If it was planned it was a nice bit of political juijitsu. If coincidence then it has to sting for the tea party boosters to have the news cycle they worked so hard to manufacture cut short by fate.

They are redacted in places, but fully readable on my brief scan. They sure do not cover the participants with glory.

Memeorandum is lighting up the blogosphere. The primary link is to the ACLU site indexed in my first paragraph, and it contains 17 blog references. There are 14 Related points of entry listed, with of course the usual suspects listed as blog references.

As an East Coast Man, time for me to go to bed.

And there my friend, lies the problem. If we sweep torture under the table, we do not have to think of abuse. The past administration’s torture memos which detailed the attempt to define torture, bring with them on stage, the permission to abuse.

If you discuss, for example the treatment of Padilla, no one can argue that he was maintained in almost total sensory deprivation state. Blindfolded and ear-muffed when he left his cell, for all we know his solitary confinement continues today. Finer minds than mine can devote themselves to defining whether this type of confinement constitutes torture. Bradbury and Bybee apparently did. I for one would like to see how they reached their conclusion, and how they skirted the issue of prisoner abuse.

This is from the OLC description of its role quoted by Greenwald:

Most OLC opinions consist of confidential legal advice for senior Executive Branch officials. Maintaining the confidentiality of OLC opinions is often necessary to preserve the deliberative process of decisionmaking within the Executive Branch and attorney-client relationships between OLC and other executive offices; in some cases, the disclosure of OLC advice also may interfere with federal law enforcement efforts. These confidentiality interests are especially great for OLC opinions relating to the President’s exercise of his constitutional authorities, including his authority as Commander in Chief. It is critical to the discharge of the President’s constitutional responsibilities that he and the officials under his supervision are able to receive confidential legal advice from OLC.

LINK

The Executive Branch is not the client of the United States government, and so no attorney-client privlege exists, as I understand it. OLC memos are, in fact, routinely published and available on their website:

http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/opinions.htm

What incentives does that give future Presidents?

I think it gives them an excellent incentive not to, you know, commit war crimes.

Wait, you think that's a bad thing?

Huh.

These appear to be opinions of lawyers. Gather enough lawyers in a room and you'll have a roomful of opinions.

Not quite. The OLC provides advice for the executive branch, and basically sets "precedent" as to policy. Executive branch agencies act in accordance with those opinions unless they are countermanded by an Act of Congress, a court ruling, or Executive Order. So the memos do have legal signficance.

Are you ready, in the future, to support disbarment or war crime prosecution of Bradbury and Bybee? Or at that point will the ye old fig leaf that advising the President incorrectly is a “mistake”, and not a crime, be trotted out?

If it can be shown that lawyers in the OLC acted contrary to the codes of professional ethics under which they should follow, then yes, I would support disciplinary action up to and including disbarment. If their actions in crafting executive branch policy is prosecutable under existing Federal laws against torture and ill-treatment of prisoners then yes, I would support their prosecution.

To the contrary: they were written by DOJ lawyers -- specifically, OLC chief Steven Bradbury and then-OLC Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee. They are not "intelligence reports" from the field. They are, by definition -- by their very nature -- nothing more than decrees about what is and is not legal…

Are you ready, in the future, to support disbarment or war crime prosecution of Bradbury and Bybee? Or at that point will the ye old fig leaf that advising the President incorrectly is a “mistake”, and not a crime, be trotted out?

Do you approve of the Republican Senator’s threat to filibuster and tie up the Senate if DOJ investigates the torture issue for prosecution? They already have held up Dawn Johnson’s OLC appointment because of her support in lancing this festering wound of torture one the American character.

I join Robert Service’s omniscient observer commenting in the Shooting of Dan McGrew that I am not wise as these lawyer guys, but strictly between us two, the torture memo’s will be released, but names will be redacted. You do not open a new battle front, when you have an intractable group of patriots with no wishes to compromise, or seek solutions to our multiple problems.