John Yoo: Why the President Can Order Snooping and Torture

By Jeralyn, Section War on Terror
Posted on Sun Dec 25, 2005 at 08:05:12 PM EST
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John Yoo is the Berkeley law professor, former associate White House counsel and former law clerk to Clarence Thomas, who is responsible for the most extreme White House positions on torture and snooping:

It was Yoo who drafted the infamous memo saying the Geneva Conventions were "seriously flawed" and the U.S. wasn't bound by them in treating al Qaeda prisoners.

It was Yoo who drafted the memo with this definition of torture:

...it declared that, to be considered torture, techniques must produce lasting psychological damage or suffering "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

It was Yoo who said the President was not bound by FISA or federal eavesdropping laws when conducting electronic surveillance when one party was outside the United States. Yoo believes in wartime, the constitution gives the president unlimited power.

You can read his January 9 memo to William Haynes here. (pdf)

How did this 38 year old uber-conservative who has never met Bush or Cheney get to dictate our policy on torture and the war on terror? Mostly, it was fortuitous timing. The timing of the 9/11 attacks.

"He was the right person in the right place at the right time," said Georgetown University's David Cole, a constitutional scholar and administration critic. "Here was someone who had made his career developing arguments for unchecked power, who could cut and paste from his law review articles into memos that essentially told the president, 'You can do what you want.' "

Other constitutional scholars disagree with Yoo.

The majority view among constitutional scholars holds that the Framers purposely imposed checks on the executive branch, even in wartime, not least in reaction to the rule of Britain's King George III. On such issues, Yoo's critics contend, he went too far. "It's largely a misreading of original intent," Cole said. "The Framers, above all, were concerned about a strong executive."

In 2004, law students at Berkely circulated a petition seeking Yoo's repudiation or resignation from the faculty due to his extreme views.

Yoo, who is tenured, is still there.