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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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ROGUE JUSTICE

Karen J. Greenberg

The Making of the Security State

The definitive account of how America’s War on Terror sparked a decade-long assault on the rule of law, weakening our courts and our Constitution in the name of national security. How did America veer so far from its founding principles of justice? Rogue Justice connects the dots for the first time—from the Patriot Act to today’s military commissions, from terrorism prosecutions to intelligence priorities, from the ACLU’s activism to Edward Snowden’s revelations. And it poses a stark question: Will the American justice system ever recover from the compromises it made for the war on terror?
The day after September 11, President Bush tasked the attorney general with preventing another terrorist attack on the United States. From that day forward, the Bush administration turned to the Department of Justice to give its imprimatur to activities that had previously been unthinkable—from the NSA’s spying on US citizens to indefinite detention to torture. Many of these activities were secretly authorized, others done in the light of day.

When President Obama took office, many observers expected a reversal of these encroachments upon civil liberties and justice, but the new administration found the rogue policies to be deeply entrenched and, at times, worth preserving. Obama ramped up targeted killings, held fast to aggressive surveillance policies, and fell short on bringing reform to detention and interrogation.

How did America veer so far from its founding principles of justice? Rogue Justice connects the dots for the first time—from the Patriot Act to today’s military commissions, from terrorism prosecutions to intelligence priorities, from the ACLU’s activism to Edward Snowden’s revelations. And it poses a stark question: Will the American justice system ever recover from the compromises it made for the war on terror?

Riveting and deeply reported, Rogue Justice could only have been written by Karen Greenberg, one of this country’s top experts on Guantánamo, torture, and terrorism, with a deep knowledge of both the Bush and Obama administrations. Now she brings to life the full story of law and policy after 9/11, introducing us to the key players and events, showing that time and again, when liberty and security have clashed, justice has been the victim.

Karen J. Greenberg is director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law. She is also the author of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days and coeditor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib.
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Book

Published 2016-05-24 by Crown

Book

Published 2016-05-24 by Crown

Comments

A terrifying history of American surveillance in the 21st century... The author fully explains the government's panicked motivation for permitting torture and secretly watching its own citizens. Yet the book's central question is timeless: once a government takes rights away, can they ever be restored? … A sophisticated study of executive tyranny in the never-ending war on terror.

In her indispensable book, Karen Greenberg documents the death of American liberty by a thousand cuts. In these times of dangerous fearmongering, she reminds us of how fragile American democracy is and why it is vital that we confront fear with courage, and stay true to our best principles.

Rogue Justice is the definitive account of the legal machinations behind the 'war on terror.' 9/11 America's top lawyers argued for and defended torture, mass surveillance and indefinite detention. Karen Greenberg expertly guides us through the thicket of legal questions generated by the war on terror, laying out with great clarity the stakes involved and painting deft portraits of the key players who set the nation down a path we associate more with banana republics than with American ideals.

9/11 changed America. This invaluable book shows how close we came to losing many of the basic principles that underlie our system of justice – and how much we still have to do to protect the basic principles that make our country a beacon for human rights.

Karen Greenberg is one of our leading national security experts, and her book combines sweeping narrative with deep analysis, yielding a powerful history of the legal aspects of counterterrorism policy since 9/11. Rogue Justice is an unprecedented achievement that will change the way we think about the rule of law in this country.