Congressional report on Domestic [warrantless] wiretapping

The Congressional investigation's report released yesterday had some interesting things to say about the Bush Administration's domestic surveillance program.

To summarize:

1. The Congressional Probe doesn't question, nor does it criticize, the objectives and intentions of the program launched in 2001, since its aim was to stop terrorism.
2. The investigators did, however, conclude that the legal basis for doing the program was "factually flawed" and that relying on one attorney, the now infamous John Yoo, to provide the legal framework was extremely inappropriate for all parties involved.
The White House should not have relied upon one attorney in the Department of Justice. John Yoo was also well out of line to provide it, because he circumvented his bosses, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

"The lack of oversight and review of Yoo's work ... contributed to a legal analysis of the [program] that at a minimum was factually flawed," it says.

Since then, the Justice Department has repudiated all of John Yoo's legal opinions on this and others: the John Yoo Memos, in which he gave [flawed] legal rationale for the US Executive Branch to overturn much of the Bill of Rights, citizen or not, in search of terrorism.

The report notes that several members of Congress -- including then-House Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Nancy Pelosi -- were briefed on the program on October 25, 2001, and a total of 17 times before the program became public in 2005.
The document repeats the public assertion by former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden that no member of Congress had urged that the program be stopped.

Source

John Yoo should be disbarred. He circumvented Dept. of Justice protocols, and his legal memos were all, at best, "extremely flawed." Also, I have to ask: Why did the White House depend solely on the opinion of one immigrant lawyer on issues so important as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

1942 = 2003

In 1942, on February 19th, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which declared that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps. Over 110,000 Japanese immigrants and their US Citizen children were put in housing facilities called "War Relocation Camps" in response to Japan attacking the US at Pearl Harbor. 62% were American Citizens.

Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526 and 2527 were issued designating Japanese, German and Italian nationals as enemy aliens.

In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion orders.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover opposed the internment of Japanese Americans. Refuting General DeWitt's reports of disloyalty on the part of Japanese Americans, Hoover sent a memo to Attorney General Francis Biddle in which he wrote about Japanese American disloyalty, "Every complaint in this regard has been investigated, but in no case has any information been obtained which would substantiate the allegation."

Ignoring this, Roosevelt used "military necessity" as justification, because of the threat that Japanese spies could be present and no one would know because they could blend in with those of Japanese descent.

Those in support of this policy argued that nothing like Pearl Harbor happened again. The Japanese were not able to attack any US targets afterwards, and thus these policies "kept America safe" from the Japanese threat.

Years later, in 1988, Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."

In 2003, President George W. Bush, with the help of legal memorandum drafted by John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, assistant attorney general and legal counsel to George W. Bush, authorized the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspects and "enemy combatants." Other memos authorized the President to disregard much of the US Constitution and its amendments in his "war on terror" after terrorists attacked New York City and blew up the World Trade Center. These memos even authorized the suspension of civil liberties, including warrants, search and seizure, wiretaps, free speech, habeas corpus, the right to a trial, cruel and unusual punishment, and others, for US Citizens if suspected of terrorism.

On November 13, 2001, President Bush issued a Presidential Military Order: "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism."

In 2006, Congress upheld that the President could deny habeas corpus to those held as suspects of terrorism, under the Military Commissions Act.

In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush, that the Military Commissions Act could not remove the right for Guantanamo captives to access the US Federal Court system.

Supporters of Bush, the John Yoo/Bybee memos, and the policy of waterboarding, argue that military necessity is justification enough to violate the human rights of prisoners accused or suspected of terrorism. They argue that nothing like 9/11 has happened since, and that these policies "kept America safe" from the terrorist threat.

In 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order shutting down Guantanamo Bay and granting detainees access to the Justice system. Among other words, this was lauded as progress to reverse government policies based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."