Law Humor

There has been a lot of buzz over the last couple of days about the newly released memo written in 2003 to provide legal arguments in support of using torture aggressive interrogation techniques.  And there is probably more to come.  In particular, one of the footnotes of this memo mentions in passing that, in a previous (but still secret) memo, the authors had apparently concluded that the Fourth Amendment -- you remember, the one about unreasonable searches and seizures and blah blah blah -- "had no application to domestic military operations."

Depending on your point of view, I suppose that's either evidence that one of our most important constitutional rights was simply argued out of existence, or yet another demonstration that lawyers should not use so many footnotes.

This memo has been formally withdrawn, but the one mentioned in Footnote 10 has not been.

Still, probably nothing to worry about.  What could happen?  But if you are one of those people who is uncomfortable with torture aggressive interrogation techniques and/or likely to object to a simple domestic military operation(s) that is only designed to make the pie of our freedoms higher, then maybe you will be entertained, or distracted, by participating in the following poll.

Link: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants (Mar. 14, 2003)
Link: "Administration Asserted Terror Exception on Search and Seizure," Wash. Post