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October 20, 2009 PBS News Hour

The tenure of Berkeley law professor John Yoo has come under fire amid a backlash over the role he played in the Bush administration, advising on the legalities of now-controversial interrogation tactics used on terror suspects. Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS: Since the beginning of the school year, protesters dressed as prisoners or detainees have dogged law professor John Yoo at the University of California at Berkeley. They want the university to fire him for advising the Bush administration, as an attorney in the Justice Department, that it could legally torture suspected terrorists to get information.

PROTESTER: This is a not just a question of academic opinions. This is a question of war crimes. People like John Yoo, these people should be fired.

SPENCER MICHELS: Forty-two-year-old John Yoo has taught here since 1993, except for 2001 to 2003, when he worked for the Justice Department in the Office of Legal Counsel.

During those years, after 9/11, the U.S. was interrogating prisoners, suspected terrorists, at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Yoo wrote several memos on how far the interrogators could go in pressuring prisoners to reveal information. Those memos argued that techniques such as water- boarding, sleep deprivation, and exploiting a detainee's fear of insects were, in fact, legal.

Yoo's actions have reverberated throughout Boalt Hall, the Berkeley law school where Yoo teaches. Students and faculty are debating the bounds of academic freedom, and whether a professor should be held responsible for controversial work done outside the university.

DAVID ARABELLA, law student: I believe that he does have a right to teach here, because people can have controversial views. But, personally, I'm not going to enroll in his class.

SPENCER MICHELS: The law school dean, Christopher Edley, who has served in several Democratic administrations, has been besieged by messages, the majority against Professor Yoo.

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Australian comedy show The Chaser's War on Everything travel to the United States to visit a couple of the more well-known torture proponents, John Yoo and Dick Cheney. Donning a familiar costume, Yoo is confronted while giving a lecture in a classroom. Yoo lectures at UC Berkley and Chapman, and was a key member of the Bush administration's justification of torture. (A complete mystery as to why Yoo isn't in jail yet, but as Richard Armitrage advised, it's probably not a good idea for Yoo to travel outside the United States.)

And in another familiar costume, our intrepid faux reporters travel to Dick Cheney's bunker compound house to get some unpaid royalties. Unfortunately Dick wasn't at home, and it wasn't long before local authorities and the Secret Service were called in to intervene.

This clip is from their July 15th show. They came to prominence with American audiences during the 2007 APEC conference.

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David Shuster and Harper's Scott Horton break down John Yoo's poorly written op-ed at the Wall Street Journal, defending his part in allowing the Bush administration to spy on millions of Americans under the guise of keeping us safe from terrorists.

From The Anonymous Liberal--John Yoo: Still Lying:

In this morning's Wall Street Journal, John Yoo has an op-ed defending himself from the malpractice charges set forth in the recent Inspecter General's report. As with the opinions themselves, the op-ed is deeply disingenuous and misstates the law repeatedly.

Not surprisingly, Yoo begins the op-ed with a collosal straw man. He points out how important it is to intercept al Qaeda communications and writes: "Evidently, none of the inspectors general of the five leading national security agencies would approve." Of course, the issue is not whether intercepting communications is a good idea, but whether the program violated the law. Yoo was not a policy maker. He was a lawyer. His job was to state what the law was, not what it should be.

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From Think Progress-- In Op-Ed Attacking IG Report, John Yoo Never Mentions That He Refused To Cooperate With The Investigation:

Last week, the Inspectors General of five separate intelligence agencies released a congressionally-mandated report on the Bush administration’s post-9/11 surveillance programs. The report focuses much of its criticism on John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, who wrote “legal memos undergirding the policy.”

In the Wall Street Journal today, Yoo responded to the report, claiming that the inspectors general are ignoring history and are simply “responding to the media-stoked politics of recrimination.” But in his attack on the report, Yoo neither responded to the specific criticisms of his legal reasoning nor mentioned that he refused to cooperate with the investigation.

Instead, Yoo persisted in pushing the flaws in his legal argument, such as the claim that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act did not take war into consideration.

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Scott Horton has more at The Daily Beast--Torture Prosecution Turnaround?:

The attorney general is leaning toward appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era torture policy, sources tell Scott Horton. Inside the logic driving Eric Holder’s possible conversion.

Balloon Juice: From the sh*t you already knew department.  Who knows, someone in authority may even be moved to uphold the law!

field negro: Another unabashed Republican racist

DownWithTyranny! Confidential to banksters...

PoliGazette: Obama strikes the right tone on Africa

Informed Comment: Afghanistan/Pakistan death and displaced persons update

BAGnewsNotes: Because Chris Hondros, having made twelve trips to Iraq in covering the war, is one of America's most respected and highly praised photojournalists, BNN is pleased to offer this review of "The Hurt Locker."

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June 15, 2009 Rachel Maddow Show

Maddow: But first, it‘s time for a couple of holy mackerel stories in today‘s news. First up, the richest vein of news for the week is often late in the day on Friday. And late in the day this past Friday a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that John Yoo, the most notorious of all the Bush administration torture memo authors, is going to have his day in court.

Mr. Yoo is being sued by a U.S. citizen who was once declared an enemy combatant by the Bush administration. That man, Jose Padilla says that Mr. Yoo effectively created the torture program in which Mr. Padilla was severely physically abused while in custody as an enemy combatant.

Mr. Padilla is only speaking $1.00 in damages from Mr. Yoo. What he really wants is a court order declaring that his treatment was illegal and unconstitutional. John Yoo had asked that the case him be dismissed on the grounds that he was acting as a government official when he wrote the torture memo and he should be therefore be immune from getting sued.

But the judge in the case, incidentally, a judge appointed by George W. Bush disagreed with Mr. Yoo, ruling that, quote, “Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct.”

The judge also ruled that Mr. Padilla had, quote, “alleged sufficient facts to satisfy requirements that Mr. Yoo set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Mr. Padilla‘s constitutional rights.”

So the lawsuit against torture memo guy John Yoo proceeds. Do you want to know who is defending John Yoo in this lawsuit? You, not “Yoo” as in John Yoo, but “you” as in you and me. We‘re defending him.

The Justice Department of the United States is providing John Yoo‘s defense. We‘re paying to defend the torture guy with our tax dollars. I wonder if we can vote on that.

Finally, if you pay any attention to the tapes that are released periodically by al-Qaeda, by the As-Sahab, which is the al-Qaeda AV club, you might have noticed that in the last couple of years, As-Sahab was taken over by the American kid in al-Qaeda, known variously as Azam al-Amriki, a.k.a. Azam the American, a.k.a. Adam Gadahn. He‘s the chunky former Death Metal-loving dork from a California goat farm who renounced the United States and famously ripped up his U.S. passport on an al-Qaeda video. Ooh, like, we‘ll miss you.

In a surprise development concerning Mr. Gadahn, in a recording released over the weekend, Mr. Gadahn, Mr. al-Amriki, Mr. Azam, the American, came out as Jewish. Yes.

In a new As-Sahab tape, he admits that his grandfather was Jewish, that his grandfather gave him a copy of a very bad book once by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And he says his grandfather encouraged young Adam to get Israeli citizenship. This admission, of course, will probably make things really awkward at the next al-Qaeda mixer. I‘m just guessing.

While I'm happy to see him called to account, I'd sure like to see Yoo's superiors get the credit for demanding the torture rationale:

A federal judge has ruled that John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer who wrote crucial memorandums justifying harsh interrogation techniques, will have to answer in court to accusations that his work led to a prisoner’s being tortured and deprived of his constitutional rights.

The government had asked Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco to dismiss the case filed by Jose Padilla, an American citizen who spent more than three years in a military brig as an enemy combatant. Judge White denied most elements of Mr. Yoo’s motion and quoted a passage from the Federalist Papers that in times of war, nations, to be more safe, “at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”

Will Bunch today writes that the Philadelphia Inquirer still won't admit they screwed up by hiring torture architect John Yoo as a columnist.

It doesn't surprise me. Let me tell you why.

The Inquirer, long a 'liberal' paper, underwent some changes a few years ago when they (and the Philadelphia Daily News, where Will blogs) were purchased by the Philadelphia Media Holdings. The new publisher was Brien Tierney, a well-known Republican media strategist. (Until then, Tierney was best known to Philadelphians for his aggressive media defense of local Catholic churches against child molestation charges.)

When his group of investors bought the paper, he made a public pledge not to interfere with the papers' editorial slant. Since then, Citizen Tierney has hired several conservative columnists, including Rick Santorum and Mike Smerconish, and has overseen (mandated?) the occasional use of opposing editorials, presumably to make sure readers don't take the one with the "wrong" (read: liberal) opinions seriously.

Last week, Will Bunch noticed that Yoo, someone who was thought to be an occasional op-ed contributor, had actually been hired as a regular staff writer, and he generated a blogswarm asking for Yoo to be fired. The NY Times covered the uproar:

Harold Jackson, The Inquirer’s editorial page editor, said he was surprised by the sudden delayed anger directed his way over Mr. Yoo. He said the decision to hire a columnist was his, but that “Mr. Yoo was suggested by the publisher,” Brian Tierney.

Big surprise there. After all, freedom of the press belongs to he who owns the press! Tierney is just as principled in all his activities:

There’s a little-publicized story that the parent company of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Newspapers LLC allegedly sought a $10-million bailout from the state of Pennsylvania according to lawsuit filed by a Chester County, Pa. charter school. However, the Associated Press reported on April 24 that the company’s chief, Brian Tierney – received $1.175 million in salary and bonus compensation in 2008, despite being forced into bankruptcy protection in February for $395 million in debt.

“Recent court filings also show that Tierney collected $1.175 million in salary and bonuses last year, somewhat higher than previously disclosed,” Maryclaire Dale wrote for the AP. “Tierney's compensation included $650,000 in salary, a $350,000 bonus for 2008, a $175,000 bonus for 2007 and $81,000 in transportation costs.”

Recently, as The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reported, Tierney appeared before a House committee making a plea for government help.

“The biggest request for help at the hearing was from the Philadelphia Inquirer's Brian Tierney, who wanted protection for newspapers to talk about creating a national alternative to Craigslist,” Milbank wrote in the Post on April 22.

Funny how those free-market principles go right out the window when they affect your positive cash flow, eh?

“There was a conscious effort on our part to counter some of the criticism of The Inquirer as being a knee-jerk liberal publication,” Mr. Jackson said. “We made a conscious effort to add some conservative voices to our mix.”

Asked if the release of the memos affected his view of hiring Mr. Yoo, Mr. Jackson said: “From a personal perspective, yes. We certainly know more now than we did then, but we didn’t go into that contract blindly. I’m not going to say the same decision wouldn’t have been made.”

But Mr. Tierney said the memos did not alter his opinion.

“What I liked about John Yoo is he’s a Philadelphian,” Mr. Tierney said. “He went to Episcopal Academy, where I went to school. He’s a very, very bright guy. He’s on the faculty at Berkeley, one of the most liberal universities in the country.”

To critics of the hiring, he said, “The most important speech to defend is the speech you hate,” and he said there were not all that many critics. “I’ve gotten more mail recently on our making our comics smaller than I have on John Yoo.”

So this is all about defending free speech? Hmm. If I didn't know better, I'd almost swear Tierney handed Yoo the spot to help him defend himself (and thus, BushCo officials) against war crime charges. Greg Sergeant:

On March 15, he published a long broadside against “civil libertarians” who have criticized the Bush administration’s expansion of executive powers amid the war on terror — expansions that Yoo helped author.

Needless to say, those “civil libertarians” are the same people that are demanding a probe into the Bush era torture program — one that Yoo himself helped create. At the time of Yoo’s piece, of course, it was still unclear how or whether to probe the architects of that program, as it remains today. You’d think the paper would ask Yoo to recuse himself from writing about such stuff.

It would be one thing for a paper to invite someone under scrutiny to air his side of the story in an occasional Op ed. It’s quite another for a paper to give such a person a regular platform on contract for use in attacking political opponents in an ongoing and potentially criminal governmental dispute.

Oh, don't be silly! They had to do it, Craigslist made them! I hear the next new hire will be Roman Polanski, who will be giving advice on how to cultivate relationships with underage girls and how some people are trying to legislate away his freedom.

It's true. John Yoo got a job writing for the Philly Inquirer. One of the men responsible of the rotting of our American morals once again is given a prime time job. It's sickening. The conservative movement is so devoid of thinkers that the traditional media is left to hire moral-less scoundrels that found legal jargon to try and justify torture for Cheney's henchmen.

Will Bunch explains: Inquirer defends the indefensible: A monthly column by torture architect John Yoo

By late last year, the world already knew a great deal about John Yoo, the Philadelphia native and conservative legal scholar whose tenure in the Bush administration as a top Justice Department lawyer lies at the root of the period of greatest peril to the U.S. Constitution in modern memory. It was widely known in 2008, for example, that Yoo had argued for presidential powers far beyond anything either real or implied in the Constitution -- that the commander-in-chief could trample the powers of Congress or a free press in an endless undeclared war, or that the 4th Amendment barring unreasonable search and seizure didn't apply in fighting what Yoo called domestic terrorism.

Most famously, Yoo was known as the author of the infamous "torture memos" that in 2002 and 2003 gave the Bush and Cheney the legal cover to violate the human rights of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, based on the now mostly ridiculed claim that international and U.S. laws against such torture practices did not apply. Working closely with Dick Cheney, Cheney's staff and others, Yoo set into motion the brutal actions that left a deep, indelible stain on the American soul.

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Obsidian Wings: Here are a series of excerpts concerning the use of torture. See if you can guess the speakers.

Attytood: Philadelphia Inquirer is defending the the indefensible.  They've hired John Yoo to do a monthly column.

Suicide Girls: This will be the first time we are going to have a justice picked by a non-asshole since the 90’s. Let's Go Gay

Matthew Yglesias: Richard Posner throws in the towel on the conservative movement

naked capitalism: Links!

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Big Bank ltd, thump and whip, Conceptual Guerilla, Night Bird's Fountain

Perhaps he'll have time to modify his position after he's impeached:

WASHINGTON — Judge Jay S. Bybee broke his silence on Tuesday and defended the conclusions of legal memorandums he had signed as a Bush administration lawyer that allowed use of several coercive interrogation practices on suspected terrorists.

Judge Bybee, who issued the memorandums as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel and was later nominated to the federal appeals court by President George W. Bush, said in a statement in response to questions from The New York Times that he continued to believe that the memorandums represented “a good-faith analysis of the law” that properly defined the thin line between harsh treatment and torture.

[...] Until recently, Judge Bybee had been a largely unseen figure in the debate. In contrast, John Yoo, his deputy at the Office of Legal Counsel, who is generally believed to have been the memorandums’ principal author, has defended them regularly. But Judge Bybee has come under renewed attention. Some people have called for his impeachment, he is being investigated by the Justice Department on his professional standards, and he has even become estranged from friends.

Judge Bybee said he was issuing a statement following reports that he had regrets over his role in the memorandums, including an article in The Washington Post on Saturday to that effect. Given the widespread criticism of the memorandums, he said he would have done some things differently, like clarifying and sharpening the analysis of some of his answers to help the public better understand the basis for his conclusions.

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Not content with its past role in screening candidates for positions in the Bush judiciary and Justice Department, the conservative Federalist Society is back to defend the Bush torture team it helped create. Ironically, the Federalists' conference call Monday came just three days after McClatchy reported that Steven Bradbury - one of its members and a figure at the center of the storm over the release of the OLC torture members - refuted their claim that the military's SERE training program proved the United States did not torture terror detainees.

As Politico reported, the National Review hosted a media conference call featuring many of the usual suspects among the Bush torture apologists:

The lawyers' group, which was a pipeline for judges in the Bush White House, is hosting a call this morning with National Review writer Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, lawyer David Rivkin, and Chapman University Law School Dean John Eastman.

Their claim, as Politico noted, was that the "much-criticized memos from the Office of Legal Counsel were perfectly reasonable." McCarthy brushed off the CIA's use of waterboarding on terror suspects by proclaiming "they were not going to be killed by the tactic." Eastman, whose university is hosting Federalist Society member and Bush torture architect John Yoo as a visiting professor, insisted the treatment was no worse than that undergone by American service personnel:

Eastman responded to The New York Times's Scott Shane about the use of waterboarding during the Spanish Inquisition and by the Japanese military, and responded "that psychological reviews of graduates of the military's SERE program, in which members of the U.S. military were waterboarded, is a more relevant example.

"Why would I go and look at something the Spanish Inquisition did just because it was also called 'waterboarding'?" he asked.

Perhaps because, as the Bush Office of Legal Counsel chief and 2005 torture memo author Steven Bradbury concluded four years ago, "SERE trainees know it is part of a training program."

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I'm hearing serious rumors that the newly disgraced Judge Jay Bybee may not have actually written the CIA memos under his byline, but acted like a stenographer on the torture issue while he was John Yoo's boss. I'm in the process of investigating these allegations.

The New York Times called today for investigation and prosecution of John Yoo and Stephen Bradbury, and impeachment of federal judge Jay Bybee:

We do not think Mr. Obama will violate Americans’ rights as Mr. Bush did. But if Americans do not know the rules, they cannot judge whether this government or any one that follows is abiding by the rules.

In the case of detainee abuse, Mr. Obama assured C.I.A. operatives that they would not be prosecuted for actions that their superiors told them were legal. We have never been comfortable with the “only following orders” excuse, especially because Americans still do not know what was actually done or who was giving the orders.

After all, as far as Mr. Bush’s lawyers were concerned, it was not really torture unless it involved breaking bones, burning flesh or pulling teeth. That, Mr. Bybee kept noting, was what the Libyan secret police did to one prisoner. The standard for American behavior should be a lot higher than that of the Libyan secret police.

At least Mr. Obama is not following Mr. Bush’s example of showy trials for the small fry — like Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib notoriety. But he has an obligation to pursue what is clear evidence of a government policy sanctioning the torture and abuse of prisoners — in violation of international law and the Constitution.

That investigation should start with the lawyers who wrote these sickening memos, including John Yoo, who now teaches law in California; Steven Bradbury, who was job-hunting when we last heard; and Mr. Bybee, who holds the lifetime seat on the federal appeals court that Mr. Bush rewarded him with.

These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it.

After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.

John Amato wrote about it yesterday and called for the impeaching of Bybee.

Will you join me please and Sign the petition? With the revelations that Jay Bybee was in the middle of trying to legalize torture for the Bush administration, particularly with the evidence that he penned the disgusting torture memo in 2002, I fully support all efforts to have this man impeached. The OLC is supposed to give sound legal opinions to the executive branch, not bend the law to fit their sick world view which makes this all the more egregious.

Salon's Joan Walsh has a thoughtful followup here.

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Rahm Emanuel not only told George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Week that no field officers should be prosecuted over breaking the law when it comes to torturing prisoners, but he took it a step beyond and proclaimed that even the lowlife John Yoos and Jay Bybees shouldn't face any consequences for their actions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What about those who devised policy?


EMANUEL: Yes, but those who devised policy, he believes that they were -- should not be prosecuted either, and that's not the place that we go -- as he said in that letter, and I would really recommend people look at the full statement -- not the letter, the statement -- in that second paragraph, "this is not a time for retribution." It's time for reflection. It's not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and any sense of anger and retribution.


We have a lot to do to protect America. What people need to know, this practice and technique, we don't use anymore. He banned it.

Look, it's up to us and Congress to push along these hearings and impeachments.

As Jane says:

Is that truly what the administration thinks? That people who want to see those who illegally led the country down the road of torture held to account are simply "looking back" in "anger" and "retribution"? Fifty percent of the country favor such investigations, including 69% of Democrats and a majority of independents. Is Rahm saying that President Obama believes they're nothing more than an angry, vindictive mob, and that nobody could possibly have a rational basis for believing that our laws should be enforced?

Manfred Nowak, the United Nations top torture investigator, says that treaties entered into by the United States require criminal investigations:

The United States, like all other states that are part of the U.N. convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court.

For Obama to say "it is the time to look forward" is not a shock to me, but we have to look backward and take action so these insane practices and anything like them never, ever happen again under any president. I understand that the spooks don't want to be prosecuted for following orders and the pressure the president is being put under by these agencies. I'm just fine with seeing Yoo and Addington and Bybee and all the rest of the Bush Administration honchos in shackles doing a frogmarch, justice for their miscreancy in disgracing this country and using the OLC to justify the illegal practice of torture. I think the world needs to see them, too.

Will you join me please and Sign the petition? With the revelations that Jay Bybee was in the middle of trying to legalize torture for the Bush administration, particularly with the evidence that he penned the disgusting torture memo in 2002, I fully support all efforts to have this man impeached. The OLC is supposed to give sound legal opinions to the executive branch, not bend the law to fit their sick world view which makes this all the more egregious.

As Jeffery Toobin writes in the New Yorker:

The first, and very chilling memo in the group is an analysis of the various techniques that were used by C.I.A. interrogators on Abu Zubaydah. The author of the memo, which is dated August 1, 2002, is Jay S. Bybee, who was the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. Bybee concludes that all of these various techniques, including waterboarding, do not constitute torture under American or international law.

Bybee is generally the forgotten man in torture studies of the Bush era. The best known of the legal architects of the torture regime is John Yoo, who was a deputy to Bybee. For better or worse, Yoo has been a vocal defender of the various torture policies, and he remains outspoken on these issues. But whatever happened to his boss?

Today, Bybee is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was confirmed by the Senate on March 13, 2003—some time before any of the “torture memos” became public. He has never answered questions about them, has never had to defend his conduct, has never endured anywhere near the amount of public scrutiny (and abuse) as Yoo. It is an understatement to say that he has kept a low profile since becoming a judge.

He certainly slipped under my radar. When you study men like Cheney, Yoo and David Addington---it's very easy for a man like Bybee to slip through the torture cracks. Now he's on the 9th circuit and for a man to be involved in one of the most revolting moral and ethical violations in American history, he has forfeited the right to be on the 9th circuit. The only thing left to figure out is how to do it.

The NY Times is also asking of Bybee to be impeached"

That investigation should start with the lawyers who wrote these sickening memos, including John Yoo, who now teaches law in California; Steven Bradbury, who was job-hunting when we last heard; and Mr. Bybee, who holds the lifetime seat on the federal appeals court that Mr. Bush rewarded him with.

These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it. After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.

Well, not surprising--it's up to us to do it and to push the tools we have at our disposal.

d-day has more:

And there is an actual mechanism, a way to leverage grassroots anger and push the elected officials who can make these decisions, at least in one case. We can prove the desire for accountability in the country and take a systematic approach to restore democracy and the rule of law. And it starts with Jay Bybee.

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