Bush-Era Memo Ok`d Military Role Inside U.S.

`The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically,` it said.

The U.S. military would have been able to kick in doors and raid a terrorist cell inside the United States without a search warrant under a Bush-era legal memo the Justice Department made public on Monday.

The memo, from Oct. 23, 2001, also said constitutional protections ensuring free speech and banning unreasonable search and seizure could take a back seat to military needs in fighting a terrorists inside the United States.

The memo was one of nine previously undisclosed memos and legal opinions which shed light on former U.S. President George W. Bush's legal guidance as he launched a war against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The memos depict an administration apparently determined to expand the president's power after the shock of Sept. 11, and added fuel to critics' charges that fundamental constitutional protections were threatened in the process.

"We do not think that a military commander carrying out a raid on a terrorist cell would be required to demonstrate probable cause or to obtain a (search) warrant," Justice Department officials John Yoo and Robert Delahunty wrote White House counsel Alberto Gonzales in the Oct. 23 memo.

"The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically," it said.

Bush's Justice Department disavowed most of the advice in a final memo dated days before U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January, and Obama later declared all of the memos no longer valid.