Post-911 Torture and Justice

[Two articles: the first is by Joanne Mariner asking for a commission to investigate human rights abuses post-911 by the Bush Administration and the second is from the SF Chronicle on the plans by the Berkeley City Council to vote on whether UC Berkeley Prof John Yoo should be charged with war crimes]

A PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FOR POST-9/11 ABUSES

FindLaw columnist and human rights attorney Joanne Mariner argues that the incoming Obama Administration should, within its first six months, convene a nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry regarding post-9/11 human rights abuses, including torture committed or caused by the U.S. government. Among the questions the Commission should address, Mariner contends, are who should be held accountable for proven abuses -- such as the waterboarding of detainees -- and how. Mariner offers specific suggestions as to features the Commission must have if its work is to be effective -- such as subpoena power, the power to recommend prosecutions of former government officials, and the ability to review relevant classified terial. In addition, she argues that the Commission should be convened regardless of whether President Bush issues a set of pardons for those who may be accused -- because, among other reasons, the historical record should be set straight.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20081201.html

And ...

UC professor under fire for White House memo

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, December 5, 2008

(12-04) 18:02 PST -- Berkeley's City Council will delve into national policy again next week when it votes whether to demand the United States charge Berkeley resident and former Bush adviser John Yoo with war crimes.

Yoo, a tenured professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, wrote the memos offering legal justification for torture while he worked for the White House from 2001 to 2003.

The five measures attacking Yoo were drafted by the city's Peace and Justice Commission, the same group that recommended that the city tell the Marines they were "unwelcome intruders."

The City Council will vote Monday on the five measures. In addition to demanding that Yoo be charged with war crimes, the city will decide whether to order Boalt to offer alternatives to Yoo's courses, so no student is forced to take a class from him if they don't want to. Yoo has taught constitutional and international law at Boalt since 1993.

[...]

Yoo could not be reached for comment, but he has been a source of controversy because of a 2002 memo he drafted that was signed by his boss, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, providing the legal basis to justify torture in interrogating terrorism suspects. Among other things, Yoo argued that habeas corpus and other legal protections don't apply to CIA detainees because Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are not on U.S. soil.

Yoo's torture memo was later rescinded by the Department of Justice. In 2004 and 2006, in two lawsuits challenging the legality of the torture policy, the U.S. Supreme Court voided many of Yoo's arguments.

[...]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/04/BAVM14H16D.DTL