John Yoo--Wrong Then and Still Wrong Today

John Yoo served in the Justice Department during the Bush administration. He was the author of some of the most infamous of the torture memos and is now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today Yoo defends the Bush administration actions which uprooted Constitutional protections for citizens across the nation.

Yoo begins by describing the failure of our intelligence organizations.

t was instantly clear after Sept. 11, 2001, that our security agencies knew little about al Qaeda's inner workings, could not detect its operatives' entry into the country, nor predict where it might strike next.

The failure was one of mostly administrative dysfunction with failed communications between organizations. In addition there was too much information to be analyzed by the agencies which were short of Arabic translators.

Warrantless wiretapping is justified in Yoo's mind since the FISA rules of the day forced too much time lag or too many restrictions. Since a warrant is required under the law before any wiretapping is undertaken and the FISA Court has denied only a handful of requests his ideas are tough to swallow. In addition the government is allowed to put the wiretap in place for several days while the request for a warrant is considered. Only an administration steeped in its own quest for power would consider moving outside the Constitutional balance of power and protections of civil rights.

Yoo goes on to call FISA an "obsolete law" and claims the President should be unlimited in his powers.

To limit the president's constitutional power to protect the nation from foreign threats is simply foolhardy.

The Founding Fathers knew the risks of just such power and installed a balance of power arrangement to prevent the sorts of abuse unlimited power is likely to bring about.

In conclusion Yoo wants the nation to continue the same course as under Bush.

As we confront terrorists who remain intent on attacking the U.S., using weapons we cannot anticipate, we should be skeptical of those who insist that we radically change the way this country has always made war.

The way our nation has always made war has brought little credit to us over the course of history. We need to be very careful to reexamine the issues on which we base war. Too many times our nation has invaded sovereign nations without adequate justification.

And beyond that war is no reason to deny Constitutional protections to one and all. Our Constitution has stood tall for more than 200 years. We have no reason whatsoever to abuse the protections offered in those fine words. If we are to continue another 200 years into the future as a leader nation we had best return to our Constitutional roots and hold to the principles of our founding.

Peace.