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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: SEPTEMBER 6, 2006
As an official in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo helped shape much of the Bush administration’s legal response to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Were we at war? The president’s legal authority to act was unclear. In his newest book, War by Other Means (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), Yoo offers an insider’s account of the formulation of that response. As he explains, these decisions were "controversial because 9/11 itself was unprecedented. 9/11 forced our government to reexamine old assumptions, to reconsider old policies, and to rededicate itself to protecting the national security against a new foe [al Qaeda]." War by Other Means is Yoo’s contribution to the debate about how to best defend the United States. By explaining the central tenets of the War on Terror’s legal framework, the author explains how we can best fight terrorists in the legal world and on the battlefield. In particular, he discusses:
- The decision that al Qaeda cannot claim the protection of the Geneva Conventions.
- The legality of assassination: what are the rules of warfare that give nations and their militaries the right to use deadly force to eliminate an enemy’s leaders?
- The origins of the Patriot Act: its evolution from the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); the problems caused by the "wall" between law enforcement officials and those responsible for gathering foreign intelligence; and the act’s legal basis.
- President Bush’s authorization of telephone call and e-mail interception without a FISA warrant to improve the quality of our intelligence against al Qaeda.
- The case for Guantanamo Bay: the need for a well-defended, secure, detention center, far from civilians; and the legal status of the prisoners there.
- Trying terrorists: the legal basis for military commissions in prosecuting terror suspects.
- Information gathering: the boundaries and necessity of coercive interrogation.
Underlying each of these explanations is Yoo’s demonstration that September 11 ushered the United States into a state of war that called for an updated legal framework as much as it did a military response. How can we, however, design a legal strategy for a war unlike any the United States has ever fought?
Yoo argues that while "the law is critically important to our society generally, and to the war on terrorism . . . [it] is not the end of a matter; indeed, it is often the beginning." In the end, "new laws could bring political certainties and consensus, but they may come at the price of flexibility and adaptability," both of which are crucial to our efforts to fight such a mobile adversary. Congress and the nation’s courts, Yoo concludes, must allow the executive branch to capitalize on our every advantage so that we might protect ourselves from the next September 11.
John Yoo is a visiting scholar at AEI and a professor of law at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California-Berkeley. He has served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, as general counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge Laurence H. Silberman.
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