Geneva Convention in the Post 9/11 World

The other day I was fortunate enough to eat lunch with Professor John Yoo of Berkley Law along with the Federalist Society. Prior to the luncheon Yoo spoke to the College of Law on how to battle terrorism in the post 9/11 world. Yoo was the center of controversy back in 2002 when he wrote a Justice Department memo that the Geneva Convention does not apply to suspect terrorists captured in the battlefield. The main reason behind this argument goes to the definition of nation-state. If these suspects were fighting for a nation-state the convention would apply, however since these people fight for terrorist organizations that are not sovereign states they cannot have the protection of the convention. It is amazing how one little definition in the treaty could be the difference between protection or not. Now I have very little knowledge concerning international human rights law so I cannot give an educated opinion concerning his stand point and whether it violates such international law. With that said I had a few problems with his speech. One such problem was using historical comparisons to see if we have a civil rights problem with this. He drew comparisons of what we did in the Civil War, The Alien Sedition Act of 1798, and World War II actions, and stated that what we are doing now pales in comparison to what we did back then. I will grant him that, but yet is it as immoral to unjustifiably kill one person as it is five? It still is wrong regardless of the numbers. Yoo ended his speech with a 20 minute "debate" with him and Professor Davis of the law college. Needless to say it was a very good event.
One major point that I agree with Professor Yoo 100% is that our current laws are way out of date. Prior to the PATRIOT Act much of our intelligence laws were from the FISA laws of the late 1970s. The FISA law was created to help combat Soviet spies and the mob, two types of people that we have little problems from today. Also the technology used in 1978 is drastically different than the kinds we use today. Persionally I believe our intelligence laws should be updated yearly to help adapt to current technology.
In two weeks Justice Scalia comes to visit and talk about constitutional interpretation. I was fortunate enough to read his book A Matter of Interpretation and Justice Breyer's Active Liberty. I recommend these two books to everyone.