Jameel Jaffer: Secrets of the Bush era ought to be unveiled

[struggle4progress]

Legal memos supported torture, political goals - in short, everything but the law.
By JAMEEL JAFFER
Last update: February 27, 2009 - 7:07 PM

On his second day in office, President Barack Obama directed all of his administration's employees to work toward "an unprecedented level of openness," explaining that transparency would "strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government."

Now the president can begin to make good on his promise of transparency by releasing the dozens of still-secret legal memos written by the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel.

That office, which is part of the Justice Department, provides authoritative legal opinions to the president and executive branch agencies. It tells the president what the law allows and, more important, what the law prohibits.

Dawn Johnsen, whom Obama has nominated to lead the once-obscure office and whose confirmation hearing was held Wednesday, wrote in a 2007 law review article that the office must be "prepared to say no to the president." But under President Bush, the office played a very different role: Its senior lawyers served not as sources of bona fide legal guidance but as knowing facilitators of the president's lawless conduct ...

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/40449627.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

[Demeter]

1. I Hope to Live to See the Day

when all the dirty linen of the Bush family tree is hung out, along with the guilty....