Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Another Way the PoFD Tried To Shred the Constitution
Topic Started: Jul 25 2009, 09:08 AM (567 Views)
QuirtEvans
Member Avatar
I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Thank goodness Bush stood up to him on this one.

Quote:
 
Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests has few precedents in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

In the discussions, Mr. Cheney and others cited an Oct. 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that, using a broad interpretation of presidential authority, argued that the domestic use of the military against Al Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement, purpose.

* * * *

at least one high-level meeting was convened to debate the issue, at which several top Bush aides argued firmly against the proposal to use the military, advanced by Mr. Cheney, his legal adviser David S. Addington and some senior Defense Department officials.

Among those in opposition were Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser; John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council; Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division.

“Frankly, it was a bit of a turf war,” said one former senior administration official. “For a number of people, crossing the line of having intelligence or military activities inside the United States was not worth the risk.”

Mr. Bush ended up ordering the F.B.I. to make the arrests in Lackawanna, near Buffalo, where the agency had been monitoring a group of Yemeni Americans with suspected Qaeda ties. The five men arrested there in September 2002, and a sixth arrested nearly simultaneously in Bahrain, pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges.

Scott L. Silliman, a Duke University law professor specializing in national security law, said an American president had not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil War.

Senior military officials were never consulted, former officials said. Richard B. Myers, a retired general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview that he was unaware of the discussion.

Former officials said the 2002 debate arose partly from Justice Department concerns that there might not be enough evidence to arrest and successfully prosecute the suspects in Lackawanna. Mr. Cheney, the officials said, had argued that the administration would need a lower threshold of evidence to declare them enemy combatants and keep them in military custody.

* * * *

“What would it look like to have the American military go into an American town and knock on people’s door?” said a second former official in the debate.

Chief James L. Michel of the Lackawanna police agreed. “If we had tanks rolling down the streets of our city,” Chief Michel said, “we would have had pandemonium down here.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/us/25detain.html?_r=1&hp

And why would we have used the military, instead of the FBI? Because we weren't sure that we had sufficient evidence to convict them. And so we'd just grab them as enemy combatants.

The man really is the devil incarnate.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Copper
Member Avatar
Shortstop

Palin and Dewey and Bush Oh My!
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mikhailoh
Member Avatar
If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
They also had DOJ opinions that they had ample power under the Constitution to do this legally. I'm glad they did not go that way, but there is a clear distinction between ignoring the Constitution and interpreting it differently than someone else might.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
George K
Member Avatar
Finally
Of course, in full Bush-Derangement-Syndrome mode, the New York Times headline screams the story:

"Bush Weighed Using Military in Arrests"

Not until the 3rd paragraph do you discover, no doubt much to the disappointment of the paper of record, that Bush quashed the program, before it ever got off the ground.

Sorta like when the Times reported the "Super Duper Secret we won't tell Congress about the plan to kill Al-Quaeda guys" last month - which they also told us about in 2002.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
VPG
Member Avatar
Pisa-Carp
I would think that the VP is supposed to offer the Prez. "other options". Wether he agrees with it or not.
I have a question for the lawyers among us. (you know who you are)
How did the Govt. justify using federal troops ( comanded by MacArthur) against the demostrating vets after WW One?
I'M NOT YELLING.........I'M ITALIAN...........THAT'S HOW WE TALK!


"People say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look."
Ronald Reagan, Inaugural, 1971

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Larry
Member Avatar
Mmmmmmm, pie!
This is why Obama wants to establish a civilian militia type force armed and equipped at the same level as the regular military that has the power to act as a military force inside the country. All under his command, of course.... that way when he decides to declare martial law and seize control as our "Dear Leader" he will have a domestic army to put down any resistance to the final takeover........


Of the Pokatwat Tribe

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
QuirtEvans
Member Avatar
I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Larry
Jul 25 2009, 10:31 AM
This is why Obama wants to establish a civilian militia type force armed and equipped at the same level as the regular military that has the power to act as a military force inside the country. All under his command, of course.... that way when he decides to declare martial law and seize control as our "Dear Leader" he will have a domestic army to put down any resistance to the final takeover........


Take off the tin foil hat, Larry.

That would be a Republican plan. Democrats don't believe in that sort of thing.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
QuirtEvans
Jul 25 2009, 11:16 AM
Larry
Jul 25 2009, 10:31 AM
This is why Obama wants to establish a civilian militia type force armed and equipped at the same level as the regular military that has the power to act as a military force inside the country. All under his command, of course.... that way when he decides to declare martial law and seize control as our "Dear Leader" he will have a domestic army to put down any resistance to the final takeover........


Take off the tin foil hat, Larry.

That would be a Republican plan. Democrats don't believe in that sort of thing.
Janet Reno must not have gotten that memo.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
« Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply