Bobcast: Suspending free speech?

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What would you call a presidential administration that would consider rescinding the First Amendment?

Until the release of 2001 Bush legal memos earlier this week, it’s likely that’s a question few ever pondered, or ever wished to ponder.

An Oct. 23, 2001, memo, by President Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel reads, “The government’s compelling interests in wartime justify restrictions on the scope of individual liberty.” The author, John Yoo, continued, “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.”

We’re presented with another reminder that the previous administration believed terrorists more powerful than the U.S. Constitution. What else can we conclude? In pursuing bad guys after 9/11 the Bush White House took liberties with our liberties. Bush’s team detained prisoners without trial, employed interrogation techniques deemed torture by international treaty, spied on citizens without the benefit of a warrant, and so on.

What would you call a presidential administration that would consider rescinding the First Amendment?

Would it be wrong to note these actions were directly opposed to the principles laid out by our founders? Would it be wrong to call it anti-American?