Conspiracy to engage in aggressive and illegal war – Yoo, Bybee, and Disinformation

(DavidSwanson) – Everything you’re reading about torture lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee getting off the hook is wrong. They are not torture lawyers, they are not off the hook, there never was any hook, they may not be lawyers for long, impeachment and indictment are on the agenda, and you have a role to play.

Yoo Called Civilian Slaughter OK

(ConsortiumNews) – Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo argued that President George W. Bush’s commander-in-chief powers were so sweeping that he could willfully order the massacre of civilians, yet Yoo’s culpability in Bush administration abuses was deemed “poor judgment,” not a violation of “professional standards.”

Making Illegal Spying Legal – Holder Refuses to Call Warrantless Spying Illegal

In probably the most disturbing testimony to hit Capitol Hill since Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in May and refused to rule out lawless detention or to agree that government officials can sometimes be prosecuted for their crimes, on Wednesday Holder appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and, among much else, refused five times to agree that warrantless spying is illegal and unconstitutional.

Five Things You Should Know About the ‘Torture’ Memos

Judge Andrew Napolitano has read through the 175 of DoJ memos regarding CIA torture practices under the Bush administration: “This is not rocket science and it is not art. Everyone knows torture when they see it.”

Torturers Should Be Punished

Spokane, Wash. – George W. Bush insisted that the U.S. did not use torture.

But the four Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel memos released last week by the Obama administration’s Justice Department paint a starkly different picture.

Torture of Detainees under CIA Custody: Damning Exposé of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

On March 12, Mark Danner, in a New York Times op-ed and The New York Review of Books, wrote about the ICRC’s revelations of “US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites.” He said George Bush (in 2007) “informed the world that the United States had created a dark and secret universe to hold and interrogate captured ‘terrorists,’ ” – at locations outside America, Guantanamo and elsewhere.

Blueprints for a Police State

Seven newly released memos from the Bush Justice Department reveal a concerted strategy to cloak the President with power to override the Constitution. The memos provide “legal” rationales for the President to suspend freedom of speech and press; order warrantless searches and seizures, including wiretaps of U.S. citizens; lock up U.S. citizens indefinitely in the United States without criminal charges; send suspected terrorists to other countries where they will likely be tortured; and unilaterally abrogate treaties. According to the reasoning in the memos, Congress has no role to check and balance the executive. That is the definition of a police state.