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Show Us the MemosWe're full of suggestions for President-elect Obama. Today, we have another one. Last week's New York Times suggested the Obama administration could review the Bush administration's use of the state secrets privilege to shield the National Security Agency from legal review of its very unlawful warrantless wiretapping program. Today Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project, suggested a second way Bush administration activities regarding the NSA's spy program can be reviewed: release the Justice Department memos that provided the legal basis for all this unlawful activity. After all, as Jameel writes, "The memos are being withheld simply because their analysis will not survive scrutiny. Releasing them would be a good way for the new administration to signal a renewed commitment to the rule of law." We've seen what kind of havoc these legal memos have wreaked when it comes to torture. (Paging John Yoo…) We aren't the only ones who would like to know the reasoning behind spying on Americans' phone calls — we're guessing the public would like to know too.
Tags: national security project
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Nov 25th, 2008 at 5:20am
HEY SUSAN ITO
I was wondering what blogging system or format the Blog of Rights uses. I'm helping out a friend redesign his blog and I really like the Blog of Rights' design.
Nov 25th, 2008 at 2:00pm
Crazy_anarchist: We use WordPress. We like it a lot.
Nov 25th, 2008 at 2:07pm
Perhaps as part of the Obama housecleaning we need to do the following:
1. Create a Constitutional compliance check list. One that is simple enough for a Washington bureaucrat to understand in his everyday work life.
2. Create and executive order that says the Check list will be reviewed in concert with all agency policies old and new. All non compliance policies will have to either be phased out or modified. All questionable policies will have to be reviewed and approved by a new dept in Dept of Justice. The new DOJ dept will be charged with investigation of agencies for Constitutional compliance, review of agency policies, prosecution of intentional knowing violations etc.
3. Specify that participation in non compliant policies after a certain date will be prosecuted. The persons involved AND the policy maker AND the policy approver will be included in the prosecution.
4. Specify punishment that is serious enough to prevent violation.
Dec 1st, 2008 at 12:58am
Is the ACLU crazy? The NSA/CSS does not have a free reign when gathering domestic intelligence. The following Restrictions on Authority are Imposed and complied with first: The Fourth Amendment, FISA, Executive Order:12333, and USSID 18.