, good term, we know what comfortably numb means

:-(

[librechik]

21. left unspoken: they think we have been under martial law since 9/11

why don't we?

[bonito]

28. Undeclared martial law

Serve me alligator and call it chicken I probably won't know the difference depending how its done.

[walldude]

22. I say we ignore this

and go back to GDP and spit on each other...








Thats :sarcasm: for the impaired.

[Voice for Peace]

24. hangon, there's somebody at my door.... k &

[suffragette]

26. They have been trying to eradicate the 4th amendment ever

since they stole the 1st election.

Damn them to hell.
:grr:

[WinkyDink]

46. Not just the 4th. Not just the Amendments.

[suffragette]

48. You're right

Not just the 4th Amendment. And nullify might have been a better term for me to use with regard to that one. They seem to think it will just go away if they ignore it long enough.

[dmr]

29. Well, let's just have a military coup and crown him King

Laws are there to protect us all - to keep that crownship from happening.

If there are no laws, then there is no free America.

Once someone, or some group, has led a military coup, they won't want to relinquish that power.

[jgraz]

30. At this point, nothing surprises me

Except that NO Democrats are standing up and calling for impeachment. I get that Pelosi and Reid are a total loss. But isn't there ONE DEMOCRAT who will stand up and call for the impeachment of these criminals???

Just disgusting.

[KoKo]

37. Dennis Kucinich has....but Pelosi/Hoyer won't carry through and

take the collar off Conyers. It's all about this election, ya know... :-(

[Gonnuts]

31. How many times do you need to get hit up-side the head ...

with a 2X4 before it dawns on you that they didn't put all these things in place not to use them?

It's over folks - all this bullshit bantering when we should of been tearing fucking bricks out of the White House is going to come back to haunt you real soon.

The people in Russia have 100-times the balls the people of this fucking country has - they were actually out protesting bush. This past 5th year anniversary of the war had a pathetic turn-out, pathetic - and that's what everyone of you fucking ass-wipes are - pathetic. YES - I'm blaming you!

Oh, it's congress, it's this or it's that - in the mean time these cretins keep pissing on our legs and tell us it's raining and we bitch and moan and do everything but get in their God-damn faces and tell them where they can stick their fucking "free-fucking-speech zones" - FUCK YOU!!!

The 5th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad is this week - you know "Mission Fucking Accomplish" - end the of this fucking illegal fucking war! How do you plan on spending it? Bitching and moaning? Maybe calling some schmuck at your fucking representatives office (again)? Why don't you just masturbate into a God-damn melon for all the fucking good it will do!

Why not do something creative - STRIKE! Physically go to your reps office - sit in their office till they ACT! If they won't let you see them sit in the halls till they have to carry you out! The time is long past for massive civil disobedience! They have those fucking rules - let's put them to the test! They want to use the military against us? Let's see how ready soldiers are to go against their own people after being used and abused by this fucking government. Bastille Day anyone? They're going to use them anyway, so why not do it in our time? Why should we wait for them to choose the time to slam the hammer down? We do that it will be too late ... it may already be thanks to you fucking, ass-wipe lazy cowards!

[Kaleko]

32. Have any other news sources picked up da bomb yet?

Suggested headline -

US In A State Of Undeclared Martial Law since 2001

Congress Complicit

[Hissyspit]

33. Olbermann. Other than that, I've seen nada.

Pretty despicable, isn't it?

[Kaleko]

34. Frightening.

A seemingly endless series of shocks to the inbuilt human decency system. Those who are awake most likely suffer a form of PTSD by now.

[KoKo]

38. K&R....but, my "outrage meter" went over the mark after Election '06

as I began to understand that Congress would not change anything...hold anyone accountable or do anything but hold hearings and bloviate.

Thanks, though for the post. It's important that this is all documented.

Anyone see any coverage of the Yoo Memo, part of which was released this week? So far, I haven't seen cables talk about that piece of fascist crap. Only saw it reported on Josh Marshall's TPM.

On Edit: I just caught your post of KO on the Yoo Torture Memo, here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x114260

I don't watch KO because of all the "entertainment" he does...so I'll have to look for the You Tubes from now on. That was an incredible interview with Jonathan Turley about it. I wonder if there will be follow up.

[BreweryYardRat]

35. You know, if they're going to try and continue this shit after being exposed...

Everyone on our side of the political line ought to be able to get asylum in Europe.

[KoKo]

39. lol's....you make a good point. Refugees from Fascist America.

Leave America to them and let the rest of us get the hell out.

[Joanne98]

40. OMG!

[Time for change]

41. Jesus Christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to our military, I suppose that must mean that none of the Constitution applies to the military (including the 3rd amendment, which prohibits the military from using private homes to quarter their troops.) So, tell me if I'm mistaken about this, but that must be tantamount to declaring that we are a military dictatorship.

Hmmmm. If that's not grounds for impeachment, then what would be? Maybe if Bush/Cheney attempts to dissolve Congress or cancel the 2008 elections Congress will put up some objection.

[Supersedeas]

42. How long will Nancy have to study this?

[Vyan]

44. My First Thoughts

when Rachel Maddow brought this up Friday on Olbermann was Posse Commitatus!!!

Vyan

[WinkyDink]

47. FOREST for the trees: As CiC, THEREFORE, BUSH is NOT SUBJECT to the CONSTITUTION.

THAT is THE method to their "military isn't subject to" madness.

They are playing for checkmate.