The announced purpose of U.S. antiterrorist policies after 9/11 was
to bring democracy and the rule of law to the Middle East. At home,
those values were regularly threatened by illegal,
unconstitutional, secret, and unaccountable programs. The Bush
administration claimed that terrorists hate America for its
freedoms, yet its actions jeopardized those freedoms and brought
the reputation of the United States lower in the eyes of the world.
Government surveillance. Suspension of habeas corpus. Secret
tribunals. Most Americans would recognize these controversial
topics from today's headlines. Unfortunately, as Louis Fisher
reminds us, such violations of freedom have been with us throughout
our history-and continue to threaten the Constitution and the
rights that it protects.
Distilling more than two centuries of history into a panoramic
and compelling narrative, Fisher chronicles the long-standing
tension between protecting our constitutional rights and
safeguarding national security, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the
McCarthy hearings to George W. Bush's "War on Terror." Along the
way, he raises crucial questions regarding our democracy's ongoing
tug-of-war between secrecy and transparency, between expediency and
morality, and between legal double-talk and the true rule of
law.
Fisher focuses especially on how the Bush administration's
responses to 9/11 have damaged our constitutional culture and
values, threatened individual liberties, and challenged the
essential nature of our government's system of checks and balances.
His close analysis of five topics-the resurrection of military
tribunals, the Guantnamo detainees, the state secrets privilege,
NSA surveillance, and extraordinary rendition-places into sharp
relief the gradual but relentless erosion of fundamental rights
along with an enormous expansion and concentration of presidential
power in the post-9/11 era.
For Fisher, the Constitution's strength as a guarantor of
freedom and rights is only as sound and reliable as our own
commitment to the values it describes. Each generation of Americans
is asked in essence: do you want a republic or a monarchy? Benjamin
Franklin, of course, famously responded: "A republic, if you can
keep it." Fisher's book reminds us of the political principles we
need to rediscover to keep our nation free.
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