Bush Legal Memos released

Thanks Parados...reading now.

God to see such stuff being released.

It's just mindboggling what scope of power the President would enjoy, according to this interpretation of presidential authority. I wonder whether conservatives would agree with the ideas put forward in those memos if the President in question would be Obama rather than Bush.

The power the President would have (or had, according to the memos) included

- the authority to use the nation’s military within the United States to combat terrorism suspects
- the authority to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants
- the authority to unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties
- the authority to ignore any guidance from Congress in dealing with detainees suspected of terrorism
- the authority to abolish First Amendment speech and press rights

The memos also stated that Congress lacked any power to limit a president’s authority to transfer detainees to other countries, and that Congress had no right to intervene in the president’s determination of the treatment of detainees.

The President could, therefore, use the military to carry out "raids on terrorist cells" within the United States. The President could seize property and use deadly force against American citizens. The Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches would not apply, and neither would the ban on military in domestic law enforcement operations.

Relevant video clip (couldn't find it on youtube to post the actual clip here, so here's just the link):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/29473443#29473443

Huffington Post has the actual memos if you want to read them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/02/secret-bush-memos-release_n_171221.html