Bush Administration considered free speech restrictions?
The Bush Administration weighed restrictions on the First Amendment, according to a recently released memo:
In perhaps the most surprising assertion, the Oct. 23, 2001, memo suggested the president could even suspend press freedoms if he concluded it was necessary to wage the war on terror. "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Yoo wrote in the memo entitled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activity Within the United States."John Yoo is also responsible for other abuses of executive power.This claim was viewed as so extreme that it was essentially (and secretly) revoked—but not until October of last year, seven years after the memo was written and with barely three and a half months left in the Bush administration.
At that time, Steven Bradbury, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel throughout Bush's second term, concluded that Yoo's statements about overriding First Amendment freedoms were "unnecessary" and "overbroad and general and not sufficiently grounded in the particular circumstance of a concrete scenario," according to a memo from Bradbury also made public Monday.
Kate Martin, the director for the Center for National Security Studies, a Washington think tank, said the newly disclosed memo by Yoo and Robert Delahunty, another OLC lawyer, was part of a broader legal reasoning that gave President Bush essentially unfettered powers in the war on terrorism. "In October 2001, they were trying to construct a legal regime that would basically have allowed for the imposition of martial law," said Martin.
Yoo cited a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Supreme Court Justice that most epitomizes collectivism, "[w]hen it comes to a decision by the head of the state upon a matter involving its life, the ordinary rights of individuals must yield to what he deems the necessities of the moment." According to John Yoo, the Constitution and Bill of Rights do not apply in time of war.
You can view the section of the memo dealing with the First Amendment here.
Comments
John Yoo is the nightmare that never ends.
Posted by: griftdrift | March 3, 2009 11:45 PM
It makes one wonder how many more Yoo's are out there advising the current administration. Even though these memo's have been released by the administration it doesn't hide the fact that there could be agenda's that will have the same effect as those written by Yoo. The United States at that time in 2001 was very close to martial law and with these thoughts that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are not relevant during the time of the war on terror is an absolute reversal of what the President of the United States is supposed to do. He is supposed to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. If he had adopted this power fully then our nation would have been under a dictatorship. This type of reasoning of Mr. Yoo is why so many of our liberties and rights have decayed over the past eight years. Now we may be seeing another round of liberties lost with the new administration regarding attacks on the 2nd amendment and further attacks on the capitalist form of government. These are truly difficult times for our nation and it has not gotten any better. It has been decaying for decades but it has accelerated in the past few years. It will take the will of a determined people to rise above this type of governmental involvement. But if the people don't care to the point that they let it happen then our society will continue to erode into something we never thought would happen.
Posted by: The Doctor | March 4, 2009 12:03 AM
The bell of freedom in time of peace or of war shall always ring for the people.
Dark Knight
Posted by: Dark Knight | March 4, 2009 12:05 AM