Speaker Biographies

August 8, 2003

Michael Chertoff is a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He has over twenty years of experience as an attorney, including clerking for the Honorable Murray Gurfein and the Honorable William J. Brennan and practicing at the firm of Latham & Watkins. Mr. Chertoff has also served as assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, as first assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and as special counsel for the U.S. Senate Whitewater Committee. Before being confirmed into the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Mr. Chertoff was the assistant attorney general for the criminal division of the United States Department of Justice.

Morton Halperin is the director of the Washington, D.C., office of the Open Society Institute. He is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directs the Center for Democracy and Free Markets. Mr. Halperin served nearly twenty years as director of the Center for National Security Studies, a project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which sought to reconcile requirements of national security with civil liberties. He has published a number of books and articles on subjects such as civil liberties and American foreign policy and has testified often before congressional committees.

William J. Haynes has served as general counsel of the Department of Defense since May 24, 2001. Appointed by President Bush with the advice and consent of the Senate, Mr. Haynes is the chief legal officer of the Department of Defense and the legal adviser to the secretary of Defense. He provides oversight, guidance, and direction regarding legal advice on all matters arising within the Department of Defense, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and oversees legal services delivered by the military and civilian attorneys in all Department of Defense components.

Melanie Kirkpatrick is the associate editor of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and a member of the Journal’s editorial board. She has worked for over twenty years as an editor of Wall Street Journal publications, first with the Asian Wall Street Journal, and now as the editor responsible for the Review & Outlook column and the author of editorials and articles featured on the Journal’s editorial page. She was coeditor of the 1996–2001 editions of the Index of Economic Freedom, published by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation.

John C. Yoo is a visiting scholar at AEI. He is a former deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice and a professor of law on leave from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. His research areas include constitutional law, international law, war, and terrorism. Mr. Yoo has written extensively on the relationship between treaties, globalism, and the branches of government and separation of powers. He will be teaching at the University of Chicago School of Law for one semester this fall before returning to Boalt Hall.

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