The George W. Bush Presidential Library turned over 500 out of 6,000 pages of the documents, known as "presidential emergency action documents" (PEADs), which "shed troub­ling new light on the powers that modern pres­id­ents claim they possess in moments of crisis," according to the Brennan Center, which obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

PEADs were created during the cold war, when the chance of a Soviet nuclear strike was at its peak. Early drafts reportedly rested on broad interpretations of executive powers. According to official reports from the 1960s, various PEADs authorized the president to enact measures such as suspending habeas corpus, to detain "dangerous persons" within the country, to censor news media, and to prevent international travel.

In light if 9/11, one Bush administration official viewed updating the PEADs an "urgent and compel­ling secur­ity effort, espe­cially in light of ongo­ing threats."

While the Brennan Center was unable to obtain more recent PEADs, the documents show "some of the most disturbing aspects of early-Cold War emergency action documents" were maintained at least throughout 2008.

Here are the specific findings via the Brennan Center:

Controlling commu­nic­a­tions

At least one of the docu­ments under review was designed to imple­ment the emer­gency author­it­ies contained in Section 706 of the Commu­nic­a­tions Act. During World War II, Congress gran­ted the pres­id­ent author­ity to shut down or seize control of "any facil­ity or station for wire commu­nic­a­tion" upon proclam­a­tion "that there exists a state or threat of war involving the United States."