President Obama has released tons of till now secret Bush administration memos that paint a disturbing picture of the police state Bush planned –and to some degree executed–in the name of fighting terrorism.  Many of the memos were written by a Justice Department official who now actually teaches law at Berkeley. He should be removed from his post, academic freedom not withstanding.

The documents, according to the Associated Press, for the first time reveal the CIA “destroyed 92 videos involving terror suspects, including interrogations–far more than had been known.”

Perhaps more troubling is the revelation that legal memos prepared for Bush by the Office of Legal Counsel–and mostly written by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo–constructed legal arguments rationalizing what amounted to blueprints for a police state here in the U.S.

In one memo it was stated, according to the A.P., that fourth amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure “did not apply in the United States as long as the president was combating terrorism.”   In other words, forever…since the so-called “war on terrorism” is seemingly never ending and has morphed in many ways into a war on Americans’ Constitutional rights.

In yet another memo, Yoo reportedly writes that “first amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully…the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

As I mentioned, Yoo is actually a law professor now at the University of California. Since UC is strapped for cash, like most institutions of higher learning nowadays, one really good way to save some money is to fire Yoo. While academic freedom is designed to protect varying points of political view…a so-called professor of law who wrote opinions for the White House laying the foundations for a police/terror state in America goes way beyond the bounds of academic freedom. I can’t imagine what students in this country could possibly learn from such an un-American monster. Certainly, California taxpayers should not be putting money into his pockets.

While Americans were busy being brain damaged being force fed endless episodes of Dancing with the Stars and American Idol, their government was busy erecting an invisible prison around them.  Such is the awesome, hypnotic power of television to distract to the point of possible self-annihilation.

Hats off to the Obama administration for making these secrets public! As they used to say —he’s done us all a solid!

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