Topic: Torture Memo's Writer Safe In Job

Philadelphia Inquirer
April 12, 2008
WASHINGTON - The law professor who wrote one of the seminal "torture memos" that cleared the way for harsh interrogation techniques, considered by critics to be illegal, is safe in his job, the dean of his law school said, citing academic freedom.
Christopher Edley Jr., dean of the law school at the University of California-Berkeley, sharply rejected John Yoo's legal analysis for the Bush administration, calling it "bad ideas and even worse advice," in a posting on the school's Web site. But he said responsibility for any breach of law rested with Yoo's clients, President Bush and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Yoo wrote a secret memo for the Pentagon dated March 14, 2003, that the Pentagon released last week under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. It outlines the legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees overseas, so long as they did not intend to torture their captives.
--AP