The key legal architect of the Bush administration's response to 9/11 delivers a fascinating insider account of the war on terror.While America reeled from the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001, John Yoo and a skeletal staff of the Office of Legal Counsel found themselves on the phone with the White House. In a series of memos, Yoo offered his legal opinions on the president's authority to respond, and in the process had an almost unmatched impact on America...

Justice in the BalanceAlexander Hamilton famously predicted that the judiciary would be "the least dangerous" branch of government. How's that working out?The Supreme Court stands as arbiter over a country increasingly unable to govern itself. Americans can't agree on the meaning of the Constitution or even the rule of law. Are the nine high priests enthroned in their marble temple the saviors of the Republic or the pallbearers of democracy? Are they defend...

A celebrated constitutional scholar makes a provocative case against Donald Trump's alleged disruption of constitutional rules and norms.Donald Trump isn't shredding the Constitution—he's its greatest defender.Ask any liberal—and many moderate conservatives—and they'll tell you that Donald Trump is a threat to the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. Mainstream media outlets have reported fresh examples of alleged executive overreach or authoritarian Whit...

Threats to international peace and security include the proliferation of weapons of mass destructions, rogue nations, and international terrorism. The United States must respond to these challenges to its national security and to world stability by embracing new military technologies such as drones, autonomous robots, and cyber weapons. These weapons can provide more precise, less destructive means to coerce opponents to stop WMD proliferation, clamp down on terrorism, or end humanitarian ...

After the September 11, 2001 attacks the United States went to war. With thousands of Americans killed, billions of dollars in damage, and aggressive military and security measures in response, we are still living with the war a decade later. A change of presidential administration has not dulled controversy over the most fundamental objectives, strategies and tactics of the war, or whether it is even a war. This book clears the air over the meaning of 9/11, and sets the stage for a reason...

The world today is overwhelmed by wars between nations and within nations, wars that have dominated American politics for quite some time. Point of Attack calls for a new understanding of the grounds for war. In this book John Yoo argues that the new threats to international security come not from war between the great powers, but from the internal collapse of states, terrorist groups, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and destabilizing regional powers. In Point of At...

If there has been a unifying theme of Barack Obama’s presidency, it is the inexorable growth of the administrative state. Its expansion has followed a pattern: First, expand federal powers beyond their constitutional limits. Second, delegate those powers to agencies and away from elected politicians in Congress. Third, insulate civil servants from politics and accountability. Since its introduction in American life by Woodrow Wilson in the 20th Century, the administrative state’s has stead...

In 1997, a Mexican national named Jose Ernesto Medellin was sentenced to death for raping and murdering two teenage girls in Texas. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that he was entitled to appellate review of his sentence, since the arresting officers had not informed him of his right to seek assistance from the Mexican consulate prior to trial, as prescribed by a treaty ratified by Congress in 1963. In 2008, amid fierce controversy, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that th...

In Defender in Chief, celebrated constitutional scholar John Yoo makes a provocative case against Donald Trump's alleged disruption of constitutional rules and norms.Donald Trump isn't shredding the Constitution—he's its greatest defender.Ask any liberal—and many moderate conservatives—and they'll tell you that Donald Trump is a threat to the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. Mainstream media outlets have reported fresh examples of alleged exe...

Guaranteed to give the reader a deeper understanding of America’s most powerful judicial body, John Yoo, professor of law at UC Berkeley, and Robert Delahunty, professor of law at the University of St. Thomas detail in sprightly, slightly irreverent manner how the black robed judges who make up the U.S. Supreme Court have swung like a pendulum from saviors of the Republic to super-legislators who usurp the roll of Congress and dictate law from the bench, back to defenders of the Constituti...

A scathing critique of the two-tiered system of justice that has emerged in America that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else."The most important voice to have entered the political discourse in years." —Bill MoyersThe founding principle of the United States was that the rule of law would be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, this...

Even as the view of America as a rogue state consolidates abroad, Americans appear largely bystanders at the spectacle of their government running amok. People forget the myriad instances of their government's flouting of the Constitution and international legal norms-- if ever they were aware of them in the first place--accepting to live in the increasingly pernicious "new normal" with little protest. This remarkable anthology of columns documents and reminds us of the extraordinary devel...