memo news stories on Newser

Census Memo: Please Stop Napping at Work

John Johnson — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:19:35 CDT

The Federal Eye blog at the Washington Post picks up on two memos to government employees not of the usual variety (we hope): Nap time: Census Bureau officials fielding increased complaints about workers "sleeping in public areas" of its Maryland headquarters cracked down: “Sleeping on the premises is not acceptable...

Found: Missing Mental Health Records of Va. Tech Shooter

Matt Cantor — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:42:02 CDT

The mental health records of the gunman behind the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre have been found in the home of a former director of the university’s clinic, reports the AP. Seung-Hui Cho’s records were illegally taken from the clinic more than a year before the attack, says a memo from...

Yoo: Wiretaps Were Legal and Necessary

Jason Farago — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:24:53 CDT

Last week the inspectors general of the Justice Department, CIA, and other agencies suggested the Bush administration violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, singling out lawyer John Yoo for memos justifying warrantless wiretapping. Yoo defends himself today in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, writing that FISA was "an obsolete law"...

Fate of Dozens of CIA Detainees Still Unknown

Nick McMaster — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:57:18 CDT

The Bush-era CIA memos made public last week revealed that an al-Qaeda suspect, Hassan Ghul, had been held in one of the agency’s secret jails. But the inadvertent disclosure of one name merely highlights how much the public still doesn’t know about the network of secret detention facilities, ProPublica reports....

Obama Visits CIA to Defend Memo Release

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:35:58 CDT

Days after releasing top-secret memos that detailed the CIA's use of simulated drowning while interrogating terror suspects, President Obama went to the spy agency's Virginia headquarters today to defend his decision and bolster the morale of its employees. "I acted primarily because of the exceptional circumstances that surrounded these memos,...

CIA Waterboarded Gitmo Detainee 183 Times in a Month

Katherine Thompson — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 11:38:37 CDT

A Department of Justice memo that detailed interrogation techniques used on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay notes that in August 2002, suspected al-Qaeda official Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 82 times, while the following March, 9/11 suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. But as the blog Emptywheel points out, there's...

Bush Lawyer Authorized Suspending 1st Amendment

Jason Farago — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:23:50 CST

Immediately after 9/11 the Justice Department under President Bush approved military attacks on apartments and offices, high-tech surveillance of citizens, and a suspension of press freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. The actions detailed in the newly released memo, co-written by John Yoo and sent to Alberto Gonzales, were seen...

Lennon Ripped Building Safety Just Before Death

Matt Cantor — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:50:14 CST

John Lennon slammed security in his New York apartment building just months before he was murdered, the New York Post reports. In a handwritten note to an aide in April 1980, the ex-Beatle wrote, “explain to me why we are sleeping here with a front door that any nut can...