The traditional method of altering the U.S. Constitution is through a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate, followed by ratification by at least three-fourths of the states.

The Bush administration, however, used an alternative method that it found much more efficient and far less public. Rather than involve Congress and the public, it gave the task of rewriting the Constitution to people such as John Yoo, an obscure but compliant attorney deep in the bowels of the Justice Department.

With the president's blessing and encouragement, Yoo was given authority to dramatically rewrite the hallowed words of James Madison. The Yoo version of the Constitution —- never brought before Congress, never submitted to the states —- fundamentally altered the balance of power that Madison and other Founding Fathers had crafted between the judicial, executive and legislative branches.

For example, the original Constitution states explicitly in Section 8 that Congress has the power "to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." Under that provision, it was long understood that Congress could outlaw the use of torture by the U.S. military, and it did so.

However, in a secret opinion written in 2003 but not released until last week, Yoo ruled that Madison and his colleagues had erred in giving Congress that much power. In an opinion that the Bush administration acted upon as law, Yoo wrote that "any effort by Congress to use its power to make rules for the armed forces would thus be ... unconstitutional."

Likewise, the Constitution also states plainly that "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land."

Yoo decided that too was wrong. Ruling from his lofty perch as an unknown deputy assistant attorney general, Yoo rewrote the Constitution to say that the president was really the supreme Law of the Land, and thus could singlehandedly decide to ignore and override international treaties ratified by Congress that banned torture.

That de facto revision of the Constitution has done immeasurable harm to our country by legitimizing the use of torture and leading directly to the disaster at Abu Ghraib. President Bush himself has called the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib "the biggest mistake" of the Iraq war, adding that "we've been paying for that for a long period of time."

Then there's the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, part of the hallowed Bill of Rights. It forbids government to conduct unreasonable and warrantless searches or arrests, a reaction to abuses by British soldiers in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Colonists were outraged that redcoats would barge into the homes of private citizens without warrants, rifling through their property and dragging off men and women without cause or explanation.

Yet in the wake of Sept. 11, Yoo and others in the obscure Office of Legal Counsel remarkably concluded that "the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations," meaning that in their opinion, the U.S. military was legally free to emulate the outrages of the redcoats 250 years ago.

That line of thought has also had its implications, among other things allowing the National Security Agency, an arm of the military, to spy on U.S. citizens without having to show reasonable cause to a judge.

Yoo's justification for cavalierly rewriting the Constitution —- an excuse championed by the Bush administration —- is that the events of Sept. 11 put this nation on a war footing in which our constitutional rights can be sacrificed to the cause of security.

It is the type of argument always advanced by those who seek to grab power at the public's expense, and always embraced by those too weak-willed and frightened to defend their own liberty.

"Every act of government must be approved if it makes freedom more secure," Ronald Reagan once warned, "and disapproved if it offers security instead of freedom."

—- Jay Bookman, for the editorial board (jbookman@ajc.com)