Criminal, ethical questions surround Yoo's torture memos

[struggle4progress]

By Scott Horton
Article Launched: 04/27/2008 01:39:26 AM PDT

... does academic freedom really sit at the heart of this controversy?

... It increasingly appears that the Bush interrogation program was already being used before Yoo was asked to write an opinion. He therefore might have provided after-the-fact legal cover ... Was Yoo giving his best effort at legal analysis, or was he attempting to protect the authors of the program from criminal investigation and prosecution? ... Yoo kept the program running ...

... Is it right to say that lawyers dispensing bad advice in memos face no liability for what happens when people act in reliance on them? At the end of World War II, the United States took a different view ...

The Bush administration came to Washington promising a culture of accountability. In this area, as in others, it has delivered just the opposite.

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_9073103