John Yoo -- who spearheaded the Bush administration's legal response to the 2001 terrorist attacks -- is among constitutional scholars who are scheduled to be at UC Davis on March 9 to discuss the National Security Agency's surveillance program, warrantless phone wiretapping and the war on terror.

Organizers said the program will focus on how the U.S. Supreme Court's 1967 search and seizure decision in Katz v. U.S. applies in the modern age of global terrorism.

The program, hosted by the UC Davis Law Review and the School of Law, is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Wilkins Moot Court Room of King Hall, and is free and open to the public.

"The issue of warrantless wiretaps and personal privacy has resurfaced from under the current NSA surveillance program," said David Richardson, editor-in-chief of the law review. "This symposium will allow some of the greatest legal minds in the country to discuss both sides of this controversy."

Jennifer Chacon, a UC Davis professor of law and faculty adviser to the event, said, "Growing concerns over crime and terrorism in the United States have sparked a national conversation about the trade-offs between individual privacy and security."

"Read against a modern backdrop," she added, "the case of Katz v. United States provides an ideal framework for discussing privacy expectations, effective law enforcement and anti-terrorism strategies."

In Katz, the high court ruled that the Fourth Amendment protects "people, not places" and provides protection of a "reasonable expectation of privacy," effectively curtailing the use of warrantless wiretaps by law enforcement agencies.

The law school's March 9 program includes a session from 2:45 to 4:15 p.m. called "Katz in the Age of International Crime and Terrorism," during which Yoo, now a UC Berkeley law professor, and Glenn Sulmasy of the Coast Guard Academy, are due to co-present a paper questioning the viability of Katz in the war on terror. Yoo served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003.

The full schedule is available online: http://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu (click on "Symposia").