When I first saw that the Justice Department released new documents regarding the Bush administration’s legal approach to the war on terror, I figured that Marjorie Cohn would be on the case. Sure enough, her article appeared on AlterNet today.

According to Marjorie, the memos “provide ‘legal’ rationales for the President to suspend freedom of speech and press; order warrantless searches and seizures, including wiretaps of U.S. citizens; lock up U.S. citizens indefinitely in the United States without criminal charges; send suspected terrorists to other countries where they will likely be tortured; and unilaterally abrogate treaties.”

Marjorie notes that the reasoning in the memos leaves no role for Congress to check and balance the executive. “That is the definition of a police state,” she writes.

All but one of the memos were written by either John Yoo, professor of law at Berkeley, or Jay Bybee, a federal judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. (Odd that both are here in the Bay Area.) Her recommendation? Investigation, prosecution, and disbarment for both as well as termination for Yoo and impeachment for Bybee.