Apparently several Bush advisors, including (and likely, especially) Cheney decided to "test the constitution" by using military troops to make arrests of a group of men suspected of working with Al Qaeda in 2002.
And hey! Everyone's favorite Justice Dept enablers John Yoo and Alberto Gonzalez are part of our cast of characters!
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.
“The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States,” the memorandum said.
The memorandum — written by the lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty — was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked the department about a president’s authority to use the military to combat terrorist activities in the United States.
The memorandum was declassified in March. But the White House debate about the Lackawanna group is the first evidence that top American officials, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, actually considered using the document to justify deploying the military into an American town to make arrests.
How do people take these individuals, look at what they did, and then say that the current administration is somehow the ones who are looking to abuse governmental power, and limit individual rights, and hate the Constitution?
While I'm not surprised at the attempts to abuse the rights and trample on the liberties of people by these parties, given their track record that keeps coming to light, the extent to which they were willing to go, and the lengths of near-totalitarianism they were willing to go to are frightening -- surpassed only by the horrifyingness of the people willing to turn a blind eye to their attempts in the name of ideology.
