The State Department's chief legal adviser at the time called his analysis of the Geneva Conventions "seriously flawed." Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, in a critique of administration views espoused by Yoo, "a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."
"The idea that . . . Congress has no authority to impose limits on torture has little support in constitutional texts or history, or legal precedent," said University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein.
From washingtonpost.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=32668
Best line "Yet by all accounts, Yoo had a hand in virtually every major legal decision involving the U.S. response to the attacks of September 11, and at every point, so far as we know, his advice was virtually always the same -- the president can do whatever the president wants."
"According to this view, Congress's foreign affairs authority is largely limited to enacting domestic legislation and appropriating money. In other words, when it comes to foreign affairs, the president exercises unilateral authority largely unchecked by law -- constitutional or international."
It's not a issue of illegality it is a issue of CHANGING the law to further justfiy actions.
Also a lenghty piece by the Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060501/holmes/6
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... G01E31.DTL
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/anal ... 18memo.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732484/site/newsweek/