A series of laws passed in the 1970s promised the nation unprecedented transparency in government, a veritable "sunshine era." Though citizens enjoyed a new arsenal of secrecy-busting tools, officials developed a handy set of workarounds, from over classification to concealment, shredding, and burning. It is this dark side of the sunshine era that Jason Ross Arnold explores in the first comprehensive, comparative history of presidential resistance to the new legal regime, from Reagan-Bush to the first term of Obama-Biden.

After examining what makes a necessary and unnecessary secret, Arnold considers the causes of excessive secrecy, and why we observe variation across administrations. While some administrations deserve the scorn of critics for exceptional secrecy, the book shows excessive secrecy was a persistent problem well before 9/11, during Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Regardless of party, administrations have consistently worked to weaken the system's legal foundations.

The book reveals episode after episode of evasive maneuvers, rule bending, clever rhetorical gambits, and downright defiance; an army of secrecy workers in a dizzying array of institutions labels all manner of documents "top secret," while other government workers and agencies manage to suppress information with a "sensitive but unclassified" designation. For example, the health effects of Agent Orange, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria leaking out of Midwestern hog farms are considered too "sensitive" for public consumption. These examples and many more document how vast the secrecy system has grown during the sunshine era.

Rife with stories of vital scientific evidence withheld, justice eluded, legalities circumvented, and the public interest flouted, "Secrecy in the Sunshine Era" reveals how our information society has been kept in the dark in too many ways and for too long.

It's RBG like you've never seen her before! Using a unique mix of first-person narrative, hilarious comic panels and essential facts, Dean Robbins introduces young readers to an American trailblazer. The first book in an exciting new non-fiction series, You Are a Star, Ruth Bader Ginsburg focuses on Ruth's lifelong mission to bring equality and justice to all. Sarah Green's spot-on comic illustrations bring this icon to life, and engaging backmatter instructs readers on how to be more like Ruth! Includes: hilarious comic panels essential facts.

This book aims to give readers an insight into two dynamics that influence the phenomenon of autonomous public bodies (APBs) in the European legal sphere today. Stephanie De Somer first studies both phenomena-EU impulse and national restraint-as standalone trends and then addresses the tensions between them. The first trend covers EU legislation that obliges Member States to entrust the implementation of substantive supranational rules to entities that enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy vis-a-vis central government institutions. The second trend refers to a counter-movement at the national level, where initiatives have been taken to rationalize and restrain the use of APBs. Central to the book is the somewhat controversial question of whether the EU, which is itself often criticized for lacking democratic legitimacy, is disregarding fundamental principles regarding the democratic legitimacy of national administrations when imposing these institutional obligations on its Member States. As far as domestic law is concerned, the book offers an integrated approach that truly compares national legal systems. De Somer also incorporates the results of in-depth interviews with representatives of APBs in different Member States. Focusing on these two contemporary trends, this book demonstrates the extent to which two fundamental systems of rules and principles increasingly influence and transform the phenomenon of APBs This book is relevant not only for legal academia, but also for scholars working in the fields of political science and public administration. National legislatures, governments, regulatory bodies, data protection authorities and other APBs may also find this book useful.

To defend its citizens from harm, must the government have unfettered access to all information? Or, must personal privacy be defended at all costs from the encroachment of a surveillance state? And, doesn't the Constitution already protect us from such intrusions? When the topic of discussion is intelligence-gathering, privacy, or Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, the result is usually more heat than light. Anthony Gregory challenges such simplifications, offering a nuanced history and analysis of these difficult issues. He highlights the complexity of the relationship between the gathering of intelligence for national security and countervailing efforts to safeguard individual privacy. The Fourth Amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures offers no panacea, he finds, in combating assaults on privacy-whether by the NSA, the FBI, local police, or more mundane administrative agencies. Given the growth of technology, together with the ambiguities and practical problems of enforcing the Fourth Amendment, advocates for privacy protections need to work on multiple policy fronts.

This book provides unique insights into the practice of democratic constitutionalism in one of the world's most legally and politically significant regions. It combines contributions from leading Latin American and global scholars to provide 'bottom up' and 'top down' insights about the lessons to be drawn from the distinctive constitutional experiences of countries in Latin America. In doing so, it also draws on a rich array of legal and interdisciplinary perspectives. Ultimately, it shows both the promise of democratic constitutions as a vehicle for social, economic and political change, and the variation in the actual constitutional experiences of different countries on the ground - or the limits to constitutions as a locus for broader social change. This book presents new perspectives on recurrent topics and debates that enrich comparative constitutional law in other regions of the world, both in the Global South and the Global North. The fine-tuned, in-depth approach of the contributors brings rigorous scholarship to this institutionally diverse and significant region, illuminating the under-explored relationship between constitutionalism, politics, ideology and leadership. This unique and challenging study will prove to be an indispensable tool, not only for academics interested in Latin America but for comparative constitutional law scholars across the globe. Contributors include: C. Bernal, J.l. Colon-Rios, J. Couso, R. Dixon, Z. Elkins, H.A. Garcia, R. Gargarella, T. Ginsburg, A. Huneeus, D. Landau, J. Lemaitre, L. Lixinski, G.L. Negretto, R.A. Sanchez-Urribarri, M. Tushnet, O. Vilhena Vieira

Constitutional orders constitute political communities - and international orders deriving from them - by managing conflicts that threaten peace. This book explores how a European political community can be advanced through EU constitutional law. The constitutional role of the Union is to ensure peace by addressing two types of conflict. The first are static conflicts of interests between the national polities in the EU. These are avoided by ensuring reciprocal non-interference between Member States in the Union through deregulation in Union law. The second are dynamic conflicts of ideas about positive liberty held by the peoples of Europe. These can be resolved through regulation in a European political space. Here, EU law enables a continuous process of re-negotiating a shared European idea of positive liberty that can be accepted as its own by each national polity in the EU. These solutions to the two types of conflicts correspond to the liberal and republican models for Europe. The claim of this book is that the constitutional design of Europe presents both liberal and republican features. Taking an innovative approach, which draws on arguments from substantive law, constitutional theory, case law analysis, insights from psychology and philosophy, it identifies how best to strengthen the Union through constitutional law.

This book provides a practical handbook for legislation. Written by a team of experts, practitioners and scholars, it invites national institutions to apply its teachings in the context of their own drafting manuals and laws. Analysis focuses on general principles and best practice within the context of the different systems of government in Europe. Questions explored include subsidiarity, legitimacy, efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency, proportionality, monitoring and regulatory impact assessment. Taking a practical approach which starts from evidence-based rationality, it represents essential reading for all practitioners in the field of legislative drafting.

The Continuity of Legal Systems in Theory and Practice examines a persistent and fascinating question about the continuity of legal systems: when is a legal system existing at one time the same legal system that exists at another time? The book's distinctive approach to this question is to combine abstract critical analysis of two of the most developed theories of legal systems, those of Hans Kelsen and Joseph Raz, with an evaluation of their capacity, in practice, to explain the facts, attitudes and normative standards for which they purport to account. That evaluation is undertaken by reference to Australian constitutional law and history, whose diverse and complex phenomena make it particularly apt for evaluating the theories' explanatory power. In testing whether the depiction of Australian law presented by each theory achieves an adequate 'fit' with historical facts, the book also contributes to the understanding of Australian law and legal systems between 1788 and 2001. By collating the relevant Australian materials systematically for the first time, it presents the case for reconceptualising the role of Imperial laws and institutions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and clarifies the interrelationship between Colonial, State, Commonwealth and Imperial legal systems, both before and after Federation.

Joseph Story's famous and influential review of the origins, influences, and early interpretations of the U.S. Constitution is now presented in the author's own 1833 Abridged Edition-considered the most useful and readable version of this important work, from the Supreme Court's youngest Justice. The new, affordable hardcover edition adds a 2013 introduction by Kermit Roosevelt III. One of the United States' most influential legal scholars and jurists, Joseph Story wrote his landmark treatise before the Civil War, describing federalism, states' histories, freedoms, and constitutional structure. He abridged it into this usable book. Adding an informative foreword by constitutional scholar Kermit Roosevelt III of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the Quid Pro edition features modern and readable formatting (compared to mere photocopies of the original, with its expansive and dated print size), as well as embedded pagination from the original, for continuity of referencing and citation. Professor Roosevelt catalogs many instances in which the current Court has relied on this book to decide issues of gun rights, federalism, and privacy. In addition, he provides a fascinating biographical summary of Story and describes the origins of this monumental work, as well as the influence it has had on legal history since 1833. Part of the Legal Legends Series from Quid Pro Books. The series also includes legendary works, in quality ebook and print formats, from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Roscoe Pound, Benjamin Cardozo, Thomas Reed Powell, John Chipman Gray, Woodrow Wilson, and Karl Llewellyn. These editions are introduced and explained by today's recognized scholars in the field, and they exhibit a care in reproduction and presentation often lacking in modern republications of historic books.

In 1981, decades before mainstream America elected Barack Obama, James Chase became the first African American mayor of Spokane, Washington, with the overwhelming support of a majority-white electorate. Chase's win failed to capture the attention of historians--as had the century-long evolution of the black community in Spokane. In "Black Spokane: The Civil Rights Struggle in the Inland Northwest," Dwayne A. Mack corrects this oversight--and recovers a crucial chapter in the history of race relations and civil rights in America.
As early as the 1880s, Spokane was a destination for black settlers escaping the racial oppression in the South--settlers who over the following decades built an infrastructure of churches, businesses, and social organizations to serve the black community. Drawing on oral histories, interviews, newspapers, and a rich array of other primary sources, Mack sets the stage for the years following World War II in the Inland Northwest, when an influx of black veterans would bring about a new era of racial issues. His book traces the earliest challenges faced by the NAACP and a small but sympathetic white population as Spokane became a significant part of the national civil rights struggle. International superstars such as Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong and Hazel Scott figure in this story, along with charismatic local preachers, entrepreneurs, and lawyers who stepped forward as civic leaders.
These individuals' contributions, and the black community's encounters with racism, offer a view of the complexity of race relations in a city and a region not recognized historically as centers of racial strife. But in matters of race--from the first migration of black settlers to Spokane, through the politics of the Cold War and the civil rights movement, to the successes of the 1970s and '80s--Mack shows that Spokane has a story to tell, one that this book at long last incorporates into the larger history of twentieth-century America.

This book explores the often neglected, but overwhelmingly common, everyday vulnerability of those who support the smooth functioning of contemporary societies: paid domestic workers. With a focus on the multiple disadvantages these - often migrant - workers face when working and living in Europe, the book investigates the role of law in producing, reinforcing - or, alternatively, attenuating - vulnerability to exploitation. It departs from approaches that focus on extreme abuse such as 'modern' slavery or trafficking, to consider the much more widespread day-to-day vulnerabilities created at the intersection of different legal regimes. The book, therefore, examines issues such as low wages, unregulated working time, dismissals and the impact of migration status on enforcing rights at work. The complex legal regimes regulating migrant domestic labour in Europe include migration and labour law sources at different levels: international, national and, as this book demonstrates, also EU. With an innovative lens that combines national, comparative, and multilevel analysis, this book opens up space for transformative legal change for migrant domestic workers in Europe and beyond.

Federica Giovanella examines the on-going conflict between copyright and informational privacy rights within the judicial system in this timely and intriguing book. Adopting a comparative approach focusing on the United States, Canada and Italy, Dr Giovanella skilfully explores the strategies through which judges solve conflicts between Internet users' data protection and copyright holders' enforceable rights. Using research centred on a selection of lawsuits in which copyright holders attempted to enforce their rights against Internet users suspected of illegal file-sharing, this book analyses the cases and regulatory frameworks concerning both privacy and copyright. Copyright and Information Privacy demonstrates that these decisions were ultimately the by-products of different policy conceptions of the two conflicting rights. Whilst providing a comprehensive analysis of the conflict between copyright and data protection, this book also stimulates the debate surrounding the role that judges have in balancing conflicting rights, and examines their reasoning in resolving such conflict, taking into consideration the process of conceptual balancing. Perceptive and contemporary in topic, this book will be beneficial to both scholars and students of intellectual property, privacy, and comparative law.

"In short, we have a first-rate study of an important constitutional symbol of disunion." --Donald Roper, American Journal of Legal History 26 (1982) 255. Finkelman describes the judicial turmoil that ensued when slaves were taken into free states and the resultant issues of comity, conflict of laws, interstate cooperation, Constitutional obligations, and the nationalization of slavery. "Other scholars have defined the antebellum constitutional crisis largely in terms of the extension of slavery to the territories and the return of fugitive slaves. Finkelman's study demonstrates that the comity problem was also an important dimension of intersectional tension. It is a worthy addition to the growing literature of slavery." -- James W. Ely, Jr., California Law Review 69 (1981) 1755. Paul Finkelman is the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy and Senior Fellow, Government Law Center, Albany Law School. He is the author of more than 200 scholarly articles and more than 35 books including A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States, with Melvin I. Urofsky (2011), Slavery, Race and the American Legal System, 1700-1872 (editor) (1988) and Slavery in the Courtroom (1985).