Almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Bush administration officials conferring by video link from bunkers decided to treat the attacks as acts of war, rather than merely crimes. The question arose: were captured prisoners to be treated as prisoners of war? Officials including Justice Department lawyer John Yoo recommended classifying them as "detainees" outside the protection of the Geneva Conventions or any other domestic or military law, and incarcerating them in special prisons instead of the barracks-like "prisoner-of-war camp you saw in Hogan's Heroes or Stalag 17." On September 17, 2001, President Bush signed a still-classified directive giving the CIA the power to secretly imprison and interrogate detainees.