justice department releases anti-terror memos

This week, the Justice Department, under the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder, finally released the controversial anti-terror memos used by the Bush Administration to support its suspension of constitutional rights in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks: Obama releases secret Bush anti-terror memos.

Call it house cleaning. The Bush administration eventually abandoned many of the legal conclusions written by the Office of Legal Counsel, but the documents themselves had been closely held. The Obama administrationis basically saying it's time to get that crap out in the open. Chickens come home to roost, y'all.

The nine legal opinions, largely authored by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, basically argued that in the battle against terrorism, the President had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights. Torture, wiretapping, unwarranted search and seizure -- all that stuff. Green light. Read the released memos here.

You suck, John Yoo. More over at Daily Kos: Justice Department Releases Yoo, Bybee Memos. The Orange County Register has an interview with Yoo, who recently took leave from his duties as a professor at UC Berkeley's law school to teach a semester at Chapman University: Ex-Bush lawyer talks about torture memos. My guess is, his days as a Cal professor are numbered...