John Yoo

John Yoo
John Yoo in 2012
Born	John Choon Yoo (1967-07-10) July 10, 1967 (age 49) Seoul, South Korea
Alma mater	Harvard University (B.A. 1989) Yale Law School (J.D. 1992)
Occupation	Law professor, former official in the United States Department of Justice
Known for	Legal views on warrantless searches, domestic surveillance, torture memos (also known as "enhanced interrogation techniques") and expansive executive power
Title	Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
Term	2001 to 2003
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Elsa Arnett
Awards	Federalist Society Paul M. Bator Award (2001)

John Choon Yoo (born July 10, 1967) is a Korean-American attorney, law professor, and author. Yoo is currently the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he served as a political appointee, the Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice (OLC), during the George W. Bush administration. He is best known for his opinions concerning the Geneva Conventions that attempted to legitimize the War on Terror by the United States. He also authored the so-called Torture Memos, which concerned the use of what the Central Intelligence Agency called enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding.

In 2009, two days after taking office, President Barack Obama in Executive Order 13491 repudiated and revoked all legal guidance on interrogation authored by Yoo and his successors in the Office of Legal Counsel between September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009.

John Yoo was born "Yu Choon" (Korean: Yu Jun 유준) on July 10, 1967 in Seoul, South Korea, and later immigrated as a child with his parents to the United States. He grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he graduated from the Episcopal Academy in 1985. He earned a B.A. degree summa cum laude in American history from Harvard University in 1989 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1992. Yoo was admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania in 1993. He is married to Elsa Arnett, the daughter of journalist Peter Arnett.