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Monday, January 5, 2009 12:00 AM

Obama's impressive new OLC chief

A law professor with a history of strident condemnation of Bush radicalism is named to one of the most important positions in the executive branch.

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  • Tuesday, January 6, 2009 05:36 PM

    OLC secret opinions

    I hope she's honest, as she seems, here's a good test:

    Let Dawn Johnsen publish the OLC opinions.

    About half of them are secret, including their redacted titles and dates. "List of Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel Opinions 1998-2007" (DoJ, OLC, FoIA response, October 29 2007, signed by Bradley T. Smith, OLC Attorney-Adviser): http://www.governmentattic.org/docs/DOJ_LegalCounselOpinions_1998-2007.pdf

    These are secret laws, secretly interpreting public laws, contrary to what the public and Congress think they mean, as some disclosures demonstrate. These secret opinions are binding on the executive branch, the operatives secretly licensed, by those secret opinions, to wage violent crime on orders, for example.

    This simple act, flooding that criminal cockpit with sunlight, that is the only way she can claw back public trust. The public now properly regards her office, the DoJ OLC, to be a violent criminal enterprise.

    If Dawn Johnsen starts down the "trust us" path, claiming continued secrecy is necessary, she will explode a justified public fury and plunge the Obama administration straight to the bottom of the GWBush&Co cesspit, and nobody can resurface from that deep trench.

    Publishing the secret OLC opinions, this would attract immense talent, from the public, commenting on the opinions. Everybody has special interests, and all of us together, as a group, we are experts, in every topic on that secret list of secret opinions.

    We, the experts, will soon expose their defects, or bless them, where they merit it. And, we'll do it for free. High-powered legal talent, free of charge, the biggest and best law firm in the world, working for free, producing a rich harvest for the OLC boss, Assistant Attorney General Dawn Johnsen, and, a bonus, a Wiki law firm commenting on the comments.

    And, I want the transcripts, video/audio, memos -- the work product -- which gave birth to these opinions, not only because it's evidence for future criminal prosecutions, some of it, but also, we want to assess the reputation of every voice who participated, their fitness, to hold an office of pubic trust.

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