note on goings on

I am working on a pair of posts that discuss the Yoo torture memo/discussion that top white house staff were expressly invloved in the decition making process for torturing captives. See this ABC news link for a little more.

The second is a breakdown of the recent revelations that white house legal thought that the 4th ammendment did not necessisarily apply. Nice writeup from the EFF:

"The EFF has uncovered a troubling footnote in a newly declassified Bush Administration memo, which asserts that 'our Office recently [in 2001] concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.' This could mean that the Administration believes the NSA's warrantless wiretapping and data mining programs are not governed by the Constitution, which would cast Administration claims that the programs did not violate the Fourth Amendment in a whole new light — after all, you can't violate a law that doesn't apply. The claimed immunity would also cover other DoD agencies, such as CIFA, which carry out offline surveillance of political groups within the United States."

More later ...