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Protesters Greet Law Professor John Yoo at UC Berkeley

Posted Aug 18, 2009 5:43 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

At least four protesters were arrested in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday after they refused to leave the lecture hall where former Justice Department official John Yoo was teaching a civil law class.

Protesters shouted “war criminal” as Yoo entered the building at the University of California Berkeley's Boalt Hall law school, the Associated Press reports. The protesters say Yoo should be fired because of his Justice Department work on legal memos approving harsh interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects.

Protesters also staged a mock arrest of Yoo. Some were dressed in hoods to resemble the detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. A comedian from the Australian TV show The Chaser’s War on Everything wore similar garb when he showed up at a class earlier this year at Chapman University’s law school, where Yoo was teaching a course as a visiting law professor.

Yoo has traveled across the country to refute his critics and defended his legal work on the memos in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. "To limit the president's constitutional power to protect the nation from foreign threats is simply foolhardy,” he wrote.

Comments

1.

James
Aug 18, 2009 7:31 AM CST

and when these liberal idiots go on to work at biglaw writing memos so their supervising partners can tell their clients how to destroy the environment, club baby seals and avoid liability for their product’s killing people, will they protest themselves. 

“no dude… bush is a war criminal…power to the [misguided] people”

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2.

Emmanuel Goldstein
Aug 18, 2009 9:12 AM CST

My favorite example was a friend at Skadden who was a committed environmentalist, and who worked as an energy attorney on FERC matters.  All his clients were power companies.  He must have been soooooooo conflicted about that, what with helping clients to rape the environment he held so dear.

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3.

JR
Aug 18, 2009 10:41 AM CST

I guess James and Emmanuel have nothing to say in defense of the war criminal John Yoo, so they engage in ad hominem attacks on phantons.
By the way, Emmanuel, as an attorney with FERC expertise, I wonder, do you mean that Skadden’s clients “rape the environment” by investing in wind, nuclear and other clean energy sources?  Or do you think that seeking a decent rate for selling electricity amounts to “raping the environment”?

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4.

B. McLeod
Aug 20, 2009 12:40 AM CST

Yoo will likely never be held accountable for his actions in this life, unless some one or more of his victims, or their family members, take care of that on their own.  These public demonstrations serve no purpose, and are only helping him to commercially exploit his infamy.

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5.

Jim 2009-08-20-Th 11:45 -0400
Aug 20, 2009 9:55 AM CST

#4 B. McLeod is correct.
  The audience was adult.

  It’s o.k. to wear hoods to the lecture, but shouting and disrupting his speech is NOT o.k.

  He should be permanently defrocked.

  Amendments VIII and XIV forbids preserving his head in formaldehyde.

  Permanent disbarment ought to sanction appropriately—far better than jail, which the executive can commute.

  And the burden of proof in disciplinary proceedings is far more favorable for protecting the public,
11:55

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