Jack Bauer Goes to Law School

By Rick Moran

This course sounds way cool:

The Law of "24"
Professor W. Sharp LL.M
Course 853 (cross-listed) | 2 credit hours

The award winning Fox Television drama series 24 explores America’s fictional response to international terrorism through the eyes of Jack Bauer, a U.S. counter-terrorism agent. Oftentimes without remorse or regard for the law, Agent Bauer is willing to do what has to be done when faced with the threat of kidnappings, assassinations, nuclear detonations, and bioterrorism on U.S. soil – despite traitors in his family, his unit, and the White House; partisan politics; sleeper cells; and hidden agendas.

This course provides a detailed understanding of a very wide-range of U.S. domestic and international legal issues concerning counterterrorism in the context of the utilitarian and sometimes desperate responses to terrorism raised by the plot of 24.

The course will be offered at Georgetown University Law School in the Spring of 2008.

Much has been made of Jack Bauer's proclivity to evade the law in order to get the job done and catch the bad guys. What do you suppose would happen to Jack if he was forced to go to law school and learn how to obey the law? We might see Jack stop in the middle of zapping some terrorist with battery cables to read him his rights or perhaps forgo the pleasure of using a bad guy as a punching bag in favor of asking him if he needs an attorney.

Judging by what we're hearing about this year's kinder, gentler, Jack Bauer, that scenario may not be too far fetched.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky