BERKELEY, California - February 8 - On Thursday, Feb. 9, some of the Bay Area’s leading religious and activist groups will begin a weekly teach-in and vigil in front of Boalt Hall, on the UC Berkeley Campus, where Professor John Yoo's class meets on Thursdays. These teach-ins and vigils will be held every Thursday from 4:30 to 5:30 pm. The featured speaker for the February 9 teach-in will be Daniel Ellsberg, former military analyst and author of The Pentagon Papers. Boalt Hall is located on Bancroft Ave. in Berkeley.

Professor Yoo, faculty member of the University of California Berkeley Law School, is the primary legal architect of the Bush administration’s policy of worldwide torture and Bush's use of "signing statements" which place the president above the law.

Weekly speakers will be featured, along with pictures and accounts of American torture. Future speakers will include: Daniel Ellsberg, Joanna Macy, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Medea Benjamin, Hastings Law Prof. Naomi Roht-Arriaz, Kevin Danaher, Taigen Dan Leighton, and others.

Sponsoring organizations include the American Friends Service Committee, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Global Exchange, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and World Can't Wait.

The sponsoring groups are not seeking to limit Professor Yoo's academic freedom, but rather plan to exercise their own free speech rights to express strong moral objection to the torture and unlimited presidential powers that Professor Yoo advocates.

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