Shame on Yoo

[rodeodance]

Yoo also argued that the "Geneva Conventions Do Not Apply to Detainees":


http://thinkprogress.org/?tag=Civil%20Liberties
Shame on Yoo

The New York Times reports today that soon after 9/11, “President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.”

Who provided the legal justification to spy (perhaps illegally) on Americans without judicial oversight? None other than former Justice Department official John Yoo. It’s not the first time Yoo has advised the administration to push moral, legal and ethical boundaries:

Yoo Argued Interrogation Wasn’t Torture Unless It Resulted In Organ Failure or Death: Yoo also wrote an infamous torture memo which argued that interrogation techniques only constitute torture if they are “equivalent in intensity to…organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” The Bush administration was forced to repudiate that memo once it became public. Yoo continues to defend it, saying the new torture definition “makes it harder to figure out how the torture statute applies to specific interrogation methods.”

Yoo Argued President Bush Didn’t Need To Ask Congress Before Invading Iraq: Yoo has also argued that “President Bush didn’t need to ask Congress for permission to invade Iraq.” The 1973 War Powers Resolution, according to Yoo, is “irrelevant.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed the argument when she told a congressional committee that “the president has the right to attack Syria, without congressional approval, if he deems that a necessary move in the war on terror.”........

[Drum]

1. In addition to being a malignant idiot,

Bush appears to be completely addicted to bad advice.

Yoo is a dangerous influence. How can you advocate such things and be able to look yourself in the mirror? Really really bad karma....

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. There's only one reason Yoo holds the position he does

And it's because Yoo assumes the position required by the Bush administration.

[Peachhead22]

3. The Dems in Congress...

...really should call this guy out, bigtime. Make Yoo's "advice" a major issue. Uncomfortably so. We may not be able to impeach *, but we sure can make it difficult for * to keep the worst offenders in his administration.

[lostnfound]

4. I'm still mad that newspapers let this guy write opeds and didn't identify

him as being involved.

The Houston Chronicle and others printed his opeds as if he was an objective expert opinion commenting on the torture situation, never mentioning that his name was on one or more of the key memos.

I wrote a LTTE about it which they didn't publish.