In the Wall Street Journal today, John Yoo weighs in about President Barack Obama’s orders to close Guantanamo Bay and terminated the CIA’s special authority to interrogate terrorists:
Eliminating the Bush system will mean that we will get no more information from captured al Qaeda terrorists. Every prisoner will have the right to a lawyer (which they will surely demand), the right to remain silent, and the right to a speedy trial.
The first thing any lawyer will do is tell his clients to shut up. The KSMs or Abu Zubaydahs of the future will respond to no verbal questioning or trickery — which is precisely why the Bush administration felt compelled to use more coercive measures in the first place. Our soldiers and agents in the field will have to run more risks as they must secure physical evidence at the point of capture and maintain a chain of custody that will stand up to the standards of a civilian court.
Our Constitution will become a suicide pact if those sworn to protect it let the propaganda of Islamic terrorists and their profiteering lawyers rewrite it.