Real American Villians - John Yoo

John Yoo is currently a professor of Law at the Boalt Hall School of law at the University of California in Berkley.

Yoo worked with the Bush Administration to distort laws, laying the legal foundation of our current war effort. He held the title of deputy attorney general at the office of legal council. The memos that he wrote helped to rationalize the actions that the Bush Administration was probably going to take anyway.

Yoo used his own revised history as the basis for his legal memos. In this document, he argued that the framers of the US constitution “would encourage presidential initiative in war. The constitution gives the president the initiative in war. The framers were not excessively worried about the prospect of unilateral executive action.” Of course, this is directly opposed to the attitudes of our founders, who wanted to avoid king-like powers at all costs.

His work was crucial in constructing the Patriot Act and the expansion of presidential powers. Yoo's work provides legal justification for the warrant-less wire tapping program as well as the torture of those labeled 'enemy combatants'.

Yoo wrote: "Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations."

Well, as you can remember the Fourth Amendment reads as follows:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Yoo's argument is not hard to refute. All that one has to do is read this crucial piece to the Bill of Rights to realize that he is wrong!

Employed by George Bush, Yoo is considered a right-wing conservative, but he is clearly not a traditional conservative. Having created new powers for the executive branch, providing grounds for torture, and expanding the role of the general federal government, he can hardly be considered a traditional right-winger.

John Yoo has taken a lot of heat for his work. There are multiple petitions on the internet demanding that Yoo be fired from his position at Berkley. Media outlets have almost universally criticized his decisions. To top it off, Yoo was served a subpoena yesterday to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.