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Obama releases secret Bush anti-terror memos

By DEVLIN BARRETT and MATT APUZZO (Associated Press Writers)
From Associated Press
March 02, 2009 9:52 PM EST

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration threw open the curtain on years of Bush-era secrets Monday, revealing anti-terror memos that claimed exceptional search-and-seizure powers and divulging that the CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of interrogations and other treatment of terror suspects.

Hah! The capitalist FOOLS! They disposed of evidence legally, thus leaving a paper trail for our eager newshounds to follow!

The Justice Department released nine legal opinions showing that, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration determined that certain constitutional rights would not apply during the coming fight. Within two weeks, government lawyers were already discussing ways to wiretap U.S. conversations without warrants.

Shhh,,,don't mention that the wiretapping only dealt with international calls of suspected terrorists. We need to make sure that Mr. and Mrs. America think Bush wanted to tap their call to Aunt Millie about her recent prostate surgery (boy was that a surprise to Uncle Milt!)
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The Bush administration eventually abandoned many of the legal conclusions, but the documents themselves had been closely held.

A clear indication of guilt if I ever saw one. Rejecting most of the legal positions and then keeping issues related to national security secret? The Bastards!

By releasing them, President Barack Obama continued a house-cleaning of the previous administration's most contentious policies.

Obama! (blow the fluglehorn, sound the crumpets, turn on the shopvac, and All MUST bow down!) He shall bring light to the darkness, even though below it is admitted that this disclosure was made by a mere lackey of the palace.

"Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech a few hours before the documents were released. "Not only is that school of thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good."

Because if we simulate drowning through waterboarding, any US service person captured by the terrorists might have the same done to them. That would be much worse than the current practice of cutting off body parts culminating with the head.

The Obama administration also acknowledged in court documents Monday that the CIA destroyed 92 videos involving terror suspects, including interrogations - far more than had been known. Congressional Democrats and other critics have charged that some of the harsh interrogation techniques amounted to torture, a contention President George W. Bush and other Bush officials rejected.

And as recent events have shown, disagreeing with Democrats is unpatriotic and treasonous.

The new administration pledged on Monday to begin turning over documents related to the videos to a federal judge and to make as much information public as possible.

The information is expected to be a treasure trove of items guaranteed to distract the Proles from the construction of the glorious Socialist paradise.

The legal memos written by the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel show a government grappling with how to wage war on terrorism in a fast-changing world. The conclusion, reiterated in page after page of documents, was that the president had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights.

Just like Lincoln did during the Civil War.... (Ooo, but don't say that out loud!)

Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure, for instance, did not apply in the United States as long as the president was combatting terrorism, the Justice Department said in an Oct. 23, 2001, memo.
"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: "The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically."

Thus all the prosecutions of anti-war protestors, the New York Times and half of Congress.

On Sept. 25, 2001, Yoo discussed possible changes to the laws governing wiretaps for intelligence gathering. In that memo, he said the government's interest in keeping the nation safe following the terrorist attacks might justify warrantless searches.
That memo did not specifically attempt to justify the government's warrantless wiretapping program, but it provided part of the foundation.

There is no direct relation between Yoo's report and wiretapping suspected terrorists, but Yoo rhymes with Jew and we know they control the CIA, so we'll draw the appropriate conclusion.

Yoo, now a professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, did not return messages seeking comment.

See how he takes refuge in his fascist ivory tower, refusing to sit on the stool and confess his crimes while tearfully clutching the Chairman's little blue book! War Criminal!

The memos reflected a belief within the Bush administration that the president had broad powers that could not be checked by Congress or the courts. That stance, in one form or another, became the foundation for many policies: holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay, eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without warrants, using tough new CIA interrogation tactics and locking U.S. citizens in military brigs without charges.
Obama has pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year. He halted the CIA's intensive interrogation program. And last week, prosecutors moved the terrorism case against U.S. resident Ali Al-Marri, a suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent held in a military brig, to a civilian courthouse.

Because "resident" is just another word for "citizen." (Emphasis added.)

A criminal prosecutor is wrapping up an investigation of the destruction of the tapes of interrogations.
Monday's acknowledgment of videotape destruction, however, involved a civil lawsuit filed in New York by the American Civil Liberties Union.
"The CIA can now identify the number of videotapes that were destroyed," said the letter submitted in that case by Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin. "Ninety-two videotapes were destroyed."

"Our story covers two different cases, one investigating possible criminal acts, the other brought by the ACLU. We can't tell the difference between a civil action and a criminal investigation, so we're just gonna lump the two together and hope it damns Bush sufficiently."

It is not clear what exactly was on the recordings.

But we bet it was something about Bush giggling while watching Gitmo inmates being fed into a woodchipper. And since we're positive he did that, we'll report inuendo as fact.

The government's letter cites interrogation videos, but the lawsuit against the Defense Department also seeks records related to treatment of detainees, any deaths of detainees and the CIA's sending of suspects overseas, known as "extraordinary rendition."

The lawsuit provides no actual suspicion that any detainee deaths, but dammit, we're talking Bush here. He probably pulled the trigger himself, then ate a kitten to celebrate!

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters he hadn't spoken to the president about the report, but he called the news about the videotapes "sad" and said Obama was committed to ending torture while also protecting American values.

But...but...but...the headline said Obama (break wind joyfully, sound the hardart, and play the lugubrious viola, and all MUST bow down) released the material in his righteous wrath against the evil BusHitler. Gibbs must be mistaken.

ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said the CIA should be held in contempt of court for holding back the information for so long.
"The large number of videotapes destroyed confirms that the agency engaged in a systematic attempt to hide evidence of its illegal interrogations and to evade the court's order," Singh said.

And who is behind it all? BUSH! Bush, I say! Direct orders from the White House! We can't prove a damn thing, but the Revolutiuonary Tribunal of The Committee for Public Safety needs only accuse, not prove!

CIA spokesman George Little said the agency "has certainly cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation. If anyone thinks it's agency policy to impede the enforcement of American law, they simply don't know the facts."

Which we know is a contemptable lie. He worked for Bush, and they all lie.

The details of interrogations of terror suspects, and the existence of tapes documenting those sessions, have become the subject of long fights in a number of different court cases. In the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, prosecutors initially claimed no such recordings existed, then acknowledged after the trial was over that two videotapes and one audiotape had been made.

But now that the Politburo is on the case, we shall have the blood of the war criminals!

The Dassin letter, dated March 2 to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, says the CIA is now gathering more details for the lawsuit, including a list of the destroyed records, any secondary accounts that describe the destroyed contents and the identities of those who may have viewed or possessed the recordings before they were destroyed.
But the lawyers also note that some of that information may be classified, such as the names of CIA personnel who viewed the tapes.

Dammit, we CANNOT allow national security or the lives of CIA personnel stand in the way of revolutionary justice!

The separate criminal investigation includes interrogations of al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Zubaydah and another top al-Qaida leader. Tapes of those interrogations were destroyed, in part, the Bush administration said, to protect the identities of the government questioners at a time the Justice Department was debating whether or not the tactics used during the interrogations were legal.

The other part was that they revealed Bush was there at the time and was giggling uncontrolably while a masked dwarf lashed the innocent suspects with a cat-o-nine tails. We don't know that it actually happened, but that's how we would have done it, so it must be the truth.

Former CIA director Michael Hayden acknowledged that waterboarding - simulated drowning - was used on three suspects, including the two whose interrogations were recorded.
John Durham, a senior career prosecutor in Connecticut, is leading the criminal investigation, out of Virginia, and had asked that he be given until the end of February to wrap up his work before requests for information in the civil lawsuit were dealt with.

Why is a Connecticut prosecutor leading the case from Virginia? And why is he standing in the way of the righteous wrath of the ACLU? Perhaps HE needs to be investigated! We must widen the net, comrades!
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Associated Press Writers Pamela Hess and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.


And they will be suitably rewarded for their propaganda efforts once the new regime has settled in comfortably.

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Uh, um, I didn't read this article and stuff, because, like, I get all of my news from Wonkette now, like, and this is exactly the kind of things that, uh, Nixon and Hitler did. Exactly the same things! To the Hague with the whole lot of 'em!

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Chairman M. S. Punchenko wrote:Uh, um, I didn't read this article and stuff, because, like, I get all of my news from Wonkette now, like, and this is exactly the kind of things that, uh, Nixon and Hitler did. Exactly the same things! To the Hague with the whole lot of 'em!

Precious Chairman,you should never be required to read thingies and stuff such as this.
Your delicate eyes must be preserved for more important thingies,like progressive porn and stuff. Surely,The Party has assigned to you a Reader Drone,right? If not,this is certainly a travesty and must be addressed immediately.

I demand a designated reader thingie for the Chairman!! And I nominate Betty for the job.

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That is horrible, Comrade! We all know that the poor, oppressed jihadists would never do anything like that. They would just saw off all your limbs, ending with your head. I imagine it would feel something like a massage. And the gulags of the Party are only for non-persons, so what goes on there does not count.

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I read Comrade Betinov's commentary, Comrade Lenin 'n' Thingies. I will read the works of other Comrades while personally refusing to read the running-dog ramblings of the corporate-controlled -- and Rush Limbaugh orchestrated -- right-wing media echo-chamber.

I just refuse to do it.

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O Happy Glorious Day of Joy!

At long last! After eight years of marching in my orange jumpsuit and black hood, baring my boobs at demonstrations, block parties, and PTA meetings; Mimeswiping all over the Internet, putting money forward to buy full page ads in the Congressional Roll Call, and inundating my elected representatives with letters and phone calls and e-mails demanding they pass immediate resolutions calling for the impeachment and war crimes trial of Bush; after my courageous 62 day perch-in on the ledge for peace and impeachment . . . AT LONG LAST! The Truth we always knew Bush was cravenly hiding is finally out!

What an idiot he is! So stupid he never even thought to destroy everything--but if he thinks the destruction of those 92 tapes will save his sorry butt, he's in for a big surprise. We already know what's in them without even seeing them, but if push comes to shove, we can always reconstruct them.

Oh Betinov! Do you have any idea what this news did to me? I underwent spontaneous orgasm just sitting here! Didn't have to touch anything with anything; didn't even have to wiggle and rock in my chair, or against the inseam of my drawers. Why, I didn't even have to throw shoes at my photoshopped poster of Bush that shows him in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, Hitlerstache, and with his bleeding head on a pike with the eyeballs pecked out, like I usually have to do to achieve the sweet release of HBO! What a delight! I wish I could agree with Lenin-n-Thingies and say her nickname of "Comrade Sexy Brain" is well deserved, but alas, it was this damning but scarcely surprising revelation about the evil Bush that filled me with an ecstasy that not even an organ as huge as Obama's Stimulus Package could match. For it's not so much size as the type of stimulus applied to the specific area most wanting.

I hear it also cured The Mime's priapism, which he's had since January 20th. We'll need to start a fund to pay for the surgery he'll need for his wrist and his fingers, which are now stuck in a curved position that makes his hand look like a claw.

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Commissarka Pinkie wrote:...if he thinks the destruction of those 92 tapes will save his sorry butt, he's in for a big surprise. We already know what's in them without even seeing them, but if push comes to shove, we can always reconstruct them.

I suggest we re-enact them without delay. You still have that orange jumpsuit and black hood, right? Let's meet tomorrow night for a rehearsal at your place. I'll bring the mask, the plunger, and the camera.

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Oh Betinov! Do you have any idea what this news did to me? I underwent spontaneous orgasm just sitting here! Didn't have to touch anything with anything; didn't even have to wiggle and rock in my chair, or against the inseam of my drawers.

(Polishing the nails of my typing fingers against my shirt and giving a Devil's own half-smile. And then the Belushi eyebrow waggle.)

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Somehow this video made me think of Pinkie and Betinov's Party Organ in a jar...


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Just more evidence to charge the Bushitler with war crimes, just more evidence.

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Since this prole OBVIOUSLY doesn't know what to do with her food ration, I see no reason to continue providing it. Though what if we had spent a few hundred of these billions of CEUs to save socaialist security... More would just stop working! Still more would feel better about not trying so hard in the present to prepare for the future!

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(off)
Isn't the demise of democracy beautiful?


 
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