Go to All Headline News originalWashington, D.C. (AHN) - Justice Department Secretary Michael Mukasey was caught unprepared on Thursday when he was asked about a classified memo during a Senate hearing about his agency's 2009 budget. After repeatedly declining to answer questions about whether the memo, which says the Fourth Amendment is not applicable to military personnel in the U.S., had been withdrawn, Mukasey declared that the constitutional right against unreasonable searches was still in force.
Reports of the October 2001 memo in question first appeared after another memo, this one issued in March 2003, was declassified last week. The second document was written by John Yoo, then deputy assistant attorney general at the Office of Legal Counsel. It gave legal basis for the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques by the Bush Administration, and said that the President's authority during times of war is paramount to the rights of detainees.
Testifying to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Mukasey told Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) he "can't speak" about the October 2001 memo, which was also penned by Yoo, and that "the principle that the Fourth Amendment does not apply in wartime is not in force." He later declared, "The Fourth Amendment applies across the board, whether we're in wartime or peacetime."
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