Roehrkasse would not say exactly when that legal opinion was overturned internally. But he pointed to the January 2006 white paper.
"The white paper does not suggest in any way that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to domestic military activities, and that is not the position of the Office of Legal Counsel," he said.
Suzanne Spaulding, a national security law expert and former assistant general counsel at the CIA, said she found the Fourth Amendment reference in the footnote troubling, but added: "To know [the Justice Department] no longer thinks this is a legitimate statement is reassuring."
Rubbish, says the ACLU.
"The recent disclosures underscore the Bush administration's extraordinarily sweeping conception of executive power," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The administration's lawyers believe the president should be permitted to violate statutory law, to violate international treaties and even to violate the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S. They believe that the president should be above the law."
"Each time one of these memos comes out you have to come up with a more extreme way to characterize it," Jaffer said.
The ACLU is challenging in court the government's withholding of the October 2001 memo.
. . . But Still Pushes for Telecom Immunity from Lawsuits
Yet even as the administration says it has "disavowed" the October 2001 memo, it continues to argue publicly that the warrantless program is legal -- and continues its attempt to bully the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives into passing a bill to grant immunity to telecommunications companies from invasion-of-privacy lawsuits by their customers. that turned over their customers' confidential records to the government without demanding court warrants.
This blogger has pointed out repeatedly that the telecoms violated both the Fourth Amendment and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1996 by not demanding that the government produce court warrants before turning over their confidential customer records.
For their part, House Democrats twice refused to yield to the White House's demand, insisting that to grant the telecoms immunity would violate Americans' First Amendment right to petition the courts for redress of the government's illegal search of their telephone records without warrants.
The administration's claim that it has "disavowed" the October memo is further belied by its appeal of the Michigan federal court's ruling that declared the warrantless eavesdropping unconstitutional. On July 6 last year, a federal appeals court effectively overturned the lower court's decision by dismissing the plaintiffs' lawsuit, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to challenge the program's legality.
Why? Because the plaintiffs couldn't prove that the their communications were being monitored by the government. And the reason they couldn't prove it? The government refused to turn over information about the warrantless wiretapping that would have bolstered the plaintiffs' case, invoking national security.
For the administration to claim that it no longer wiretaps terror suspects without warrants on the one hand and insists on telecom immunity from invasion-of-privacy lawsuits on the other hand -- as well as challenging court decisions declaring the program unconstitutional is the height of a "Catch-22" mindset that defies all logic.
Deputy AG Balked at Approving Warrantless Spying; High Anxiety at the FBI
In one previously undisclosed episode, according to Lictblau's book, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson refused to sign off on any of the secret wiretapping requests that grew out of the program because of the secrecy and legal uncertainties surrounding it.
"The white paper does not suggest in any way that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to domestic military activities, and that is not the position of the Office of Legal Counsel," he said.
Suzanne Spaulding, a national security law expert and former assistant general counsel at the CIA, said she found the Fourth Amendment reference in the footnote troubling, but added: "To know [the Justice Department] no longer thinks this is a legitimate statement is reassuring."
Rubbish, says the ACLU.
"The recent disclosures underscore the Bush administration's extraordinarily sweeping conception of executive power," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The administration's lawyers believe the president should be permitted to violate statutory law, to violate international treaties and even to violate the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S. They believe that the president should be above the law."
"Each time one of these memos comes out you have to come up with a more extreme way to characterize it," Jaffer said.
The ACLU is challenging in court the government's withholding of the October 2001 memo.
. . . But Still Pushes for Telecom Immunity from Lawsuits
Yet even as the administration says it has "disavowed" the October 2001 memo, it continues to argue publicly that the warrantless program is legal -- and continues its attempt to bully the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives into passing a bill to grant immunity to telecommunications companies from invasion-of-privacy lawsuits by their customers. that turned over their customers' confidential records to the government without demanding court warrants.
This blogger has pointed out repeatedly that the telecoms violated both the Fourth Amendment and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1996 by not demanding that the government produce court warrants before turning over their confidential customer records.
For their part, House Democrats twice refused to yield to the White House's demand, insisting that to grant the telecoms immunity would violate Americans' First Amendment right to petition the courts for redress of the government's illegal search of their telephone records without warrants.
The administration's claim that it has "disavowed" the October memo is further belied by its appeal of the Michigan federal court's ruling that declared the warrantless eavesdropping unconstitutional. On July 6 last year, a federal appeals court effectively overturned the lower court's decision by dismissing the plaintiffs' lawsuit, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to challenge the program's legality.
Why? Because the plaintiffs couldn't prove that the their communications were being monitored by the government. And the reason they couldn't prove it? The government refused to turn over information about the warrantless wiretapping that would have bolstered the plaintiffs' case, invoking national security.
For the administration to claim that it no longer wiretaps terror suspects without warrants on the one hand and insists on telecom immunity from invasion-of-privacy lawsuits on the other hand -- as well as challenging court decisions declaring the program unconstitutional is the height of a "Catch-22" mindset that defies all logic.
Deputy AG Balked at Approving Warrantless Spying; High Anxiety at the FBI
In one previously undisclosed episode, according to Lictblau's book, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson refused to sign off on any of the secret wiretapping requests that grew out of the program because of the secrecy and legal uncertainties surrounding it.
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