Mukasey Distances Himself From a Memo on Searches

[maddezmom]

Source: NYT

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey tried Thursday to distance himself from a Justice Department memorandum written weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks that suggested the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches did not apply to the military when it operated on American soil.

“The Fourth Amendment applies across the board, whether we’re in wartime or peacetime,” Mr. Mukasey told the Senate Appropriations Committee when asked about the October 2001 memorandum, which is still classified.

Still, the attorney general did not repudiate the entire document. He also did not say if its findings had been formally withdrawn or when it might be turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has requested a copy.

The memorandum’s existence was revealed last week when the Bush administration released a copy of a separate Justice Department document from 2003 that referred to the October 2001 memorandum in a footnote.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/washington/11justice.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

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Constitutional Exception Not Valid, Mukasey Says

Friday, April 11, 2008; Page A06

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey told senators yesterday that a 2001 Justice Department memo insisting that Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable searches did not cover military activities within the United States is "not in force."

Under sharp questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) at an Appropriations Committee hearing, Mukasey said that the "Fourth Amendment applies across the board, regardless of whether we're in wartime or in peacetime," even though the memo by the department's Office of Legal Counsel had concluded otherwise.

Lawmakers pressed Mukasey to publish the unclassified document after department spokesmen said it was being withheld under a doctrine of attorney-client confidentiality. Members of the House and Senate have also sought other controversial memos issued by the OLC that underpinned the administration's counterterrorism efforts.

While promising the release of documents will be a "priority" this year, Mukasey cautioned members of the Appropriations Committee that other factors are at play.

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/10/AR2008041003664.html?hpid=sec-politics


In a hearing yesterday, Attorney General Mike Mukasey said the Fourth Amendment “applies across the board, regardless of whether we’re in wartime or in peacetime,” even though the memo by John Yoo, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel, had concluded otherwise. Mukasey, however, refused to say whether that memo was withdrawn.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/11/thinkfast-april-11-2008/

[shraby]

1. Time to impeach Mukasey. He works

for the United States, not Bushco.

[Barrett808]

2. big k & r

[Winterblues]

3. But the ban on torture does not apply across the board

If we classify someone as something different than a POW we are free to torture to our heart's content...It is all a matter of wording and not morality....