Terror and such

In my favorite film of the past year, Frost/Nixon, there's an exchange that you may have seen in the preview as well where Frost asks Nixon if he is saying that the president can do something illegal? Nixon responds, forcefully, "I'm saying, that when the president does it, it's not illegal!" Frost, stunned, sort of stammers, "I'm sorry?"

Today I'm studying for my Civil Liberties and the War on Terror class, and reviewing the Commander-in-Chief powers of war and whether/how the Bush Administration's attempts to expand Commander-in-Chief powers conflicted with Congress.

The U.S. Department of Defense issued a "Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism" in April 2003. It lists the Commander-in-Chief authority as a legal doctrine that could "render specific conduct, otherwise criminal, not unlawful."

Just in case you were wondering.