A new investigative report mandated by Congress reveals that UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo was the legal architect of the nation’s warrantless wiretapping program. Yoo also was behind the Bush-era torture regime. According to the Washington Post, Yoo wrote two informal memos in September and October in 2001, and then a formal one in November of that year, telling President Bush that he could order federal authorities to listen in on Americans’ phone conversations without a warrant. Yoo was working in the Bush Department of Justice at the time and was only one of three Justice Department lawyers who knew about the warrantless wiretaps. Yoo’s work on the subject apparently became known in the intelligence community as “the scary memos.”
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