Bush Administration Claimed Fourth Amendment Did Not Apply to NSA Spying (memo released today)

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/bush-administration-asserted-fourth-amendment-did-

In an October 23, 2001, Office of Legal Counsel memo released today, the Bush Administration concluded that "the Fourth Amendment does not apply to domestic military operations," including "intercepting electronic or wireless communications" by "employing surveillance methods more powerful and sophisticated than those available to law enforcement agencies." See Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States at pp. 4, 18, and 25 (emphasis original).

When news of this memo first surfaced in a footnote to another memo, we wondered if it meant that the Administration's lawyers advised that the National Security Agency (a component of the military) could spy on Americans with impunity and face no Fourth Amendment claim.

Turns out that the Bush Administration did think it could spy on Americans in the U.S. without regard to the Constitution.

We had suspected as much, but the confirmation is still chilling. Our suspicions were raised back in 2006 when the DOJ asserted that "that warrantless communications intelligence targeted at the enemy in time of armed conflict is a traditional and fundamental incident of the use of military force authorized by the AUMF" and that "the NSA activities fit squarely within the sweeping terms of the AUMF. The use of signals intelligence to identify and pinpoint the enemy is a traditional component of wartime military operations." As the DOJ saw it, "In the present conflict, unlike in the Korean War, the battlefield was brought to the United States ..." Thus, we deeply concerned that the "domestic military operations" authorized by the OLC memo included domestic surveillance of Americans, without regard to their constitutional rights.

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